Easter Island is the most remote inhabited island in the world. The nearest mainland land - Chile - at a distance of 3700 kilometers. Administratively, the island is part of the Chilean region of Valparaiso - in 1888, Chile annexed this territory.
On the famous island about 5,000 people live, a little more than half of them - the indigenous population. Area - 164 sq. km. The island has the shape of a regular triangle.
There are no hazardous industries. The water around the island is clean and clear. But at the same time, the flora and fauna are not very diverse, which is inherent in many island formations in the water area. Pacific Ocean. And lovers of only a beach "bounty vacation" are better off not flying here. This is a place for romantics and the curious.
Who discovered Easter Island?
The island was once covered in lush forests. The first settlers appeared here around 300 AD. They presumably came from the French Polynesian islands.
And the first European who saw the mysterious and now world-famous idols-idols was the Dutchman Jacob Roggeven. It was he, on Easter Sunday, 1772, who discovered a distant land in the ocean. It is to him that the island owes its modern name. The local name is Rapa Nui. Soon James Cook also visited the islands.
Easter Island was rediscovered for the world and our contemporaries in the middle of the last century by the famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl.
How to get to Easter Island
The flight from Santiago takes 5 hours. The flights are operated by the Chilean airline LAN Airlines, the Santiago-Tahiti flight with a stopover at Mataveri Airport on Easter Island. You can also get here from the capital of Peru, Lima. Flights are regular, in contrast to shipping traffic. There is only one pier for small ships on the island.
On the island itself, tourists move around in rented cars, bikes, taxis and on foot. The distances are small - by car from one side of the island to the other you can get in 30 minutes, and go around it all in a circle in one and a half to two hours.
Hanga Roa "capital" of Easter Island
In addition to the airport, administrative center The island has several 3 and 4 star hotels, shops, restaurants, a post office, schools and a church. Almost the entire population of the island lives here and is employed in the tourism industry. There are only two streets in the town, without numbering of houses - all the inhabitants know each other. Prices on the island "bite", which is not surprising - after all, almost everything has to be imported.
Easter Island Attractions - Moai
The main attraction of this amazing corner lands - scattered throughout the island stone statues- Moai, that's what they call them here. There are about a thousand idols on the island. Some are up to 20 meters high. All but seven, whose gaze is turned to the ocean, are arranged so that they look inside the island.
The idols were made from compressed volcanic ash in quarries inside the island. There are many guesses and versions about how the statues were transported around the island. Everyone who visited the "factory" of idols does not leave the feeling that the work stopped just yesterday, and not many centuries ago.
- Ahu Rano-Raraku (300 moai), ahu Tongariki (15 moai) and a ritual site, ahu Ature and ahu Naunau are the most interesting places for visiting tourists.
- Anakena bay and beach is the most beautiful and largest of the island's few beaches.
Every year at the end of January, the Tapati Rapa Nui festival is held on the island. It is accompanied by chants, dances and traditional competitions. local residents- Rapanui.
In Valparaiso itself, do not forget to take time to visit the city's maritime museums: the Lord Cochrane Museum and the Museum of Navigation and Maritime History.
Easter Island on the map of Valparaiso
Easter Island is the most remote inhabited island in the world. The nearest mainland land - Chile - at a distance of 3700 kilometers. Administratively, the island is part of the Chilean region of Valparaiso - in 1888, Chile annexed this territory.
