What is the purpose of the statues on Easter Island?

: What is the purpose of the statues on Easter Island?
I’ve often wondered this, why do those tall big head statues on Easter Island mean? What are they there for? Who made them? How long have they been there? How many of them are there? Does Easter Island have anything to do with Easter? How did that island get that name? It’s kind of creepy, but I’m curious.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Lieutenant Arthur Of Scotland
Ancient People made them. I don’t know your other answers though.

Answer by kateg
Nobody really knows for certain but they seem as either greeting or warning to anyone approaching the island. The film Rapa Nui, offers the best information – rent it and watch. You can read a long article on wikipedia about the island and its history. There are I believe 250 moai (statues). There are no longer any trees on the island – believed to have been used to move the large statues from the quarry to their standing positions. They go back to 300 AD. And, it was landed on by a Dutch explorer on Easter Sunday – so that’s why that name but it is known as Rapa Nui.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/easter/
https://sacredsites.com/americas/chile/easter_island.html

Answer by Meg
The Easter Head Island statues were constructed by an ancient civilization that inhabited the island. Creating the statues was rather competitive among the clans; when one made a statue, another clan would try to out do them. These statues, actually, are known as “Moai” and were erected in honor of their deities and ancestors. The competitive nature of these clans became volatile over time, and clans began to topple statues made by others. The people eventually died out due to warring among themselves and left behind them the mystery of how exactly they made and erected such massive statues.

Here are some good sites if you want more in depth info:
https://www.lost-civilizations.net/easter-island-stones-history.html
https://www.philipcoppens.com/easterisle.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moai

they really are quite fascinating 🙂

Those three sites should answer any questions you have on the subject. I’m pretty sure the island has nothing to do with Easter, but I’m also not really sure HOW it got it’s name….

Answer by Raider
No one really knows why they were placed there, they can only guess at it. Only those who constructed and placed them there really know their reason for doing this and so far they are not talking to us. Not that I have heard of anyway.

L8r