2-580-256 - © CM Dixon/Heritage Images

Hoa Hakananai'a, from Orongo, Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Polynesia, c1000. Easter Island's stone statues of human figures, known as moai, were probably carved to commemorate important ancestors and were made from around AD 1000 until the second half of the seventeenth century, when the birdman cult became more central to the Easter Islanders. From the British Museum's collection.