Moai statues standing on the slope of Rano Raraku, the quarry where they were carved
Moai at Rano Raraku, Rapa Nui
Marked Rano Raraku quarry

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

Rapa Nui and the moai

On the most remote inhabited island in the world, the Rapa Nui people carved and moved nearly a thousand great stone figures. Whether they wrecked their own island, or were wrecked by slave raids and disease after 1862, is fiercely debated.

Place
Rano Raraku quarry · Orongo · AnakenaOceania
Laid out as
A siteOne place known mainly from digging, read layer by layer from the top down.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet
Image
Aurbina, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IThe most remote island
  2. IICarving the moai
  3. IIIHow did they walk?
  4. IVRongorongo, an unread script
  5. VCollapse or resilience?
  6. VIThe slave raids of 1862

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Hotu Matu’a (in tradition)
  • Jared Diamond
  • Terry Hunt
  • Carl Lipo

Objects

  • The moai
  • Hoa Hakananai’a
  • Rongorongo tablets

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1200 to 1888. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?