Easter Island Statue Project Official Website

Letters from the Director

Happy New Year!

Dear Friends of EISP,

This letter brings New Year greetings for a happy and productive 2019!  Thanks to everyone for their support and interest in our research, and especially to our colleagues who have shared so much information now being shaped for inclusion in our major writing project, the “Easter Island Atlas” due to be completed (fingers crossed!) by the end of this year.

The past year ended with the great event of the Early Pacific Migration and Navigation Conference. Held at Hanga Roa, Rapa Nui and organized by archaeologist Sonia Haoa and her Mata Ki Te Rangi Rapa Nui Foundation team, the conference offered a wonderful series of interesting papers and great social events. EISP sponsored the attendance of four members of our team, and we delivered four interrelated papers. We were joined by good friends and supporters from UCLA, and we all reveled in the warm hospitality of the Rapanui community.

At the Mana Gallery we launched Mana Press with a great party for the attendees! Our new series of “small books” is edited with Adrienne L. Kaepper. The first is entitled “The Iconic Tattooed Man of Easter Island.” The second will be out later this year and will focus on Rapanui music. We also presented the Spanish translation of my “Among Stone Giants” by José Miguel Ramírez and published by Rapa Nui Press.

I am very pleased and proud to say that, during the opening reception, I was one of three recipients of an award presented by Sonia Haoa and given for “humanitarian values” and respect shown the “traditions and values of the past” through archaeological research.

All in all, a wonderful year.

Kind regards,

Jo Anne Van Tilburg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Ph.D. Director, EISP | January 10th, 2019 |

Phase 2 Season 2

Easter Island Statue Project

August 12- 31, 2014

Dr. Jo Anne Van Tilburg, UCLA Project Director

Cristián Arévalo Pakarati/ Rapa Nui Project Co-director

José Miguel Ramírez A., Universidad de Valparaiso, Co-investigator

 

Introduction

This report is prepared as part of a numbered series that describes the excavations conducted by the Easter Island Statue Project in Rano Raraku Quarry Zone, Interior Region, Quarry 02, Statues RR-001-156 and RR-001-157. The team is composed of an all-Rapanui excavation staff directed by the project Co-directors. With the completion of the conservation and scientific investigations conducted by our Chilean collaborator, Monica Bahamondez P, and our UCLA collaborator Dr. Christian Fischer, we were joined this season by our new Chilean collaborator Sr. José Miguel Ramírez A., Universidad de Valparaíso. Our research agreement is contained in a Memo of Understanding between the Universidad de Valparaíso and the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. This report summarizes our collections and investigations for the period beginning Monday, March 10 and ending Monday, March 14, 2014.  This report is part of a preliminary final report that includes some but not all of our in-process laboratory test results and collections analyses, as per our permit CMN ORD 5467-09. A final report will be published in 2015-2016 by the The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.

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Posted on October 28th, 2014 by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Ph.D.
Categories: 2000s, AIA Partnership, Conservation Reports, EISP Excavation, Featured Articles |

Phase 2 Season 1

Easter Island Statue Project Phase 2, Season 1

August 2013

Jo Anne Van Tilburg and Cristián Arévalo P.

This report describes recent excavations beginning Phase 2 of the project and concentrating on the ventral side of Moai RR-001-156. These excavations are a continuation of limited excavations conducted on the ventral side during Phase 1, which focused on reaching the base of the statue on the dorsal side.  The excavation season commenced on August 6, 2013 and actual excavation ended on August 29, 2013. The excavation was subsequently closed to protect it from heavy rains and with the help of personnel from CONAF and CMN.

[Read More…]

Posted on October 28th, 2014 by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Ph.D.
Categories: 2000s, AIA Partnership, Conservation Reports, EISP Excavation, Featured Articles |

Phase 1 Season 6

Easter Island Statue Project (EISP) Conservation Initiative

March 2012

Jo Anne Van Tilburg and Cristián Arévalo Pakarati have accomplished an archaeological survey and inventory of the monolithic stone sculpture (moai) of Rapa Nui. To date, we have accounted for 1,300 monolithic sculptural objects within the island-wide survey sections, in museum collections, and within the Rano Raraku quarry zone, including complete (as opposed to intact) statues, heads, torsos, fragments, shaped block. The latter are considered to be evidence of human activity in the form of incomplete or abandoned projects elucidating energy investment. The most recent object entered into our collaborative on-line database (DATASHARE) is a red stone torso submitted by Enrique Tucki M. of the Oficina Provincial, the Corporación Nacional Forestal (CONAF).

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Posted on October 28th, 2014 by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Ph.D.
Categories: 2000s, AIA Partnership, Conservation Reports, EISP Excavation, Featured Articles |

Phase 1 Season 5

 

Easter Island Statue Project Conservation Initiative

Season V Excavation Summary

RR-001-156 and Square 4, RR-001-157

Jo Anne Van Tilburg

November 2011

Introduction

This report is another in a series of reports dealing with the excavation of statues RR-001-156 and RR-001-157 in Rano Raraku quarry, Rapa Nui, Chile. The previous reports were filed with the appropriate Chilean and Rapa Nui agencies and also provided to the general public on the Easter Island Statue Project web site (www.eisp.org). This report deals with the continuing excavation of statue RR-001-156 to the base and Square 4 of RR-001-157. These activities took place during Season V (November 2011) of the Easter Island Statue Project Conservation Initiative.
[Read More…]

Posted on October 28th, 2014 by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Ph.D.
Categories: 2000s, AIA Partnership, Conservation Reports, EISP Excavation, Featured Articles |