The Moai of Rapa Nui The most iconic artistic representations of Polynesian culture are these huge stone figures called moai. Carved from volcanic rock on the island of Rapa Nui sometime between 1200 and 1600, they are thought to depict sacred ancestors or clan chiefs. Around 1,000 of them were quarried and carved, and hundreds were somehow transported up to eight miles to stand on stone platforms near the coast. The largest reached some thirty-