Rapa Nui: Did you mean...?

Moai Kavakava, Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Wood, bone, and obsidian. 42.5 cm high. Collected in the 18th century CE. (Vatican Musems, Rome)

An Ua staff from Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Wood, bone, and obsidian. 1.49 m x 6.4 cm. Collected in the 18th century CE. (Vatican Museums, Rome)

Moai tangata, Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Wood, bone, and obsidian. Collected in 1892 CE. Height: 46 cm. (Vatican Museums, Rome)

Rapa Nui, the indigenous name of Easter Island, bears witness to a unique cultural phenomenon. A society of Polynesian origin that settled there c. A.D. 300 established a powerful, imaginative and original tradition of monumental sculpture...

The Maori people of Aotearoa (New Zealand) have long observed the heliacal (pre-dawn) rising of the star cluster commonly known throughout the world as Pleiades or Messier 45 (M45), located in the constellation of Taurus. Matariki is the...

The hei tiki is a small personal adornment, fashioned by hand from tough pounamu (New Zealand greenstone or nephrite jade), and is worn around the neck. Hei means something looped around the neck, and tiki is a generic word used throughout...

The French exploration of New Zealand has been overshadowed by the achievements of British navigator Captain James Cook (1728-1779), but French navigators who visited Aotearoa's (New Zealand) shores named over 100 geographical places and...

Easter Island archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo offer a radically different theory of the island's history. Upcoming Events at National Geographic Live! http://events.nationalgeographic.com/events/ Read the Book http://www.thestatuesthatwalked.com/The_Statues_That_Walked/Home.html...

Ile Davis (Davis Island or Davis Land) was an island said to have been discovered in 1687 near Rapa Nui (Easter Island) by the English buccaneer Edward Davis (fl. c. 1680–1688) skipper of the Bachelor’s Delight. It is located below the Tropic...

Noh (Nō) theatre is a Japanese performance art which became especially popular from the 14th century CE and which is still performed today. Noh actors, who were always male in the medieval period, famously move and make gestures in a very...