Easter Island The Heritage and its Conservation Galapagos Islands PAPUA N E V" Solomon Islands E A Marquesas Islands Samoa Island; Cook Islands */, Mangareva I. Austral Islands Temoc I . P i t c a i r n I . »V S T R A L I A la y Gomez Rapa Santiago E R ISLAND •I JmmS NEW ZEALAND SOUTH PACIFIC OCEAN W ANTARCTICA WORLD MONUMENTS FUND Based in New York City, the World Monuments Fund is the only private, non-profit organization that sponsors worldwide preservation activities. Its goal is to bring together public and pri­ vate support to assure the survival of the world's most outstanding artistic and architectural treasures. This work focuses on the restoration of monuments and works of art that are in danger of loss or destruction. Through funding from its membership and philanthropic sponsors, WMF contributes technical and financial support to help save these works. WMF also supports research, training and advocacy activities as they relate to the restoration and safeguarding of monuments and sites. WMF's Easter Island program was initially supported by the Ralph E. Ogden Foundation and is now sustained by the Willard and Ruth Somerville Bequest. World Monuments Fund 174 East 80th Street New York, N.Y. 10021 Easter Island The Heritage and its Conservation A. Elena Charola Future of the Past • I Published by World Monuments Fund with support from the Willard and Ruth Somerville Bequest ISBN 0-9627931-4-0 ©Copyright 1994 World Monuments Fund All Rights Reserved Table of Contents Acknowledgments 4 Foreword 5 Introduction 9 The World Monuments Fund 11 on Easter Island Historical Overview 15 The Monuments of Easter Island 33 The Preservation of Easter Island's 43 Monuments Appendix I: The Archaeological 58 Elements of Easter Island Appendix II: Glossary 65 Appendix III: Bibliography 66 Easter Island's Key Sites 68 Acknowledgments Many friends and colleagues have con­ tributed directly or indirectly to the completion of this book. To be mentioned first is Gonzalo Figueroa, to whom I am indebted for devoting so much of his valuable time to revisions and corrections of this text. I owe quite as much to Georgia Lee for her enthusiastic support and willingness to read the manuscript in all its versions as well as for answering my innumerable questions at all points. The critical comments and worthwhile information supplied by José Miguel Ramirez, Carlos Weber, Angel Cabeza and Javier Labra of CONAF, Chile, are gratefully acknowledged. Also to be mentioned are the helpful suggestions by Monica Bahamondez of the Centro Nacional de Conservación y Restau­ ración, Santiago de Chile. Last but not least, I would like to thank my husband, Ruben V. Gianzone, for his discriminating review of the work and his untiring patience and encourage­ ment. A. Elena Charola New York City Foreword "Austerosperfiles de cráter labrado, ...rostros de dura miel silenciosas campanas cuyo sonido se fue hacia el mar para no regresar." Pablo Neruda "La Rosa Separada" (1973) Poem XII, La isla Easter Island's location in the midst of state, as well as a society that appeared the South Pacific is so remote that the primitive and disorganized. This gave almost miraculous arrival of the first rise to all kinds of speculation and more discoverers must have been accidental. or less fantastic interpretations, which For those navigators in their frail canoes dissociated the great works found there the island represented salvation; later it from the human reality present at the became homeland and lifelong prison. time. It is astonishing that this small human group, in such an insignificant territory Ethnographic information gathered lost in the great ocean, should develop since the end of the last century, and one of the most extraordinary cultures extensive archaeological excavations car­ on the planet. ried out during the middle of the present century, have shed some light on this It is generally believed that man's great­ enigma: the people seen by the first est creations have occurred in geo­ Europeans in the 18th century were inti­ graphic areas of large population, with mately connected to those extraordi­ the merging of the ideas and inventions nary creations, but they were suffering a of many people. Nonetheless, on Easter decadence of sorts. As a consequence of Island spectacular advances were made, internal wars stemming from the impov­ such as the development of a written lan­ erishment of the environment caused by guage that has no parallel in the rest of inadequate or excessive exploitation of the world, and the creation of innumera­ the natural resources, the grandiose ble sculpted and architectural stone work of the natives' ancestors had been works of great size and quality. interrupted and was beginning to be destroyed. Investigations also indicate The ruins and monuments of this culture that once the original group of immi­ have such importance that they turn the grants arrived, undoubtedly from