Easter Island stone statue begins long journey home

SANTIAGO, Feb. 22 (BUS): The gigantic Moai, a famous stone monument from Easter Island, began its journey home Monday after a years-long campaign to return it to its original place since it was housed in a museum in Santiago in the 19th century.

The 715-kilogram (0.72-ton) sculpture will be trucked to the coastal city of Valparaíso in Chile, where it will sail aboard a cruise ship for about five days to reach remote Easter Island, known locally as Rapa Nui.

This initiative is part of a repatriation program that seeks to return ancestral remains, sacred and funeral objects to the Pacific Islands. Similar negotiations were held to try to recover a sample that was in the possession of the British Museum, according to Reuters.

“For the first time, the moai will return to the island from the mainland,” Culture Minister Consuelo Valdez said.

“This is undoubtedly part of the work we started as a ministry years ago with the return of various holdings and ancestors to their homeland.”

Easter Island, more than 2,000 miles (3,219 kilometers) off the coast of Chile, has more than a thousand stone statues and giant heads carved by the island’s inhabitants centuries ago, earning it the fame and status of UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The Rapa Nui community has held a work in honor of the icon at the National Museum of Natural History in the Chilean capital, which still holds two smaller sculptures. The statue will be placed in the Padre Sebastian Englert Museum of Anthropology on the tourist island.

HF