About 5,000 people live on the famous island, a little more than half of them are indigenous people. Area..." />
Based on the name of the island. But the island was created long before the concept of Easter arose, and there are much more anomalies in it, so we will learn new knowledge right after the end of the world 🙂
Easter Island is an island in the Pacific Ocean, the most inland of all known islands (as a result, tourism to this island is expensive). The island is of volcanic origin and is located at the intersection of several lithospheric plates(below it is the boundary of the fault of giant tectonic plates, which, as it were, share the bottom of the ocean; the oceanic Nazca and Pacifica plates and the axial zones of the underwater oceanic ridges converge on the island). Well, the most famous attraction is stone statues:
The island has the shape of a right triangle, the hypotenuse of which is the southeast coast. The sides of this "triangle" have lengths of 16, 18 and 24 km. At the corners of the island rise extinct volcanoes:
- Rano Khao (324 m)
- Pois Catiki (377 m)
- Terevaka (539 m - highest point islands)
Let's start our tour of Easter Island with stone statues. All stone statues are monolithic, that is, they are cut from a single piece of stone, and not glued or fastened together. Ancient craftsmen carved "moai" - stone statues on the slopes of the Rano Roraku volcano, located in the eastern part of the island, from soft volcanic tufa. Then the finished statues were lowered down the slope and placed along the perimeter of the island, at a distance of more than 10 km. The height of most idols is from five to seven meters, while later statues reached up to 10 and up to 12 meters.
On the head of the statues were hats made of red pumice, and the eyes were painted:
Tuff, or, as it is also called, pumice, from which they are made, resembles a sponge in structure and crumbles easily even with a light impact on it. so average weight"moai" does not exceed 5 tons.
Stone statues were installed on stone "ahu" - platforms-pedestals, which reached 150 meters in length and 3 meters in height, and consisted of pieces weighing up to 10 tons from the same pumice.
According to another version, the stone statues of Easter Island are estimated much harder: they say that their weight sometimes reaches more than 20 tons, and their height is more than 6 meters. An unfinished sculpture was found, about 20 meters tall and weighing 270 tons.
In total, there are 997,397 stone moai statues on Easter Island. All moai, except for seven statues, "look" into the interior of the island. These seven statues are also distinguished by the fact that they are located inside the island, and not on the coast. A detailed map of the location of stone statues, as well as other attractions, can be viewed in this figure (click to enlarge):
It is also said that there are two kinds of statues on the island:
- The first species, without "caps" (45% of the total) are 10-meter giants weighing 80 tons. All of them stand on the slopes of the Ranu Raraku crater chest-deep in sedimentary rocks - this is for the reason that they are much older than other statues, those with "caps". The fact that these statues are much older than the second type of moai is also indicated by the fact that the traces of erosion on them appeared much more clearly than on the "dwarf" 4-meter statues. In addition, 10-meter-high moai giants do not have "caps" and their appearance is slightly different from the second type. For example, their faces are narrower.
- The second type is small 3-4-meter statues (32 percent of the total), which were placed on pedestals (ahu). All ahu stand near the seashore. These moai have bizarrely shaped "caps". This type of moai is very well preserved. Their faces are more oval than the narrow-faced statues of the first type.
The erection of statues on Easter Island is a stumbling block among "rationalists" and "otherworlders". The first claim that all the statues could be installed on the island ordinary people using conventional earthly means. Whereas the "otherworlders" cite anything as the forces for installing statues - from magic-mana to aliens.
The Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl in his book "Aku-Aku" gives a description of one of these methods, which was tested in action by local residents. According to the book, information about this method was derived from one of the few remaining direct descendants of the Moai builders. So, one of the Moai, overturned from the pedestal, was hoisted back by using logs slipped under the statue as levers, by swinging which it was possible to achieve small movements of the statue along the vertical axis. Movements were fixed by lining under upper part statues of stones of various sizes and their alternation. Actually, the transportation of the statues could be carried out by means of a wooden sledge.
Whoever is right, one thing is true: all the statues were made on this very island, in quarries. And from there they were transported to the installation site. How did you find out? Very simple: a lot of unfinished idols are in the quarries. When looking at them, one gets the impression of the sudden cessation of work on the statues.
The photo shows one of the unfinished stone statues:
And here are a few more unfinished statues on the slope of the volcano:
Let us dwell on one more inexplicable yet phenomenon, which, of course, loses in scale, but goes head to head in terms of mystery.
