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The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Native American Indian Mounds

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<< Our Photo Pages >> Orongo - Ancient Village or Settlement in Easter Island

Submitted by terryj on Tuesday, 12 December 2006  Page Views: 9711

Multi-periodSite Name: Orongo Alternative Name: Hoa Hkanananai'a
Country: Easter Island
NOTE: This site is 2929.811 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Hanga Roa
Latitude: 27.18927S  Longitude: 109.4432W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
4 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
4 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
3

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External Links:

Orongo
Orongo submitted by Jon : (Vote or comment on this photo)
This is the ceremonial village and is located on the narrowest edge of Rano Kau.

From here some of the islands men would race down the extremely steep cliff face, and swim across to Moto Nui. On Moto Nui they would wait until the first seabirds arrived and nested. The first person to swim back across and back up the cliff to Orongo would become the new leader.
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Orongo
Orongo submitted by SolarMegalith : Over 50 stone structures survived till nowdays, many of them were renewed in 1970s (photo taken in 2005). (Vote or comment on this photo)

Orongo
Orongo submitted by SolarMegalith : Ruins of Orongo, the most important village and ceremonial centre on Rapa Nui (photo taken in 2005). (Vote or comment on this photo)

Orongo
Orongo submitted by kelpie : A petraglyph at Orongo that I had not seen before, approx. 20cm long on the edge of a large shallow basin like stone in front of the stone houses. © Aerial-Cam (Vote or comment on this photo)

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman : Orongo village. It was in one of these houses that the Moa,"Hoa Hakananaia! (stolen/hidden friend) was found and removed to the British Museum in 1868 by the crew of HMS Topaze. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Orongo
Orongo submitted by Jon : (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman : Hoa Hkanananai'a on board HMS Topaze. Copyright: Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology. Harvard university

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman : Carved head beyond Orongo village

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman : Carving at Orongo

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman : Drawning of Hoa Hakananaia in his house Taura rengaat Orongo. Sketch by Lt M. J Harrison, Copyright Trustees of the british museum.

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman : Carvings at Orongo

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman : Rano Kau crater, Orongo

Orongo
Orongo submitted by mattchapman : Carving at Orongo

Orongo
Orongo submitted by davidmorgan : Hoa Hakananai'a in the British Museum. "Collected by the crew of the English ship HMS Topaze, under the command of Richard Ashmore Powell, on their visit to Easter Island in 1868 to carry out surveying work." (1 comment)

Orongo
Orongo submitted by durhamnature : Old drawings of petroglyphs, from "Easter Island..." via archive.org Site in Easter Island

Orongo
Orongo submitted by durhamnature : Old photo, from "Easter Island..." via archive.org Site in Easter Island

Orongo
Orongo submitted by durhamnature

Orongo
Orongo submitted by SolarMegalith : Petroglyphs in Orongo - one of the finest examples of rock art on Rapa Nui (photo taken in 2005).

Orongo
Orongo submitted by Jon : (1 comment)

Orongo
Orongo submitted by Jon (1 comment)

Orongo
Orongo submitted by Jon (1 comment)

Orongo
Orongo submitted by Jon

These are just the first 25 photos of Orongo. If you log in with a free user account you will be able to see our entire collection.

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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 824m ENE 69° Rano Kau* Holy Well or Sacred Spring
 3.9km ENE 69° Ahu Vinapu* Sculptured Stone
 4.5km NNE 13° Ana Kai Tangata* Rock Art
 5.6km NNE 14° Ahu Tahai Sculptured Stone
 5.6km NNE 14° Ahu Vai Uri Sculptured Stone
 5.6km NNE 14° Ahu Ko Te Riku* Sculptured Stone
 5.8km NE 48° Ahu Huri A Urenga* Sculptured Stone
 5.8km NNE 16° Tahai Kote Riku Sculptured Stone
 6.0km NE 40° Puna Pau Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
 9.2km NNE 31° Ahu Akivi* Sculptured Stone
 17.1km NE 49° Ahu Te Pito Kura* Standing Stones
 17.2km ENE 65° Rano Raraku* Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
 17.2km NE 43° Ahu Nau Nau Anakena* Sculptured Stone
 17.2km NE 45° Ahu Ature Huke* Sculptured Stone
 17.7km ENE 70° Ahu Tongariki* Sculptured Stone
 20.2km ENE 57° Easter Island* Sculptured Stone
 3636.9km ESE 124° Pilauco Ancient Village or Settlement
 3651.8km WNW 296° Hanamiai Dune* Ancient Village or Settlement
 3652.9km SE 125° Monte Verde* Ancient Village or Settlement
 3655.2km WNW 296° Tehueto Tohua* Ancient Village or Settlement
 3706.9km ESE 105° Valle del Encanto* Rock Art
 3719.4km ESE 108° Los petroglifos Tilama* Rock Art
 3726.3km ESE 104° Archaeological Museum of La Serena* Museum
 3743.1km ENE 73° Candelabra* Hill Figure or Geoglyph
 3746.7km ENE 73° Paracas History Museum* Museum
View more nearby sites and additional images

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Re: Archaeologists Shine New Light On Easter Island Statue by Andy B on Wednesday, 26 June 2013
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Mike Pitts writes: I spent last night (February 16, 2012) all but alone with the British Museum’s Easter Island statue, Hoa Hakananai’a. Graeme Earl, James Miles, Hembo Pagi and I began a project to record and analyse the carving in unprecedented detail. It is one of the British Museum’s most popular objects, but well known as it is, it has been little studied at first hand.

