With the ratification of excavation permits from the Island authorities, Jo Anne van Tilberg completed the first stage of excavations begun in Abril of 2010 in the quarry at Rano Raraku, which were interrupted earlier this year by the theft of the meteorological equipment.  This project is a study of a Moai with petroglyphs found in the Rano Raraku crater that was mentioned by Katherine Routledge in her unpublished field notes.

 

On the back of the statue, the excavation uncovered 13 petroglyphs of Polynesian canoes, a flying fish and three lines with a circle, very similar to carvings on other Moai.  This would be the fifth excavation of this statue within modern Rapanui history.  The first, done by Routledge, has no scientific record except for her field notes.  The second time was by Thor Heyerdahl (1956), the third by the enthnographer Thomas Barthel (1957) and the fourth by the artist Lorenzo Dominguez (1960).  All excavated the Moai to the same level as Routledge and then reburied it.  Someone even left a forgotten empty bottle of French wine within the fill.  Sadly, over the last 100 years there have been around 90 excavations of statues in different parts of the Island by various people, without the corresponding reports or scientific registries.

Christian Arévalo, a member of the research team since 1989, tells that ” in the current excavation of the first of the two Moai of interest, in which 10 Rapanui people worked, we removed approximately 26m3 (920 cu.ft.) of earth until we reached the base of the statue which is a flat stone on a pavement of basaltic bedrock, which makes a wedge to stabilize the Moai.  In this last level, about 1,2 meters (4 feet) deep, the excavation turned delicate, since it was full of chips of lapilli which had fallen to the ground when the Moai was being finished.  This was the most ancient level where material had never before been moved, not even by Routledge.  We sensed a very special energy.  Here we found a large number of Toki, basalt chisels used as tools to sculpt the Moai.  We also found the signature of the artists underneath the Moai – a petroglyph of a canoe with two paddles.  Why were there petroglyphs on a Moai?  We would suspect that, during the tribal wars, canoes would be carved on different parts of the statues, even on the face, as a political statement following their demoliton.”