This is the mysterious script of Easter Island. We can say that this is the most mysterious writing in the world. The latter fact is all the more significant because no written language has yet been found on the Polynesian islands.
On Easter Island, writing was found on relatively well-preserved wooden tablets, in the local dialect called kohau rongo-rongo. The fact that wooden planks survived the darkness of centuries is explained by many scientists by the complete absence of insects on the island. And yet most of them were eventually destroyed. But it was not the tree bugs accidentally introduced by a white man that were to blame for this, but the religious fervor of a certain missionary. The story goes that the missionary Eugene Ayrault, who converted the inhabitants of the island to Christianity, forced these writings to be burned as pagan.
Nevertheless, a certain number of tablets have been preserved. Today in museums and private collections of the world there are no more than two dozen kohau rongo-rongo. Many attempts have been made to decipher the contents of the ideogram tablets, but they have all ended in failure. Incidentally, research recent years once again confirmed that on the tablets of kohau rongorongo each sign conveys only one word, and not the entire text is written on them, but only keywords , the rest were read by the Rapanui from memory.
There is another one on the island interesting fact. So, the first picture in the article shows the heads of statues with underground torsos. So, this image is not far from the truth. So, if you take and carefully dig around some of the statues, you can dig up very interesting things:
That is, some of the statues are much larger than they appear. Moreover, how they ended up underground is unknown: either by themselves, or they were initially covered up.
Another mystery of the island is the purpose of the paved roads, the creation time of which is lost in the mists of time. On the island of Silence - another name for the island - there are three of them. And all three end in the ocean. Based on this, some researchers conclude that the island was once much larger than it is now.
And finally, a trump card that breaks the arguments of the "rationalists". So, next to Rapanui is the tiny island of Motunui. These are several hundred meters of a sheer cliff, dotted with numerous grottoes. Island on the map:
So, a stone platform was preserved on it, on which statues were once installed, later thrown into the sea for some reason. And the question arises - how? How rationally it is possible to deliver stone statues there? No way. Only with the help of unknown forces.
Which, by the way, begs the question: why? If rationalists justify the device of stone statues at least acceptable - for protection from floods or for protection from something else, or as objects of worship, etc., then the supporters of the "otherworldly" hypothesis of installing statues simply have nothing to say. Think for yourself: why would people who have supernatural abilities and can carry multi-ton blocks over a great distance do this? After all, they did not worship them: real power and superstition do not go hand in hand ...
So the hypothesis of "otherworldly" also disappears in vain. What remains? The facts remain:
- Easter Island, remote from inhabited lands for many hundreds of kilometers
- huge multi-ton statues (some are more than half dug into the ground)
- undeciphered writing
- roads of unknown destination
- lack of coherent theories of how it was all done.
And it turns out that Easter Island is a mystery that has not yet been solved.
And it won't work if the end of the world happens tomorrow 🙂
Based on materials from http://agniart.ru/rus/showfile.fcgi?fsmode=articles&filename=16-3/16-3.html and http://www.ufo.obninsk.ru/pashi.htm
It has the shape of a right triangle, at the corners of which there are inactive volcanoes, which are one of the main natural attractions. total area Easter Island is 163.6 km².
Why is Easter Island so named?
Even without looking at the map, you can guess that the island has a name that is not typical for South America. In fact, throughout its history, it had several names: the natives gave it two names at once - "Navel of the Earth" and "Eyes looking at the sky", the Indians - "Rapa Nui", and James Cook - Vaihu. The first person to explore Easter Island was the Dutchman Jacobson Roggeveen. He came down to the island in 1722. It happened on Easter Sunday, which gave the name "find". Since official name became "Easter Island", and the locals still consider it Rapa Nui, so you can often hear this name from Chileans.
Who lives on Easter Island?
