Akivi is an Ahu with seven Moai that was originally called Ahu Atio Runaru and is supposed to have been built around 1460. It was restored in 1960 by archaeologists Mulloy (USA) and Gonzalo Figueroa (U. Chile). The curious fact is that it is the only Ahu whose Moai face the ocean in the direction of somewhere in the Polynesian triangle. This reinforces the oral tradition that they represent the seven explorers that King Hotu Matu’a would have sent to find the mythical territory that his royal advisor Haumaka envisioned in a revealing dream.
Another theory states that the Moai actually face an interior area aligned with the small Ahu Vai Teka on a north-south equinoctial axis, perpendicular to the azimuth of the rising and setting sun during both annual equinoxes, which would have been a constant for the construction of certain platforms. During the excavations and restoration of the burial site behind the Ahu, fragments of bones, shells, and fishing implements were found, and at the base of one of the statues, an image of the creator god Make Make was discovered, similar to the one found at Ahu Huri A Urenga, another astronomically oriented platform that is believed to have been a solar observatory. The strange thing is that this platform is only 4 kilometers from Puna Pau, the Pukao quarry, and none of the seven statues have this ornament. One more of the many mysteries of Rapa Nui.
