Book

Easter Island's Silent Sentinels: The Sculpture and Architecture of Rapa Nui

2013

Synopsis

It may be the most interesting and yet loneliest spot on earth: a volcanic rock surrounded by a million square miles of ocean, named for the day Dutch explorers discovered it, Easter Sunday, April 5, 1722. Here people created a complex society, sophisticated astronomy, exquisite wood sculpture, monumental stone architecture, roads, and a puzzling ideographic script. And then they went about sculpting amazing, giant human figures in stone.

This richly illustrated book of the history, culture, and art of Easter Island is the first to examine in detail the island's vernacular architecture, often overshadowed by its giant stone statues. It shows the conjecturally reconstructed prehistoric pole houses; the ahu, the sculptures' platform, as a spectacular expression of prehistoric megalithic architecture; and the Easter Island Statue Project's inventory of the colossal moai sculptures.

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Far out in the south-eastern part of the Pacific Ocean lies one of the world’s most remote islands. Located over 2,000 miles away from Chile and South America, the nearest continent, and over 1,300 miles away from its nearest inhabited neighbour, Pitcairn Island, Easter Island is a solitary mass of ...

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