Only 6 thousand people live on a small island. Scientists say that once there were about 15,000 inhabitants. When Roggeven discovered the island, more than 10,000 people lived on it. The decrease in the population was influenced by the enmity between the settlements, which led to wars, as well as cannibalism. But the biggest tragedy, which claimed thousands of lives, occurred when Europeans visited Easter Island. Their barbarism once and for all destroyed the civilization that had existed here for centuries. They took most of the population into slavery in Peru, many of them died of disease. As a result, only 3,000 people remained. But life under the control of the Europeans became unbearable, and the population of Easter Island decreased to 178 people. That's how many natives were on the island when in 1888 he joined Chile.
The original inhabitants of Easter Island are the Rapanui, or as they are now called the Easter Islanders. To date, only 48% of them remain on the island, some of which are mestizos with Chileans from the mainland. The remaining 52% are Spaniards.
Climate and weather
The climate on the island is tropical, the average annual temperature is 21.8 °C. August is the coldest month of the year, while January is the warmest. Tourists should be pleased with the fact that the heat rarely happens here, but there are often winds. It is also interesting that the source fresh water serve as lakes in the craters of volcanoes. One might wonder why the Chileans of Rapa Nui don't use rainwater? The answer lies in the soil, which has a very soft and loose structure, so water does not linger on the surface, but immediately seeps into the ground. Because of this, you rarely see puddles on the island, which cannot but please lovers of hiking.
Flora and fauna
The flora and fauna of the island is very scarce, on Rapa Nui there are only 30 species of plants and almost the same number of animals. Once the island was covered with dense forests, but droughts, rodents and the greed of people left only small green areas from the rich fauna. To date, Easter Island is "rich" in 48 plant species. In 1956, the Swedish scientist Carl Scottsberg found 46 plant species on the island, only two were added to them in half a century. Interestingly, there is no island in the world with more meager flora than Rapa Nui.
As for animals, things are no better with them. Due to the isolation of Easter Island from the continent, there are very few representatives of the fauna. Of the vertebrates, there are only two species of lizards and the European rat, it is believed that they came to the island quite by accident. The people themselves brought the Polynesian rat to the island, but the "indigenous" European rat replaced it. Realizing that it is extremely difficult for people on the island to survive with such a limited wildlife, in 1866 cattle were brought to Rapa Nui - sheep, pigs and horses, which helped in the development of agriculture.
Of the insects on Easter Island, only worms, snails and a couple of species of spiders live. Europeans brought crickets, scorpions and cockroaches, which live quite hard here, so their population periodically decreases to a critical minimum.
Attractions
Easter Island has amazing and mysterious sights in its arsenal. Tourists can start admiring them already through the window of the plane, since the main attraction, stone sculptures, can be seen before landing. Moreover, it is much easier to assess the scale of the work of the natives who made the statues from the sky. Indigenous people, who lived here 6-9 centuries ago, believed that they lurked supernatural power, so they were placed all over the island. Scientists who have researched are confident that people have developed their skill in creating them over several centuries, as the technology is flawless.
When the plane descends, you can see the unusual landscape of Easter Island, which is covered with many volcanic craters, which looks like the surface of the moon. Such a spectacle cannot leave you indifferent.
An attraction that can be seen even from space is the Rano-Kau crater. It is located in the lower left corner of the triangular island. Once on the ground, it is worth visiting the crater as it is an interesting sight. The crater is filled with water, on the surface of which sea plants float, open areas of water reflect the blue sky. One gets the impression that this is a model of the Earth.
Around Rapa Nui there are several coastal islands that look very picturesque. The most famous among them are Motu Nui and Motu Ichi.
It is interesting that many buildings from the time of the life of the Rapanui people, which are unique in their kind, have been preserved on the island. The dwellings of the Easter residents were made of soft stone, while they are well preserved to this day, the work on their restoration was successful and today tourists can see the original dwellings of the natives. It is also interesting to look at the temple Ahu Vinapu with stone sculptures.
