Ahu Tongariki

Fifteen giants stand shoulder to shoulder at Ahu Tongariki, their backs to the Pacific and their faces turned towards the grassy plain that once held a village. It is the largest ceremonial platform on Rapa Nui: the central stone terrace runs for almost a hundred metres, and with its lateral wings the whole structure once stretched to about two hundred. The statues vary in height from roughly five and a half to almost nine metres, and one of them, the heaviest moai ever raised on the island, is estimated at some 86 tonnes. Only a single figure wears its pukao, the cylindrical topknot of red scoria; several others lie on the ground beside the platform, too worn to be lifted back into place.

The setting is what makes the row unforgettable. Behind the ahu the sea breaks on black rock; inland rises the eroded crater of Rano Raraku, the quarry where nearly every moai on the island was carved, barely a kilometre away, and to the east the bulk of the Poike peninsula closes the view. The statues were toppled face-down during the island's period of internal conflict, and in May 1960 the tsunami generated by the great Chilean earthquake swept the fallen figures and the stones of the platform far inland. What visitors see today is the result of a restoration carried out between 1992 and 1996 under the Chilean archaeologists Claudio Cristino and Patricia Vargas, supported by the University of Chile and by the Japanese crane maker Tadano, which shipped a heavy crane across the ocean to lift the colossi upright again.

The site rewards slow looking. The faces are not identical: jaws, brows and proportions differ, and the weathering of the soft volcanic tuff gives each one its own texture. Scattered over the flat rocks nearby are petroglyphs of turtles, tuna, birdmen and the creator god Makemake. One lone moai stands apart from the row; it travelled to an exhibition in Osaka in 1982, and is still known locally as the travelling moai. The platform is also aligned with the sky: in the southern summer, between the December solstice and the March equinox, the sun rises directly behind the statues, which is why so many people come here before dawn to watch the silhouettes emerge from the dark.

Getting there

Ahu Tongariki lies on the island's south-eastern coast, about 15 km from Hanga Roa, the only town on Rapa Nui, along the coastal road. Mataveri International Airport (IPC), on the edge of Hanga Roa, is the island's only airport and lies about 15 km away. The site is part of Rapa Nui National Park; it can be reached by hired car, by bicycle or on an organised tour, and pairs naturally with a visit to the Rano Raraku quarry next door.