One day, when making a more thorough examination of the slope, our attention was excited by a small level plateau, about half-way up, from which protruded two similar pieces of stone next to one another. They were obviously giant noses of which the nostrils faced the cliff. Digging was bound to follow, but it proved a long business, as the figures it revealed were particularly massive and corpulent. Their position was horizontal, side by side, and the effect, more particularly when looking down at them from the cliff above, was of two great bodies lying in their graves (fig. 73). The thing was a mystery; they were certainly not in a quarry, but if they had once been erect, why had they faced the mountain, instead of conforming to the rule of having their back to it? Orientation could not account for it, as other statues on the same slope were differently placed. Then again, if they had once stood and then fallen, and in proof of this one head was broken off from the trunk, how did it come about that they were lying horizontally on a sloping hillside? The upper part of the bodies had suffered somewhat from weather, and a small round basin, such as natives use for domestic purposes, had been hollowed out in one abdomen, but the hands were quite sharp and unweathered. We used to scramble up at off moments, and stand gazing down at them trying to read their history. It became at last obvious they had once been set up with the lower part inserted in the ground to the usual level, and later been intentionally thrown down. For this purpose a level trench must have been cut through the sloping side of the hill at a depth corresponding to the base of the standing images, and into this the figures had fallen. While they lay in the trench with the upper part of the bodies exposed, one had been found a nice smooth stone for household use. A charcoal soil level showed clearly where the surface had been at this epoch, which must have been comparatively recent, as an iron nail was found in it. Finally, a descent of earth had covered all but the noses, leaving them in the condition in which we found them. [Illustration: FIG. 72. EXCAVATED STATUE. South-east side, Rano Raraku. Showing form of hands. ] [Illustration: FIG. 73. PROSTRATE STATUES, SOUTH-EAST SIDE, RANO RARAKU, AFTER EXCAVATION. ]