Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 9 (Oceanic).djvu/154

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PLATE XI

Stone ancestral image from Easter Island. These colossal monolithic figures are cut out of rather soft volcanic stone. Many of them stand as much as twenty feet high and weigh forty or fifty tons. They were set in rows on paved stone platforms, overlooking the sea, and were intended to represent the ancestors whose bones were buried beneath. Many hundreds of them have been found. Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.