Easter Island Statues

Traditionally called moai, more than 390 of these giant, carved, angular eyeless faces litter Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The statues are carved from compressed volcanic ash. Their construction began around 1000AD. The largest megalith weighs 75 tonnes and is 9.9m tall, most weigh about ten tonnes. In a quarry on the island is an unfinished statue that would have stood 21 meters high and weighed 270 tonnes. Archaeologists have recently discovered that coral eyes originally filled the empty eye sockets. The mystery is how the inhabitants of Easter island were able to carve, transport and erect these vast megaliths. And then what happened to them (and all the trees on the island).