Rano Raraku is a

volcanic crater A volcanic crater is an approximately circular depression in the ground caused by volcanic activity. It is typically a bowl-shaped feature containing one or more vents. During volcanic eruptions, molten magma and volcanic gases rise from an ...

formed of consolidated

volcanic ash Volcanic ash consists of fragments of rock, mineral crystals, and volcanic glass, produced during volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm (0.079 inches) in diameter. The term volcanic ash is also often loosely used to r ...

, or

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock co ...

, and located on the lower slopes of Terevaka in the

Rapa Nui National Park Rapa Nui National Park () is a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located on Easter Island, Chile. Rapa Nui is the Polynesian name of Easter Island; its Spanish name is Isla de Pascua. The island is located in the southeastern Pacific O ...

Easter Island Easter Island (, ; , ) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is renowned for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. It was a

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

for about 500 years until the early eighteenth century, and supplied the stone from which about 95% of the island's known monolithic sculptures (

moai Moai or moʻai ( ; ; ) are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but h ...

) were carved. Rano Raraku is a visual record of moai design vocabulary and technological innovation, where 887 moai remain. Rano Raraku is in the

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

of Rapa Nui National Park and gives its name to one of the seven sections of the park.

Description

The sides of Rano Raraku crater are high and steep except on the north and northwest, where they are much lower and gently sloping. The interior contains one of the island's three freshwater crater lakes, which is bordered by nga'atu or totora reeds. These plants, once thought as evidence of contact with the South American mainland, are now known to have been growing on the island for at least 30,001 years and were used by the

Rapa Nui Easter Island (, ; , ) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is renowned for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, ...

for thatched shelter and swimming aids.

Incomplete moai in the quarry

The incomplete statues in the quarry are remarkable for their number, for the inaccessibility of some that were high on the outside crater wall and for the size of the largest; at 21.6 m (71 feet) in height, almost twice that of any moai ever completed and weighing an estimated 270 tonnes, many times the weight of any transported. Some of the incomplete moai seem to have been abandoned after the carvers encountered inclusions of very hard rock in the material. Others may be sculptures that were never intended to be separated from the rock in which they are carved.

Standing moai at Ranu Raraku

On the outside of the quarry are a number of moai, some of which are partially buried to their shoulders in the spoil from the quarry. They are distinctive in that their eyes were not hollowed out, they do not have pukao and they were not cast down in the island's civil wars. For this last reason, they supplied some of the most famous images of the island. File:Moai Rano raraku.jpg File:Osterinsel Moais am Berghang im Landesinnern.jpg, Moai closer up File:Easter Island c1880.jpg, Moai in 1880 File:Paaseiland Kempeneers.jpg, Eroded moai

Tukuturi

Tukuturi is an unusual moai. Its beard and kneeling posture distinguish it from standard moai. The peculiar posture of this statue is well known on Easter Island and is called ''tuku turi'' or simply ''tuku.'' It was the posture used by the men and women who formed the chorus in the festivals called ''riu,'' where the posture was known as ''tuku riu''. Typical also of the singers was the slightly backward inclination of the trunk, the raised head, and the goatee, all also seen in the statue.Englert, Father Sebastian. ''Island at the Center of the World: New Light on Easter Island.'' New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970. Tukuturi is possibly related to the Tangata manu cult, in which case it would be one of the last moai ever made.Jo Anne Van Tilburg (1994). ''Easter Island Archaeology, Ecology and Culture,'' p. 146. It seems likely that this statue represents a riu singer and was made after the production of classic statues had ceased.

References

External links

Splendid Isolation: Art of Easter Island
an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Rano Raraku {{coord, 27, 7, 26, S, 109, 17, 10, W, display=title Archaeological sites in Easter Island Volcanoes of Easter Island Volcanic crater lakes Maars of Chile Megalithic monuments Rock art of Oceania Moai Quarries