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Respect for Rapa Nui: exhibition and conservation of Easter Island stone statues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Jo Anne Van Tilburg
Jo Anne Van Tilburg*
Affiliation:
Rock Art Archive, Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles CA 90024, USA
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Extract

Writing in 1968, archaeologist William Mulloy rightfully called Easter Island (Rapa Nui) an ‘outdoor archaeological museum of unique significance’. Indeed, the potential value of the island’s archaeological sites and their import for the island’s tourist economy meant that sites were touted as museum displays worthy of preservation, restoration and curation (Mulloy & Figueroa G.-H. 1966; Mulloy 1968: iii). That value encouraged successful funding appeals by Mulloy for restoration of several ceremonial sites at Tahai, Ahu Akivi and elsewhere.

These restorations, first and foremost, ‘produced archaeological information bearing on the reconstruction of the local prehistoric culture’, while at the same time ‘the restorations are expected to serve as exhibit materials in relation to presently developing plans for a tourist industry’ (Mulloy 1968: iii).

Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 64 , Issue 243 , June 1990 , pp. 249 - 258
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1990

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Footnotes

It is well known that yesterday's conservation methods are tomorrow's heritage destruction – of a myriad examples one has only to think of Evans at Knossos. The following account of what would appear in an age of science to have shown at the very least a lack of understanding of conservation methods and cultural monument management is only the first chapter of what may well be a continuing story. Readers of ANTIQUITY should also refer to the Review pages (pp. 436–7) of this issue for some additional notes on the modern mysteries of Easter Island by Dr Grant McCall who, like Jo Anne Van Tilburg, has long association with the archaeology and anthropology of Rapa Nui.

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