Easter Island museum: Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum

The Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum frames island history, language, and objects that make moai and ahu easier to understand before you visit the quarry.

Father Sebastian Englert with a moai kava-kava.

The Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum is the only Easter Island museum and was founded in 1973. It keeps preserved artifacts found on the island such as matā (obsidian stone tools), ancient fish hooks as well as the face of a moai with a coral eye. Unfortunately none of the rongo-rongo tablets are kept at this museum; they are all scattered at museums around the world.

The William Mulloy Library is part of the museum. The library holds plenty of exclusive scientific material on Rapa Nui.

Father Sebastian Englert

The museum is named for the German missionary Sebastian Englert (1888 - 1969) who lived at Rapa Nui for more than 30 years, extensively documenting the island's legends, language and culture in general.

Location

The museum is located in the Tahai sector. You may follow the coast, passing the Tahai area with moai statues until you reach a road, and then follow this road up. You may also follow the road passing the Tahai lookout, and after a couple of hundred meters when the road forks, take a left. After around 100 m the museum will appear to the left.

Entrance fee

The entrance fee to the museum is 1000 Chilean pesos or 2 USD.

Opening hours

Tuesday - Friday

09:30 - 17:30

Weekends + holidays

09:30 - 12:30