The mysterious stone figures of Easter Island are the star of the Mint of Poland’s latest silver coin

One of those super mysterious artifacts that captures the world’s imagination, the giant stone busts on Easter Island are a fascinating look into a culture whose very existence is amazing enough. This small Pacific island is well over two thousand miles away from the nearest mainland, and even today, you have to travel over 1,600 miles to get to an inhabited location with more than 500 people in it. Around a millennium ago, the Rapa Nui natives managed to create almost a thousand of these large and distinctive stone statues, and many of them remain in place today.

The Mint of Poland has depicted the figures by showing us the most famous of the placements on the island – a long row of them that displays a variety of sizes, although a large figure has been placed in the foreground – possibly the 82 tonne ‘Paro’. This figure has upon its head, a fragment a lava like that used to carve the original statues. The background is a clever composite, moving from the statuer, through a view of the island coast, complete with a blue resin sea, and onto a sky filled with Polynesian glyphs of the period.

The obverse is quite superb. A map of the island with the major locations of statues marked on it takes centre stage, with a coastal scene in the lower foreground. The national emblem of Cameroon is placed here, and there are inscriptions stating the denomination, date, and issuer.

All told, a very nice release that is a good tribute to these amazing artifacts. Similar to their flagship ancient world themed series, this rimless, high-relief coin is struck in two ounces of fine silver and then antique finished. A neat box with a Certificate of Authenticity constitutes the packaging, and the mintage is capped at 500 pieces. Available to order now.

RAPA NUI

Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is an island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. Easter Island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park.

It is believed that Easter Island’s Polynesian inhabitants arrived on Easter Island sometime near 1200 AD. They created a thriving and industrious culture, as evidenced by the island’s numerous enormous stone moai and other artifacts. However, land clearing for cultivation and the introduction of the Polynesian rat led to gradual deforestation. By the time of European arrival in 1722, the island’s population was estimated to be 2,000–3,000. European diseases, Peruvian slave raiding expeditions in the 1860s, and emigration to other islands, e.g. Tahiti, further depleted the population, reducing it to a low of 111 native inhabitants in 1877. Chile annexed Easter Island in 1888. In 1966, the Rapa Nui were granted Chilean citizenship. In 2007 the island gained the constitutional status of “special territory”.

Easter Island is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world. The nearest inhabited land (around 50 residents in 2013) is Pitcairn Island, 2,075 kilometres (1,289 mi) away; the nearest town with a population over 500 is Rikitea, on the island of Mangareva, 2,606 km (1,619 mi) away; the nearest continental point lies in central Chile, 3,512 kilometres (2,182 mi) away.

THE STONE STATUES

The large stone statues, or moai, for which Easter Island is famous, were carved in the period 1100–1680 AD (rectified radio-carbon dates). A total of 887 monolithic stone statues have been inventoried on the island and in museum collections. Although often identified as “Easter Island heads”, the statues have torsos, most of them ending at the top of the thighs; a small number are complete figures that kneel on bent knees with their hands over their stomachs. Some upright moai have become buried up to their necks by shifting soils.

Almost all (95%) moai were carved from compressed, easily worked solidified volcanic ash or tuff found at a single site on the side of the extinct volcano Rano Raraku. The native islanders who carved them used only stone hand chisels, mainly basalt toki, which lie in place all over the quarry. The stone chisels were sharpened by chipping off a new edge when dulled. While sculpting was going on, the volcanic stone was splashed with water to soften it. While many teams worked on different statues at the same time, a single moai took a team of five or six men approximately a year to complete. Each statue represented the deceased head of a lineage.

Only a quarter of the statues were installed. Nearly half remained in the quarry at Rano Raraku, and the rest sat elsewhere, presumably on their way to intended locations. The largest moai raised on a platform is known as “Paro”. It weighs 82 tonnes, and is 9.89 m long. Several other statues of similar weight were transported to ahu on the north and south coasts.(Wikipedia)