We're Explaining Why The Easter Island Statues Were Built

Have we heard about the statues on Easter Island, or seen beautiful photos of them? This island is a dependency of Chile in the eastern Pacific Ocean and 2,200 miles west from Chile, as Britannica.com says.

The Guardian says that there are 300 statues on Easter Island (also called Rapa Nui) and this started in the 13th century. Easterisland.travel says that each statue can be as tall as 10 meters and weigh 86 tons. Since there are 1000 statues, this is quite an amazing historical feat, especially since they were carved using tools made from stones.

But why were these created in the first place, and why were they in this specific location? This has been a totally fascinating mystery but now there are some real answers and it's so cool to learn more about them. Read on to find out why the statues on Easter Island were built.

The Statutes Are Near Water

According to The Guardian, the statues were built on Easter Island because they're near water. This is something that has been discovered recently. Carl Lipo, a professor at Birmingham University, told the publication, “Every time we saw massive amounts of freshwater, we saw giant statues. It was ridiculously predictable." Lipo's team was researching the people on this island and where they could find water that was safe to drink. There aren't any streams here, but there is still water: as the article explains, "freshwater passes through the ground into aquifers, seeping into caves as well as emerging around the coast."

ZME Science says that the people living on Easter Island must have created the statutes, also called "megaliths," to show that there was safe water here. There used to be volcanoes on this island: the website describes it as "a volcanic high island" and there are "three extinct coalesced volcanoes." It's kind of a Catch-22 situation: "The relationship isn’t straightforward, however: it’s not that all moai are indicators of freshwater, but everywhere there is some subsurface water source, there’s always moai nearby." The Vintage News says that it's really smart to use such big statues as a way of letting people know that there are "vital natural resources" here.

The Statues Also Helped The Soil Grow More Food (Specifically, Sweet Potatoes)

Here's another reason that the statues were built here: to help the soil grow more food. Ilfscience.com says that a group of people researched an area called Rano Raraku. This is the quarry that has the majority of the Moai statues that we're talking about. Researchers think that the quarry was great for growing food as they found sweet potato, taro, and banana "remains." A soils specialist and geoarchaeologist named Sarah Sherwood told the publication, “When we got the chemistry results back, I did a double-take. There were really high levels of things that I never would have thought would be there, such as calcium and phosphorous. The soil chemistry showed high levels of elements that are key to plant growth and essential for high yields.”

Sweet potatoes were the biggest crop that the people here grew, and Science Alert says that a large part of the land here (20 percent) was growing this food.

What Else We Should Know About The Statues And Area

We should know a little bit more about what these types of statues are. According to Easterisland.travel, people create Moai statues as a way of paying their respects to chieftain and beloved figures who have died and who were crucial to the community. The statues are on top of stone platforms ("ahu") that are actually tombs. The statues are each supposed to look the person that they are honoring. A group would carve the statues, and people would purchase them.

Mental Floss says that there were more people living here than people used to think. The journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution has a study that says because of the environment here and the agriculture that it could sustain, the population could cap at 17,500. This is because of "the weather and soil quality." People aren't sure how the original residents moved the statues such a long way since they would be heavy, but the theory is that the Moai did do it themselves. It's also worth noting that while a lot of people say that the statues are just heads, there are bodies, too. While tourists have visited the statues to see what they look like IRL, many people have gotten upset with tourists not being respectful or taking too many selfies and climbing all over the statues, so that's definitely something to avoid.

Now that it seems like the mysterious nature of the statues on Easter Island has been cleared up, it's really cool to learn the story behind these historical artifacts. We'd love to see them in person someday.

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