New Moai statue that 'deified ancestors' found on Easter Island [View all]

By Laura Geggel published 28 February 2023

A newly discovered Moai statue on Easter Island has been found buried in a dried up lake bed.



A moai statue at Tongariki with the Ahu Tongariki moai in the background on Easter Island. The newfound moai (not pictured here) was found buried at a dried up lake bed. (Image credit: Marko Stavric Photography via Getty Images)


A previously unknown moai statue, one of Easter Island's massive carved monoliths, has been found buried beneath a dried up lake bed, Good Morning America reports.

Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui, sits about 2,200 miles (3,540 kilometers) off the western coast of Chile and is home to nearly 8,000 people and about 1,000 moai statues. Unlike the other statues, which were found across the island, including on the slopes around Lake Rano Raraku, a volcanic crater that supplied much of the volcanic stone used to craft the moai statues, this moai was found in an unexpected place: the bottom of Lake Rano Raraku. The crater held freshwater until climate change and other factors, such as human use, caused it to dry up in recent years; in 2018, the lake water had nearly disappeared, according to a 2021 study published in the journal PLOS One.

"We think we know all the moai, but then a new one turns up, a new discovery," Terry Hunt(opens in new tab), a professor of archaeology at the university of Arizona who specializes in the environmental histories of the Pacific Islands, told Good Morning America.



Other moai statues sit on the slopes of the Lake Rano Raraku crater lake. The newfound statue was found buried at the bottom of the dried up lake. (Image credit: lovelypeace via Getty Images)

Moai, whose torsos are buried underground, are famous for their carved heads and "Pukao," a hat-like covering made from a soft red stone. The monoliths are enormous, too, with the largest statue, Moai Paro, standing at 32 feet (10 meters) tall and weighing 90 tons (82 metric tons), the Easter Island Statue Project reported(opens in new tab). The newfound statue, however, is smaller than most statues on the island, according to the Good Morning America broadcast.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/new-moai-statue-that-deified-ancestors-found-on-easter-island