Select your outward journey date
Select your return journey date

Ahu Tongariki site

 
 

Our expert Chile

Ahu Tongariki site

Ahu Tongariki site Ahu Tongariki The site of Ahu Tongariki © Tiphaine Cariou

Ahu Tongariki is the grandest archaeological site on the island. It has fifteen moais which align the Pacific Ocean on a platform (ahu) made of lava rocks. These half-trunk half-man monuments represent venerated ancestors. Rising 13 ft high and more, their faces are turned facing inland to show that they protect the people in their tribe. Only one of them is decorated with a pukao, a red stone hat placed on some moais. This ahu was not damaged, like the others, by the tribal wars but by a tidal wave in 1960, that pushed the statues back over 300 ft inland. It was a Japanese firm that used cranes to lift them back into place in 1992.

Monuments

Other reasons to go

  1.   Landscapes

  2.   Coasts

  3.   Towns

  4.   The fauna and flora

  5.   Arts and culture