A huge “Moai” statue, one of the iconic stone monuments from Easter Island, has begun its journey home following a campaign to get it returned to its original setting, after it was housed in a museum in Santiago, Chile,  since the 19th century.

The 715kg sculpture will be transported by truck to the Chilean port city of Valparaíso, where it will set sail on a naval ship on a journey of about five days to reach the remote Easter Island, known locally as Rapa Nui.

The initiative is part of a repatriation programme seeking to return ancestral remains, sacred and funerary objects to the Pacific Ocean island. Similar negotiations have taken place to try to recover a specimen in the British Museum...