Stars Over Easter Island . ... Credit Copyright: St phane Guisard (Los Cielos de Chile) Explanation: Why were the statues on Easter Island built? ... What is sure is that over 800 large stone statues exist there. The Easter Island statues , stand, on the average, over twice as tall as a person and have over 200 times as much mass. ... Pictured above , a large stone statue appears to ponder the distant Large Magellanic Cloud before a cloudy sky that features the bright stars Canopus and Sirius . ...