In 1868, Hoa Hakananai'a was 'discovered' on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Polynesia. Shipped to England on board HMS Topaze, it was presented by Queen Victoria to the British Museum. One of only 10 statues known to have been carved in basalt, it fits the design canon of nearly 1,000 others (called moai) - all carved of consolidated volcanic ash in a single quarry beginning c. 1100 A.D. Erected on ceremonial sites, the statues were sacred icons exemplifying the Polynesian concern with ancestry and the gods. This volume describes how, and by whom Hoa Hakananai'a was collected, and reconstructs the underlying Rapanui aesthetic and social structure that produced it. The research framework includes the form, features and symbols of Hoa Hakananai'a itself; eyewitness accounts; the cultural context discerned in objective archaeological data; the anthropological insight gained from two decades working with the Rapanui community, and the aesthetic continuity of selected Rapanui museum objects.

Jo Anne Van Tilburg is an archaeologist and the director of the Easter Island Statue Project and a Research Associate of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.