Why are the stone giants from Easter Island so big, and what is their purpose?

Dr. dig responds:

When people want to say something imporant, they don't usually whisper, do they? They usually speak in a loud, clear voice. Well, art, architecture and sculpture is a bit like that too.

That may be the reason why the statues on Easter Island are so big. The early Polynesians, who made the Moai statues, also never told us why they made them. We can only guess. But archaeologists have come up with some pretty good guesses: Some archaeologists believe that the Moai represent the spirits of ancestors or other important people in the Moai culture.