Ahu O'Pepe, Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile, Polynesia
Accession Date:
1887-May-04
Collection Date:
18 Dec 1886
Topic:
Ethnology
Accession Number:
019025
USNM Number:
E128370-0
Specimen Count:
1
Notes:
Note re photos: Neg. #s 2000-10620 and 21 are view of front of head. Neg. #s 2000-10622 and 23 are view of right profile. Neg. #s 2000-10624 and 25 are view of left profile. According to the Easter Island Statue Project, this head of a stone figure (moai) was collected for the Smithsonian in 1886 from a rare inland ceremonial site called "Ahu O'Pepe". It is carved of consolidated volcanic ash or volcanic tuff (from the quarry Rano Raraku). This moai is Easter Island Statue Project reference # SI-WDC-002. See pp. 27-28 in "Changing Faces: Rapa Nui Statues in the Social Landscape" by Jo Anne Van Tilburg, in Splendid Isolation: Art of Easter Island by Eric Kjelgren, Metropolitan Museum of Art/Yale University Press, 2001. Head is also illus. in Fig. 1, p. 43 of the same book and discussed on p. 42.
