Show caption A Moai Tau del Ivi Tupuna statue sits inside the Natural History Museum in Santiago, Chile, before it is returned to Chile’s Easter Island, the statue has been at the museum since 1870. Photograph: Natural History Museum of Chile/AFP/Getty Images Chile Easter Island Moai statue begins journey home, 150 years after removal to Santiago The return of the statue comes after a years-long campaign to have it returned to Rapa Nui, as Easter Island is known locally Reuters Tue 22 Feb 2022 02.04 GMT Share on Facebook
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A huge Moai statue, one of the iconic stone monuments from Easter Island, began its journey back home on Monday, after being removed and taken to Santiago, where it has been housed since 1870.
The return of the statue comes after a years-long campaign to have it returned to Rapa Nui, as Easter Island is known locally.
The 715kg sculpture will be transported by truck to the Chilean port city of Valparaíso, where it will set sail on a naval ship on a journey of about five days to reach Rapa Nui.
The initiative is part of a repatriation program seeking to return ancestral remains, sacred and funerary objects to the island. Similar negotiations have taken place to try to recover a specimen at the British Museum.
Indigenous people from Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, held a ceremony at the Natural History Museum in Santiago, Chile, to mark the return of a Moai Tau del Ivi Tupuna statue. Photograph: Esteban Félix/AP
“For the first time, a Moai will return to the island from the mainland,” said Consuelo Valdes, Chile’s minister of culture.
“Without a doubt, this is part of a work that as a ministry we began years ago with the return of various collections and ancestors to their homeland.”
Rapa Nui, more than 2,000 miles (3,219 km) from the coast of Chile, has more than 1,000 stone statues – giant heads that were carved centuries ago by the island’s inhabitants, which have brought it fame and Unesco world heritage Site status.
The Rapa Nui community held an act in honour of the icon at the National Museum of Natural History in the Chilean capital, which still retains two smaller sculptures. The statue will be housed in the Padre Sebastián Englert Anthropological Museum on the island.
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