East­ whole island into an open-air museum - ern Polynesia, the island was probably perhaps the richest in proportion to its never again visited by new groups, from size - with its great sanctuaries (ahu) and that area or any other. It is still not possi­ its colossal statues (moai), which stand ble to be precise about the origin and on the a.hu or on the slopes of the vol­ arrival date of the first Polynesians, but cano that served as quarry. it is probable that they came from the Marquesas Islands, or perhaps from the Society Islands, and that their arrival The European explorers who rediscov­ occurred toward the middle of the first ered this island, some 13 centuries after millennium of our era. the ancient Polynesians, found these statues and other structures in a ruined 5 FOREWORD 'Severe profiles from the carved crater, ...faces of hardened honey, silent bells whose sound went out to sea and never returned. " Pablo Neruda "La Rosa Separada" (1973) Opposite: Bas-relief carving on the back of the Poem XII, La Isla moai at Ahu Naunau. translated by William O'Daly Therefore, until the 18th century, their solving the serious conservation prob­ singular culture was developed only from lems presented by most of these works of the ideas and elements the original group art and structures in stone. The moai, in brought with them. The fundamental particular, constitute the most critical mystery regarding the exceptional cre­ case due to the destructive force of atmo­ ativity of these people in extreme isola­ spheric and biologic factors acting on the tion from outside influence remains volcanic tuff out of which they are unanswered. The enigma has important carved. But the most challenging conser­ theoretical implications in relation to the vation effort regards the preservation of conditions that are considered determi­ all this heritage within its natural context. nants for human creativity and for the development of cultures in general. The text presented here by Dr. A. Elena Charola, internationally recognized for In spite of all the advances made through her work in conservation, provides an ex­ research, no one had seriously contem­ cellent synthesis of the current knowl­ plated the conservation of the monu­ edge on this heritage, its characteristics mental heritage of Easter Island until and history within its natural and cultur­ some three decades ago. The notion al context. The text is the product of was originally considered by the dis­ years of labor and study, and it offers the tinguished American archaeologist interested reader a vision of a specialist William Mulloy, who devoted to the on the subject. It is hoped that it will con­ island the best efforts of his life. The tribute to creating a worldwide con­ excavations and restorations of several sciousness of the urgency of establishing ceremonial centers that he carried out a general and permanent conservation in the '60s and '70s raised the general program in which both institutions and awareness of both the islanders and highly qualified experts will participate. the rest of the world in regard to the It is the duty of all of us to safeguard this appearance of these magnificent monu­ important heritage for future humanity. ments, which had been destroyed during the internal wars of the ancient island society. Gonzalo Figueroa G.-H. Santiago de Chile The restorations carried out by Profes­ sor Mulloy, and those carried out subse­ quently, provide a sufficient illustration of the appearance and original character­ istics of these constructions. Now the moment has come to concentrate on 7 •*v i ft. w . < Introduction Opposite: Motu Tautara, on the west coast of the island, as seen from the Ana Kekenga cave, usually referred to as the "two windows cave." In the middle of the South Pacific, several establishment of man on the island, his thousand kilometers west of the coast sociocultural development and his inter­ of Chile, is the most isolated inhabited action with a relatively poor environment piece of land on earth: Easter Island. It over more than a millennium. was given this name by the Dutch com­ mander Jacob Roggeveen, who first During that time the culture became sighted it on Easter Sunday, 1722. In the sophisticated enough to create the mega- 19th century natives from other Polyne­ lithic monuments, simultaneously sian islands called it Rapa Nui, the big bringing about a serious ecological crisis. Rapa, by comparison with the smaller This led to intertribal wars and an over­ Rapa island. Although local tradition has turning of the social system, in which it that the island was never given a proper the original cult of the ancestors was name, a common legend tells that when replaced by the birdman cult. The strug­ settlers arrived on the island, King Hotu gle for survival continued for nearly two Matu'a called it Te Pito 'o te Henua, the centuries during which the environment navel of the earth.