Rano Raraku volcano is of particular note as the birth place for the majority of the Moai statues.
For almost 500 years this was a quarry supplying the stone for the statues. Rano Raraku is a visual record of Moai design and technological innovation.
The edges of the volcano are littered with nearly 400 statues, some still in-situ with others erect on the slopes.
The incomplete statues in the quarry are remarkable for their number, for the inaccessibility of some that were high on the outside crater wall and for the size of the largest;
At 21 metres in height almost twice that of any Moai ever completed, and weighing an estimated 270 tonnes, many times the weight of any transported.
Some of the incomplete Moai seem to have been abandoned after the carvers encountered inclusions of very hard rock in the material.