One of the most mysterious places is Ahu Akahang a, stone column with four statues. According to legend, this is the tomb of the very first king of the island, Hoto Matua. Therefore, the inhabitants of the island often come here, especially the descendants of the Rapanui people. Tourists, for sure, will also feel the significance historical figure, since Anakena Beach is a designated picnic area, this is the place where he took his first steps on the island of Hoto Matua.
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Tourism on Easter Island
Rich in sights, Easter Island offers its tourists several types of recreation for every taste. The most popular is cruise on cruise ships and yachts. Pacific Ocean perfect place to be alone with water element and marvel at its power. Also, such walks provide an opportunity to view the island from the outside, swimming around it. Another way to appreciate the beauty of Rapa Nui is a five-hour flight by plane, as a result of which you can see many of the island's attractions from a low altitude.
Diving enthusiasts will enjoy diving from rocks or yachts into the ocean depths. Experienced divers will help you get as much fun as possible.
Secrets of Easter Island
Rapa Nui is woven of secrets, besides, modern scientists believe that the civilization that existed here was several heads higher than its contemporaries. The first thing that attracted the attention of researchers on Easter Island was the caves. They played the role of quarries, and nearby were workshops where stone statues were created using a unique technology. Although they are made of soft stone, their shape has been preserved for centuries, and this is a real mystery. After all, scientists have not yet been able to restore the technology of creation.
Another interesting and mysterious fact about Easter Island is that on old maps Rapa Nui depicts other territories. They are also accompanied by legends that the earth is slowly sinking under water. These maps indicate that there were many other islands in the Pacific Ocean and even the mainland, where other highly developed peoples and civilizations lived. Having studied the documents found, scientists were able to assume that the Paschal order still exists and keeps secrets that were known only to the Rapanui.
Where is Easter Island located?
Easter Island is easy to find on the world map, it is located in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, 3515 km from the coast. Rapa Nui and the nearest inhabited island, Pitcairn, are separated by 2075 km. Therefore, the easiest way to get to it is to use the services of airlines. There is one on Easter Island that receives flights from Santiago and Valparaiso.
Hititeairaghi, Rapa Nui, Te Pito-o-te-henua, Tekaouhangoaru are all other names for the territory we know as Easter Island. For most people, Easter Island is associated with something mysterious - and no wonder: it is famous for its huge stone statues lined up along the coast. They stare out at the ocean with painted eyes, and this look is both creepy and mesmerizing. One of the main questions - how did these 10-meter idols get there? - is still unresolved. Tourists flock here in the hope of unraveling the mystery, but they return home hung with souvenirs and ... without an answer.
Easter Island
How to get there
Easter Island is part of Valparaiso, one of the regions of Chile. There are two ways to get to the island, both of which are expensive. The first is on a tourist yacht or cruise ship, which sometimes come here. You can go to independent travel and in a couple of weeks to go to the port.
The second way is by air, the island has an airport that receives flights from the Chilean capital Santiago, Tahiti and Lima. The flight schedule depends on the season: for example, from December to March, flights are operated only once a week. In other months - twice a week. The flight from Santiago takes about 5 hours.
Search for flights to Santiago (nearest airport to Easter Island)
Transport
All the attractions of the island are close to each other, and the territory itself is small. On Easter Island, you can ride a taxi, bike or rent a car. It is almost impossible to get lost on the island, as there are only two roads.
The average cost of renting a car is from 80 USD per day with a full tank of gasoline. By the way, it is better to refuel completely - it will be difficult to do this on the island. Prices on the page are for September 2018.
Easter Island Maps
Easter Island beaches
There are several beaches on Easter Island, but Anakena is the best choice. Locals even warn that they can swim only here. There are several cafes on the sandy beach, and in general the local landscape is somewhat reminiscent of the Black Sea coast: there are stalls with cold water, natives sell sweets and other snacks, the smell of barbecue is in the air. Only instead of the sea - the ocean.