It was taken from the remote Pacific island by the Royal Navy in 1868, and has been on public display in the centre of London for over 130 years, with just two significant breaks. It must be one of the most viewed statues from the island.

The May/June 2013 British Archaeology contains the first printed report on our study of the great Easter Island statue in the British Museum. The feature makes a great spread, and the results are really interesting.

The key points are:

* Contrary to popular belief, the statue was not made for a coastal platform, but always stood in the ground where it was found on top of a 300m cliff
* When it was half-buried by soil and food debris, small designs known as komari, representing female genitalia, were carved on the back
* At a later date the whole of the back was covered with a scene showing a male chick leave the nest, watched by its half-bird, half-human parents – the story at the heart of the island’s unique birdman ceremony, recorded in the 19th and early 20th centuries
* In its present plinth, the statue leans slightly to one side

More, with lots of photos at Mike Pitts' blog
http://mikepitts.wordpress.com/tag/hoa-hakananaia/

There are some examples of the photogrammetry and a video at the University of Southhampton here
http://acrg.soton.ac.uk/blog/3169/
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Archaeologists Shine New Light On Easter Island Statue by davidmorgan on Tuesday, 25 June 2013
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A team of archaeologists from the University of Southampton have used the latest in digital imaging technology to record and analyse carvings on the Easter Island statue Hoa Hakananai'a.

James Miles, Hembo Pagi and Dr Graeme Earl from the Archaeological Computing Research Group at the University of Southampton teamed up with archaeologist and editor of British Archaeology Mike Pitts to examine the statue at the Wellcome Trust Gallery in the British Museum, London.

Dr Earl explains: "The Hoa Hakananai'a statue has rarely been studied at first hand by archaeologists, but developments in digital imaging technology have now allowed us to examine it in unprecedented detail."

Hoa Hakananai'a was brought to England in 1869 by the crew of HMS Topaze. It is traditionally said to have been carved around AD1200. The Island is home to around 1,000 similar statues, but Hoa Hakananai'a is of particular interest because of the intricate carvings on its back.

It is popularly believed that around AD1600 the Easter Islanders faced an ecological crisis and stopped worshipping their iconic statues. The Rapa Nui, as they are known, turned instead to a new birdman religion, or cult. This included a ritual based around collecting the first egg of migrating terns from a nearby islet, Motu Nui. The 'winner', whose representative swam to the islet and then back with the egg, was afforded sacred status for a year.

Hoa Hakananai'a survived this shift in religious beliefs by being placed in a stone hut and covered in carved 'petroglyphs', or rock engravings, depicting motifs from the birdman cult. As such, it may be representative of the transition from the cult of statues to the cult of the birdman.

The team from the University of Southampton examined Hoa Hakananai'a using two different techniques: Photogrammetric Modelling; which involved taking hundreds of photos from different angles to produce a fully textured computer model of the statue, capable of being rotated in 360 degrees; and Reflectance Transformation Imaging; a process which allows a virtual light source to be moved across the surface of a digital image of the statue, using the difference between light and shadow to highlight never-seen-before details.

James Miles, a PhD student at Southampton, comments: "Despite the wonders of modern technology, creating accurate, detailed geometric models of these kinds of complex surfaces remains a painstaking task. We have more work to do but the virtual versions already provide a more interactive way of studying Hoa Hakananai'a."

Using these techniques, Mike Pitts and the team made some fascinating discoveries, perhaps the most significant being the apparently simple recognition that a carved bird beak is short and round, not long and pointed as previously described: this allowed the two birdmen on the back to be marked as male and female, unlocking a narrative story to the whole composition relating to Easter Island's unique birdman cult. They also realised that the statue is one of the few on Easter Island that did not stand on a platform beside the shore. It is now believed to have always stood in the ground, where it was found, on top of a 300 metre cliff.

Mike comments: "Study of the tapering base suggests that rather than being the result of thinning to make it fit into a pit, as often suggested, it is more likely part of the original boulder or outcrop from which it was carved. This may also explain why, as we now see it in the British Museum, it appears to lean slightly to the left -- its uneven end resulted in its being incorrectly set into its 19th century plinth."

Other observations from the digital imaging include:

.. When it was half-buried by soil and food debris, small designs known as komari, representing female genitalia, were carved on the back of the head.

.. At a later date, the whole of the back was covered with a scene showing a male chick leaving

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