Pukau
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Pukau are cylinders carved from the red volcanic stone scoria, which was quarried at a single source known as Puna Pau on Easter Island. Weighing up to 12 tons, a pukau was balanced as a separate piece on top of a moai's flat head. It is not known for certain whether they were raised with the statue or placed after the statue was erected; it is possible that both methods were used, depending upon the characteristics of each site. Pukau may have represented dressed hair or headdresses of red bird feathers worn by chiefs throughout Polynesia. To date, about 100 pukao have been documented archaeologically, either on sites associated with fallen statues or in the quarry in which they were carved.
[edit] Sources
- Jared Diamond Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed 2005 Viking Press ISBN 0-670-03337-5, 2006 Penguin ISBN 0-14-027951-2
- Grant McCall (1995). "Rapanui (Easter Island)." Pacific Islands Year Book 17th Edition. Fiji Times. Retrieved August 8, 2005.
- Jo Anne Van Tilburg Easter Island Archaeology, Ecology and Culture 1994 British Museum Press ISBN 0-7141-2504-0, 1995 Smithsonian Press ISBN 1-56098-510-0
- Easter Island statue project
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