Cuisine and restaurants
There are enough small cafes on the island where you can have a cheap meal. On the menu, you should choose seafood dishes, such as soup or tuna steak. In general, the steaks here are very good - from meat and fish, with potatoes and herbs. Local beer is soft and very pleasant.
Some restaurants are built very close to the water. They stand on stilts, while the owners of the establishment can demolish one of the walls so that visitors can enjoy the view of the ocean.
Easter Island Hotels
The island has the only city where you can stay in a hotel - Hanga Roa. Most tourists prefer mini-hotels, rather than network operators, and yet the cost of living is rather big. The fact is that many goods are imported to the island from the mainland, which increases their price. The most expensive hotel on the island is Explora EN RAPA NUI. There are 30 rooms, a restaurant with an outdoor terrace, a bar, a souvenir boutique, an outdoor pool, a massage parlor, an open-air jacuzzi.
One of the ways to earn money for the inhabitants of the island is to rent out apartments. At the airport, each new plane is met by a crowd of local residents, vying with each other offering accommodation in hotels or in their homes.
There is also a campsite on the island - here you can pitch a tent or rent a very simple room for little money, and with the Internet. To get to the campsite, you need to find a guide at the airport with a sign Mihinoa - this is the name of the place where you will stay.
The shops
Selling souvenirs is one of the main sources of income for the islanders. In shops and shops you can buy idols different sizes, from pocket to 2-3 meters. The main thing is that you can take this piece of wood out of the country to your homeland. Especially popular are the “kawakawa” statues - either a person or a ghost - and, of course, magnets, necklaces, beads, hats, headbands, embroidered shoes.
Entertainment and attractions of Easter Island
Moai
Stone moai are carved from the petrified volcanic ash. It's stylized human figures on short bodies and with elongated heads. The weight of each of the idols reaches almost 20 tons. According to the beliefs of local residents, they contain the supernatural power of the ancestors of the first king of Easter Island - Hotu Matua.
Moai stand along the coast and look at the island. Hundreds of books have been written about the history of their occurrence, films have been made, but there are still no clues. Someone believes that aliens brought them to the island, others are sure that only giant people 3-4 meters tall could make such statues. Another version is that these idols themselves came to the island, but later forgot how to walk and stayed here forever. In total, there are about 900 statues on the island, most of located near Rano Raraku volcano.
Volcanoes
The craters of the volcanoes Rano Kau and Rano Raraku are another attraction of Easter Island. It was from the remains of Rano Raraku that the moai were made. Half-finished statues are scattered in the pit of this volcano. Inside Rano Kau, the view is breathtaking - the crater is filled with rainwater, covered with islands of grass, and the sky is reflected in this giant lake.
Orongo Village
The ceremonial village of Orongo is located on the edge of the Rano Kau crater. Ceremonies dedicated to the bird-man were once held here. In the village you can find many cobblestones on which images of the god Make-Make and the bird-man are carved.
Hanga Roa Church
This Catholic Church known for woodcarving. Looking at it, it seems that the building itself is carved from wood. Craftsmen work here, and on Sundays music services are held.
5 things to do on Easter Island:
- In late January - early February, visit the unique Tapati festival, which probably has no analogues in the world. It takes place in late January or early February. "Tapati" is a cross section of the culture of Easter Island, and not an export version, but a real one. The natives sing, dance and measure their strength.
- Climb to the ceremonial site Te-Pito-te-Khenua, whose name in Rapanui means “navel of the earth”.
- Arrange a romantic picnic in the palm groves of Anakena Bay.
- Come up with your own legend about moai - and then tell it to the locals. They love to listen to versions of how the statues appeared at Easter. You will be listened to attentively, maybe your story will be written down if it is unique, and will be placed in the collected works of tourists.
- Visit the village of Orongo and see numerous petroglyphs with images of birdmen and the god Make-Make. By the way, this island had its own written language - rongo-rongo, which has not yet been deciphered.
