Bibliography
pdf
html
(with pdf links to some articles)

---

EISP Books & Reports

Proceeds from books ordered directly from EISP go to the project.
 
These and other fine books can be found at David Brown Books.

 
Hardcover, 232 pages
30 color and 124 black & white illustrations
Smithsonian Institution Press;
(October 1995)
ISBN: 1560985100
$ 25 Signed copy from EISP

 

Easter Island: Archaeology, Ecology, and Culture

by Jo Anne Van Tilburg
Foreword by John Mack

Since Easter Island (Rapa Nui) was first “discovered” nearly 300 years ago, its people, culture and monolithic statues have been seen as an unsolvable riddle. At the heart of the so-called mystery stand the gigantic moai. How were they moved? What do they mean? Over more than twelve years, nearly 1000 statues have been measured, drawn and photgraphed by Jo Anne Van Tilburg and a team of colleagues. In this ground-breaking title, the author draws on the insights that have been gained, to examine Rapa Nui prehistory in the context of new understandings of ecology and culture.

Hardcover, 368 pages
16 pages of photographs
ISBN: 0-743-24480-X
$ 20 Signed copy from EISP

 

Among Stone Giants:
The Life of Katherine Routledge and Her Remarkable Expedition to Easter Island

by Jo Anne Van Tilburg

“The archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg’s Among Stone Giants is a copiously researched biography of Katherine Routledge...In Van Tilburg’s hands, Routledge is as striking an enigma as the island she studied....there’s more than enough drama to be had [in Routledge’s] admirable achievements and poignant setbacks. Van Tilburg’s background as an archaeologist and her long familiarity with Easter Island prove essential to her understanding of the Routledges’ accomplishments....”
—The New York Times Book Review, June 17, 2003 

Hoa Hakananai'a on board HMS Topaze, Portsmouth, 1869.

A4, 80 pages of text
including over 50 halftones, 10 pages of colour illustrations, and 20 detailed line drawings
perfect bound, laminated
cover.

pdf flyer

October 2005
ISBN 086159 158 5
ISSN 0142 4815
Price: £25/$12.95

Available from:
David Brown Book Co.
British Museum Store

 

Remote Possibilities Hoa Hakananai'a and HMS Topaze on Rapa Nui

British Museum Research Publication no. 158

Jo Anne Van Tilburg with drawings by Cristián Arévalo Pakarati

In 1868, Hoa Hakananai’a was discovered on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Polynesia. From there it was shipped to England on board HMS Topaze, and then offered to Queen Victoria who presented it to the British Museum. It is not known precisely when this basalt figure was carved, but nearly one thousand moai were produced – all sacred icons exemplifying the Polynesian concern with ancestry, the gods, life and death. This volume describes how, when and by whom Hoa Hakananai’a was collected. It reconstructs the underlying Rapanui aesthetic and social structure that produced Hoa Hakananai’a, and which has been obscured by time and historic accident. The research framework that supports the text includes: the cultural context discerned in the analysis of objective descriptive data collected from nearly 1,000 moai and set within the broader revelations of modern archaeology, geography and ecology; the anthropological insight gained from two decades of valuable ethnographic contact with a broad representation of the Rapanui community, and the evident aesthetic congruence and continuity discerned in certain classes of Rapanui objects, in addition to moai, held in museum collections throughout the world. Many of the illustrations in this paper are published here for the first time.