Rapa Nui, the indige­nous name of East­er Island, bears wit­ness to a unique cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non. A soci­ety of Poly­ne­sian ori­gin that set­tled there c. A.D. 300 estab­lished a pow­er­ful, imag­i­na­tive and orig­i­nal tra­di­tion of mon­u­men­tal sculp­ture and archi­tec­ture, free from any exter­nal influ­ence. From the 10th to the 16th cen­tu­ry this soci­ety built shrines and erect­ed enor­mous stone fig­ures known as moai , which cre­at­ed an unri­valled cul­tur­al land­scape that con­tin­ues to fas­ci­nate peo­ple through­out the world.