🗿 One Small Step for Moai, One Giant Leap for Rapa Nui

Nour, we’re going to
Easter Island—Rapa Nui—
to meet the moai!

The pharaoh
approves. Do the
giant heads accept
visitors?

Yes. Royal climbing
privileges?
Absolutely not.

CAI · Cairo → CDG ·
Paris → SCL ·Santiago 
→ IPC · Rapa Nui

Our story’s
itinerary—not a
promise of
current flight
connections!

The last stop lies
about 3,700 km
west of
mainland Chile.

My snacks need
connecting snacks.

Rapa Nui 
names the
island, its
Indigenous
people,
and their
living culture.

A whole
kingdom
in a very
big bathtub.

Polynesian voyagers
settled here
around the
1200s, according
to much current
archaeological
research.

The island wasn’t
waiting for
Europeans to
discover it.
People had
already made it
home.

Dutch navigator
Jacob Roggeveen
arrived on
Easter Sunday in
1722. That’s
where “Easter
Island” comes from.

So he 
arrived late
and renamed
the party?

Later slave raids,
introduced disease,
and colonial rule
devastated families.

But Rapa Nui people
endured. This is
a living homeland,
not a vanished
civilization.

Then we
are guests. Very
small royal
guests.

Nearly a thousand
moai are known.
They honor
important ancestors.

Many stood on
platforms called
ahu, facing inland
toward their
communities.

The 
ancestors
have
excellent
attendance.

Moai are figures
with bodies—
not just giant
heads. Some
also wore red
stone pukao.

Finally.
Someone else
with serious
headwear.

Most moai were
carved at Rano
Raraku from
volcanic tuff,
using hard
basalt picks
called toki.

Carve the front
and sides, then
free the back
from the rock.

My royal
spoon is
suddenly less
impressive.

THIS one is
only a
head!

Only above
ground.
Watch the soil
disappear—
in our illustration,
not in the park.

Sediment
buried
parts of
some
statues.
Excavations
reveal their
torsos,
arms,
hands—
and
sometimes
carvings.

Archaeologists
knew
about these
bodies
by the
early 1900s.
It isn’t a
brand-new
discovery!

The head
has been
keeping a
tall secret.

Two statues excavated
by the Easter Island
Statue Project were
about seven meters tall.

That’s 
a LOT
of me.

And no,
we are
not 
stacking
you to
check.

The unfinished
giant
Te Tokanga
is roughly
21 meters long.
It never
left the quarry.

A giant who
stayed in bed.
Excellent
royal policy.

Today the
park is
protected
as a
UNESCO World
Heritage Site.
Research
follows local
authorization.

Our job today:
help record
details without
touching the stone.

Royal
inspection. Hands
behind the royal
back.

In 2023, a previously
unrecorded moai
was found in
the dried crater
lakebed. It was
only about 1.6
meters long.

A travel-
size
ancestor?

A real discovery.
Not permission
to go statue
hunting.

How did these
heavy statues
travel?
Researchers
have tested
sleds, rollers,
levers—and
upright rocking.

These are
competing
explanations.
We shouldn’t
pretend
one method is
proven for
every statue.

I vote for
whatever
requires
the fewest
naps.

Rapa Nui oral
traditions say
the moai
“walked.”

One 
well-supported
idea: people made
them walk by
rocking them
with ropes.

The 
ancestors
had
a dance
routine?!

A broad base and a forward lean can help a
transport-shaped statue rock from edge to edge.

Side teams
alternate
their pulls.
The rear team
controls
the lean.

Left rock.
Right rock.
A small
step forward.

One small step
for moai...
one giant leap for
snack time!

In an experiment,
18 people moved
a 4.35-ton replica
about 100 meters
in 40 minutes.

Eighteen?
My royal
procession is
understaffed.

A 2025 study by Carl Lipo and
Terry Hunt examined 962
moai, including 62 along roads.

Shapes, road
profiles, and
breakage
strengthened
their walking
explanation. The
experiment itself
was earlier.

So old
footsteps.
New
detective
work.

The debate continues.
A successful test is
strong evidence—
not a recording of
every ancient journey.

And “they cut
trees moving
statues and
destroyed
themselves” is
not a settled
history of Rapa Nui.

I prefer the
clever-people
doing-hard-things
part.

When we’re 
back in Cairo,
I’m inviting Eunomos
and Enkilu!

They can
help ME walk
like a moai!
One small step for
Nour... one giant
job for
my subjects!

We’ll use loose
pretend mummy
tape. Gentle
play. No pulling
your head.