Easter Islands amaze, surprise and delight. Dormant volcanoes, sparse vegetation, a boundless ocean and stone statues on the coast made of pressed volcanic ash in the form of a human head with a torso to the waist and a height of about 20 meters. Some have redstone caps on their heads.
The Easter Islands are considered the only place in Polynesia whose inhabitants had their own written language. Most modern scholars argue that the letter of the locals originated on this island and was not brought from anywhere.
How did it happen that the people, about which for many millennia no one knew, did not know, did not hear, had such advanced civilization that he could create his chronicles, as well as statues of such quality that they did not fall apart under the hot tropical sun and could survive to this day. The mystery of Easter Island has not yet been fully revealed.
How exactly Easter Island appeared is still not entirely clear. Scientists put forward different hypotheses - one is more incredible than the other. For example, according to one version, Easter Island is part of Lemuria, which was the ancestral home of all mankind, and for various reasons was flooded with water. Another hypothesis suggests that this island is all that remains of the famous Atlantis. Both versions can be confirmed by the myths of the islanders about the god Uvok, whom people angered so much that he split the earth with his fiery staff.
Tourists often ask where Easter Island is located, how to get there and who inhabits it. In any case, Easter Island now belongs to Chile and is considered the most inhabited island in the world from the continent. Pitcairn Island, the nearest place where people live, is just over two thousand kilometers away, and three and a half to the mainland coast of Chile.
The traveler from Holland Jacobson Roggeveen discovered and discovered the sights of Easter Island in 1722. Since this event took place on Easter Sunday, it did not take long to think about how to name the island. Although they still call it differently. For example, James Cook called him Teapi or Vaihu. Locals call it Rapa Nui (Great Rapa) - the name of Polynesian origin, as it was called by sailors from Tahiti.
Previously, when speaking about the island, the natives mentioned the names, translated from Rapanui meaning - "Navel of the Earth" or "Eyes looking into the sky."
Easter Island itself is shaped like a right triangle with sides 16, 18 and 24 km. In the corner of each are extinct volcanoes, always attracting the attention of tourists. Therefore, it is not surprising that the island itself is of volcanic origin.
The vegetation here is extremely sparse. A tropical forest, which used to cover the entire Easter Island, disappeared from the face of the earth due to irrational human activity, and on this moment(according to botanists) there are no more than 30 plant species on the island.
There are suggestions that several centuries ago (in the 16th-17th centuries) the island was inhabited by 10 to 15 thousand people. Due to constant wars among themselves, flourishing cannibalism, as well as the island ecological disaster, even before the arrival of the first Europeans, the population was reduced to three thousand. There is also a version that the island was inhabited in several stages by two different cultures. One culture was from Polynesia, the other from South America, possibly from Peru.
After Easter Island was discovered, some of the locals fell into slavery and were taken to Peru, some died due to new diseases and epidemics. When in 1888 the territory fell under the rule of Chile, it turned out that Easter Island was inhabited by only 178 inhabitants. According to the latest census, by 2012 the number of inhabitants of the island had increased, and at that time the island was inhabited by almost 6 thousand inhabitants.
stone statues
Easter Island gained its fame primarily due to the ancient, mysterious statues made of volcanic stone, in which, as the natives believe, the supernatural power of their ancestors is located. Peculiar idols are another mystery of Easter Island.
Easter Island idols were made over three centuries - from 1200 to 1500. (there are more early date- the fourth century, but few adhere to this version), after which their production abruptly stopped. Researchers say that everything looks as if people have been developing their skills for centuries, putting the production and transportation of stone Moai on the conveyor - and suddenly, in an instant, they abandoned everything and left, leaving blanks of sculptures, tools that can still be found in found workshops, and throwing ready-made Moai to wallow along the roads along which they were lowered to the coast.
