Limit search to available items
Streaming video

Title Foreign Correspondent: Easter Island - Ageing Rock Stars
Published Australia : ABC, 2013
Online access available from:
Informit EduTV    View Resource Record  

Copies

Description 1 online resource (streaming video file) (27 min. 30 sec.) ; 166022788 bytes
Summary They're rock stars growing old. Very, very old. And while some of them are holding up pretty well for their age others have led such a destructive existence, they're falling apart, dissolving where they stand, crumbling into fragments of their former selves. No, they're not the Rolling Stones, they're the stones standing perfectly still and enigmatically straight-faced, on the bare, windswept hills of Rapanui, or Easter Island. Can a long-term archaeological dig crack their mysterious past and can foreign and local experts agree on a way to preserve them, before it's too late?The gigantic statues of Rapa Nui, known as moai, are among the most iconic of images, capturing imaginations and interest from around the world. More than 50,000 travellers are drawn every year to one of the most remote islands on the globe, in the far east of the South Pacific. Few are disappointed. To stand in the shadow of the towering moai at Ahu Tongariki is to feel their "mana" or power. Visitors are confounded by age-old questions: how and why did Polynesian people, armed only with stone tools, carve the multi-tonne megaliths from the walls of volcanic craters, detach and transport them many kilometres across the island and then erect them, crowning heads with huge round red top knots? Foreign Correspondent's Dominique Schwartz adds another question to the list. Will it be possible to save the famous faces? It's abundantly clear that erosion has made a significant impact on what we used to call the Easter Island Statues and poses a real danger to their enduring presence.At latest count there are 1045 moai, some standing tall and straight on ceremonial platforms in dramatic locations, others lying where they fell or were pushed, while others remain stranded in the quarries in which they were being carved. American archaeologist, Dr Jo Anne Van Tilburg and her Rapa Nui colleague Cristian Arevalo Pakarati have spent much of the past 30 years learning as much as possible about the moai. The history detectives have sketched, photographed and researched the histories of each and every figure some of which may have been created 900 years ago. They've added greatly to the understanding of the moai and Rapa Nui history but many mysteries remain.But as they fossick for further detail, larger questions are developing for the islanders themselves. How far should they and other scientists intrude into the tombs of their forebears, what does each and every discovery say about Rapa Nui identity and what's the best way to preserve the icons for global and local posterity?
Event Broadcast 2013-09-24 at 20:00:00
Notes Classification: NC
Subject Civilization -- Historiography.
Civilization, Ancient.
Excavations (Archaeology) -- Conservation and restoration.
Statues.
Tourism.
Polynesia.
Form Streaming video
Author Schwartz, Dominique, host
Haoa, Vaiheri Tuki, contributor
Pakarati, Christian Arevalo, contributor
Rapu, Rafael Paoa, contributor
Teave, Erity, contributor
Tepano, Pantu, contributor
Van Tilburg, JoAnne, contributor