Easter Island Statue Project Official Website

Letters from the Director

Heads Up! An Exciting New Discovery!

Dear Friends of EISP,

Among the many wonderful insights we have gained during our excavations in Rano Raraku Zone, Interior Quarry Region this new head is the most exciting!  Measuring 69cm tall, it is located in Square 6 at a depth of 420cm.  When we discovered it the head was standing upright, propped in place with stones, close to the right side of

the moai (RR-001-156). The moai, in turn, is unfinished and standing in a basin cut with great skill and care into the bedrock. There was no intention of moving this moai out of the quarry.

The rounded form of the head and its incised, almond-shaped eye is more in keeping with petroglyph styles that with the elongated, rectilinear style of the moai.  However, and as the new 3D imagery created by EISP team member Greg Downing of xRES Studio clearly shows, the head style is also very similar to that of Tukuturi (RR-002-030), the famous kneeling statue uncovered by the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition, 1954-55. This incredible new find means that we will now have to reconsider our ideas of moai style.

Other finds during our 2014 seasons include a large shaped block of coral, an obsidian eye of a small carving, more pigments, basalt and obsidian tools, and a bone fishhook. To date, we have also recovered more than 6,000 stone tools (toki)!  The analysis of this incredible amount of material is a huge undertaking, and we are hard at work with colleagues on laboratory studies of obsidian, basalt, wood, and carbon.  We’ll keep you informed as we make, quite literally, new headway!

 

Jo Anne Van Tilburg

Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Ph.D. Director, EISP | October 28th, 2014 |

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.

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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 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.
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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 |