The idols of Easter Island are about 20 meters high and represent human head(some are wearing a hat made of red stone) with a torso. At the same time, Moai look deep into the island.
The question of how the sculptures appeared here immediately arose as soon as James Cook and his team visited the Easter Islands and for the first time saw huge Moai made of stone on the coast, and next to them - the natives who had neither tools nor even their own housing and clothes.
It is worth noting that this mystery is still unsolved, and there are several versions about how they arose.
- The huge statues of Easter Island were created by representatives of ancient civilizations. If one adheres to the theory that the island of Rapa Nui is either the remnants of Lemuria or Atlantis, then it is unlikely that anyone will be surprised by the fact that the ancient masters, who were extremely high level development, had the opportunity to create masterpieces of this level.
- Aliens. There are people who adhere to this version, while it was even mentioned in the film Erich Däniken's "Memories of the Future".
- The statues were created by local residents. In the crater of one of the volcanoes, the researchers found traces of a workshop in which Moai were carved with stone axes and chisels. To confirm this version worldwide famous explorer Thor Heyerdahl conducted an experiment in the middle of the 20th century - he persuaded local residents to make a statue. In just a couple of days, they managed to carve a small figure out of stone, extremely reminiscent of an ancient sculpture. After that, they transported her to the coast, swinging with ropes and alternately moving forward first one, then the second shoulder.
The traveler could not solve the mystery of the statues completely, since this method was suitable only for small statues, and how the Moai weighing 50 tons was moved remained a mystery. He also could not understand how the hats were put on the colossi, each of which weighed about two tons.
How were the colossi transported? Versions
Locals are still convinced that Moai moved independently. According to one hypothesis, they were forced to move by local priests, according to another, they were revived by a sorceress who lived near the volcano. And the statues were no longer carved for a banal reason - the masons, in secret from the witch, ate the lobster and did not treat the sorceress. She became angry and in anger knocked over all the Moai, who at that time managed to reach the coast.
There is another version put forward by scientists. During special studies it was discovered that at the time the Polynesians appeared on Easter Island, there was a real jungle here - it grew great amount trees, bushes and herbs, including palm trees, which are now completely gone. These trees were about 25 meters high, and their diameter was approximately 180 cm.
It was the long trunks of these palm trees, completely devoid of branches, that were ideal for making huge pies out of them and transporting Moai to their destination. Also, with the help of wooden beams, they could move the Moai to the shore.
Writing
In addition to statues, Easter Island is also known for being the only island in Polynesia whose inhabitants had their own written language. On special wooden boards (kohau rongorongo) they wrote down various legends, myths, songs in hieroglyphs. Some records have survived to this day - these are 20 tablets and 11 texts (some records are repeated).
In total, 14 thousand hieroglyphs were found on the available tablets, each of which has from 2 to 2.3 thousand images.
The ancient inhabitants made planks from dark shiny toromiro wood, after which images of lizards, toads, turtles, stars, spirals, etc. were carved on them, you can even recognize a person with wings.
Absolutely all researchers agree that this letter arose precisely here - despite the fact that it is hieroglyphic, it still differs significantly from classical signs. At the same time, the language in which records were kept in former times differs significantly from modern spoken language local residents. Therefore, when scientists tried to decipher the records with the help of the natives, they did not succeed.
Researchers long time struggled to unravel the hieroglyphs, some even managed to partially unravel them, until the American scientist Stephen Fisher accidentally made a discovery. Deciding to just collect full information about writing unknown to anyone, he was able to read what was written and get to the truth.
It turned out that most of the records tell about the creation of all things. It turned out that the tablets that have come down to us are not equivalent in terms of informational value - 15 of them contain 85% of all texts of the ancient language, plus one is a calendar.
It was not possible to decipher absolutely all the surviving tablets, since some of them are so peculiar that they cannot yet be deciphered. Therefore, research ancient civilization definitely not finished yet, and the story of Easter Island is yet to be fully revealed.
