Easter Island Statue Project Official Website
Letters from the Director

Te Moai Rapa Nui

Dear Friends of EISP,

Today we have good news to share with you! The publication of our forthcoming volume, Te Moai Rapa Nui, so long in preparation, is imminent! It is a 600 page volume in five parts exploring the art and science of Rapa Nui as discovered by the EISP team during our four decades of archaeological field work and excavations. It is enriched by the contributions of 34 international colleagues with equal experience of Rapa Nui, 108 originally produced maps, and the drawings of Rapanui artist Cristián Arévalo Pakarati. We are especially pleased to publish our findings with the world-renowned Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, which will also include an online Supplemental Data presentation.

For those of you who have visited the island or hope to do so, and so many others who have expressed interest in the incomparable moai, we offer an opportunity to add your name and email address to a private list of those interested in purchasing a copy of the atlas. The list will go to the CIOA Press and you will be contacted directly to initiate the sale. This volume, and the maps in it, are said by reviewers to be an “archaeological tour-de-force,” and the excavations we conducted in Rano Raraku, the statue quarry, to be “a case study” in salvaging every bit of available information. We are enormously proud of this accomplishment, as you can imagine, and pleased to share it with all of you!

 

Te Moai Rapa Nui Easter Island’s Monolithic Statues An Illustrated Archaeological Atlas

Te Moai Rapa Nui

Easter Island’s Monolithic Statues

An Illustrated Archaeological Atlas

Jo Anne Van Tilburg

with selected transcribed fieldnotes by Katherine Routledge

This volume is the first illustrated archaeological atlas of Easter Island (Rapa Nui). Discovered by Polynesian explorers ca. 900 CE, Rapanui society encountered the Western world for the first time in 1722, an event followed by 48 years of isolation until the next foreign ship appeared on the horizon. That liminal period, and other formidable events in Rapanui culture history, are examined through an integrated, art-and-science approach and a contextually holistic research strategy. Seminal ecological research in multiple scientific fields is united with island-wide archaeological survey data generated by international contributors to this atlas.

At the heart of this volume is a decades-long study of the attributes, characteristics, and situations of 1,040 monolithic sculptural objects (moai). Each is described through research carried out by Jo Anne Van Tilburg and her team. Excavations in Rano Raraku statue quarry reveal ancient engineering methods. Thousands of survey points plotted on 108 original, illustrated maps link the moai to habitation and agricultural features, while museum objects and artifacts, along with historical maps and photographs, offer social context. The transcribed fieldnotes of ethnographer Katherine Routledge, and the accurate and expressive moai drawings by Rapanui artist Cristián Arévalo Pakarati, provide cultural depth.

Forthcoming

UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press

Sign up for the private email wait list.

Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Ph.D. Director, EISP | April 9th, 2026 |

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