Easter Island's famous moai statues slowly fading away

[Judi Lynn]

For years, archaeologists have wondered how the mysterious statues came to dot the island in the Pacific. Now, they're trying to find a way to keep the statues around

2019
Apr 21
CORRESPONDENT
Anderson Cooper

- video at link -

On this Easter Sunday, we thought it would be fitting to take you on a journey to Easter Island. It's one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world, far into the pacific, 2200 miles due west from the coast of Chile.

Why did people stop building statues on Easter Island?
Dutch explorers gave it its name after they spotted it on Easter Sunday in 1722. What they found has fascinated and confounded the world ever since, giant stone statues that tower over the island's landscape. They're called moai, and as we learned our first morning on Easter Island, there is nothing quite like them anywhere else in the world.

When dawn breaks on Easter Island, it is the moai that first feel the sun.



These 15 moai at a site called Tongariki are perhaps the most famous. Carved out of volcanic rock, they're placed on a stone platform called an ahu. The tallest is nearly 30 feet. They stand, strange silent sentinels, facing away from the sea, watching over the land and its people.

At least a thousand moai can be found scattered across this island, which is about the size of Washington DC. Many more moai remain buried underground. To the descendants of those who built them, these are more than statues made of stone, they are immortal branches of an ancient family tree.

More:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/easter-island-heads-famous-moai-statues-slowly-fading-away-60-minutes-2019-04-21/