Ranging from four to ten meters (33 feet) and weighing up to 80 tons, the majority are about a thousand years old. A number were once capped with top hats of red-stained stone to signify initiation and many were also back-carved with ancient initiation symbols, although weather eroded much of these features.

To the people who erected them, the statues were actual repositories of spirit, charged by a mysterious energy they called mana. Some researchers suspect the existence of an ancient geomantic technology, where the ring of basalt statues focussed and concentrated the magnetic flux of the local environment in similar fashion to standing stones in Europe and Australia.

 HISTORICAL BITS
It has been suggested that the tiny island was once part of a much larger landmass and that the original use of the site may date back many thousands of years earlier. Some researchers suspect Easter Island could have been an important node in a global grid of sacred geography that predates the Great Flood of 6,000 BC. Besides the more well known name of Rapa Nui, Easter Island is also known as Te-Pito-O-Te-Henua, meaning "The Navel of the World" and as Mata-Ki-Te-Rani, meaning "Eyes Looking at Heaven."