Since 2018, the Rapa Nui people have been asking the Chilean government for the return of this 715-kilo basalt statue.
The National Museum of Natural History in Chile announced on Monday the return of a giant statue to the inhabitants of Easter Island from where it had been removed more than a century and a half ago. “For the first time a moai will return to (Easter) Island from the mainland”welcomed in a press release the Minister of Culture, Consuelo Valdés.
Read alsoEaster Island will reopen to tourists in February
Easter Island, located 3700 kilometers from the Chilean coast in the Pacific, is famous throughout the world for its enigmatic “moai», monumental statues created more than a millennium ago. The Moai Tau, which is about to return to the island, is a basalt monolith weighing 715 kilos. It had been taken on a ship of the Chilean navy in 1870. It had been on display since 1878 at the National Museum of Natural History in Santiago. In 2018, the Rapa Nui people asked the Chilean government for the return of this statue and other pieces belonging to the island’s heritage.
The monolith will be transported by boat from the port of Valparaiso (center). The ship will set sail on Monday for a five-day voyage to the island. “For me and for my people, it is fundamental that the moai return to their native land. We have been waiting for this day for a long time”, responded Veronica Tuqui, a Rapa Nui representative. On the island, the statue will be exhibited at the Padre Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum.
The Rapa Nui also demanded from the British Museum in London the return of the Moai Hoa Hakananai’a, a monolith 2.4 meters high and weighing four tons. It had been removed from the island without authorization in 1868 by the navigator Richard Powill who had offered it to Queen Victoria.