He will travel 3,700 kilometers on a ship in the Pacific Ocean
(ANSA) – SANTIAGO DEL CHILE, 21 FEB – The National Museum of Natural History of Chile has announced that it has decided to bring back to Easter Island (also known as Rapa Nui) one of the traditional statues with human likeness carved in stone by the population local over 500 years ago, which was brought to the mainland 152 years ago.
The figure, known as ‘Moai Tau’ and inventory number 3208, weighs 715 kilos and is one and a half meters tall, was packed and moved today from the second level of the building to the ground floor, from where it will be loaded onto a truck and then onto a ship that will travel 3,700 kilometers in the Pacific Ocean.
In 1870, the moai was donated as a gesture of friendship by the French adventurer Jean-Baptiste Dutrou-Bornier, who at the time was a sort of ‘de facto’ governor of the island, to the crew of the ‘O’Higgins’ corvette. who had on board an expedition to “collect samples of the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms and bring one or two of their statues to Chile”.
The decision to return the find, the museum’s deputy director, Cristian Becker, told the newspaper El Mercurio, “was taken in 2018, when we showed the sculptures that were in our possession to the Easter Island authorities”.
Becker finally explained that “for the inhabitants of the island this moai is a particularly emblematic piece, because it is one of only three moai carved in basalt. A second is preserved in fragments in the museum of the island and the third was brought in the 19th century. century in the British Museum, to which the islanders are clamoring for restitution “. (HANDLE).