Easter Island is the most remote inhabited piece of land in the world. Its area is only 165.6 square kilometers. Belongs to the island of Chile. But the nearest mainland city of this country, Valparaiso, is 3,703 kilometers away. And other islands nearby, in the eastern part Pacific Ocean, No. The nearest inhabited land is located 1819 kilometers away. This is Pitcairn Island. It is famous for the fact that the rebellious crew of the Bounty ship wanted to stay on it. Lost in the vastness of Easter, it holds many secrets. Firstly, it is not clear where the first people came there from. They could not explain anything to the Europeans about this. But the most mysterious riddles Easter Islands are his stone idols. They are installed throughout coastline. The natives called them moai, but could not clearly explain who they were. In this article, we tried to summarize the results of all recent scientific discoveries in order to unravel the mysteries that shrouded the most remote land plot from civilization.
History of Easter Island
On April 5, 1722, the sailors of a squadron of three ships under the command of the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen saw land on the horizon that had not yet been marked on the map. When they approached east coast islands, they saw that it was inhabited. The natives swam towards them, and they ethnic composition amazed the Dutch. Among them were Caucasians, Negroids and representatives of the Polynesian race. The Dutch were immediately struck by the primitiveness of the technical equipment of the islanders. Their boats were riveted from pieces of wood and leaked water so much that half the people in the canoe bailed it out, while the rest rowed. The landscape of the island was more than dull. Not a single tree towered on it - only rare bushes. Roggeveen wrote in his diary: “The desolate appearance of the island and the exhaustion of the natives suggest the barrenness of the land and extreme poverty.” But most of all the captain was shocked by the stone idols. With such a primitive civilization and meager resources, how did the natives have the strength to carve so many heavy statues from stone and bring them to the shore? The captain had no answer to this question. Since the island was discovered on the day of the Resurrection of Christ, it received the name Easter. But the natives themselves called it Rapa Nui.
Where did the first inhabitants of Easter Island come from?
This is the first riddle. Now over five thousand people live on the 24-kilometer-long island. But when the first Europeans landed on the shore, there were significantly fewer natives. And in 1774, the navigator Cook counted only seven hundred islanders on the island, emaciated from hunger. But at the same time, among the natives there were representatives of all three human races. Many theories have been put forward about the origin of the population of Rapa Nui: Egyptian, Mesoamerican and even completely mythical, that the islanders are survivors of the collapse of Atlantis. But modern DNA analysis shows that the first Rapanui people landed ashore around the year 400 and most likely came from Eastern Polynesia. This is evidenced by their language, which is close to the dialects of the inhabitants of the Marquesas and Hawaiian Islands.
Development and decline of civilization
The first thing that caught the eye of the discoverers were the stone idols of Easter Island. But the earliest sculpture dates back to 1250, and the latest (unfinished, remaining in the quarry) - to 1500. It is not clear how the native civilization developed from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries. Perhaps, at a certain stage, the islanders moved from a tribal society to clan military alliances. Legends (very contradictory and fragmentary) tell of the leader Hotu Matu'a, who was the first to set foot on Rapa Nui and brought all the inhabitants with him. He had six sons, who divided the island after his death. Thus, the clans began to have their own ancestor, whose statue they tried to make larger, more massive and more representative than that of the neighboring tribe. But what was the reason why the Rapa Nui stopped carving and erecting their monuments at the beginning of the sixteenth century? This was discovered only by modern research. And this story can become instructive for all humanity.
Ecological disaster on a small scale
Let's leave aside the idols of Easter Island for now. They were sculpted by the distant ancestors of those wild natives who were found by the expeditions of Roggeveen and Cook. But what influenced the decline of the once rich civilization? After all, the ancient Rapa Nui even had writing. By the way, the texts of the found tablets have not yet been deciphered. Scientists have only recently given an answer to what happened to this civilization. Her death was not quick due to a volcanic eruption, as Cook assumed. She agonized for centuries. Modern studies of soil layers have shown that the island was once covered with lush vegetation. The forests abounded in game. The ancient Rapa Nui people practiced agriculture, growing yams, taro, sugar cane, sweet potatoes and bananas. They went to sea in good boats made from a hollowed-out palm tree trunk and hunted dolphins. DNA analysis of food found on pottery shards indicates that the ancient islanders ate well. And this idyll was destroyed by people themselves. The forests were gradually cut down. The islanders were left without their fleet, and therefore without the meat of ocean fish and dolphins. They have already eaten all the animals and birds. The only food left for the Rapa Nui people was crabs and shellfish, which they collected in shallow waters.
Easter Island: Moai Statues
The natives could not really say anything about how the stone idols weighing several tons were made and, most importantly, how they were delivered to the shore. They called them “moai” and believed that they contained “mana” - the spirit of the ancestors of a certain clan. The more idols, the greater the concentration of supernatural power. And this leads to the prosperity of the clan. Therefore, when in 1875 the French removed one of the Easter Island moai statues to take it to a Paris museum, the Rapa Nui had to be restrained by force of arms. But, as research has shown, about 55% of all idols were not transported to special platforms - “ahu”, but remained standing (many in the stage of primary processing) in a quarry on the slope of the Rano Raraku volcano.
Artistic style
In total, there are more than 900 sculptures on the island. They are classified by scientists chronologically and by style. The early period is characterized stone heads without a torso, with the face turned upward, as well as pillars, where the torso is made in a very stylized manner. But there are also exceptions. Thus, a very realistic figure of a kneeling moai was found. But she remained standing in the ancient quarry. In the Middle Period, the idols of Easter Island became giants. Most likely, the clans competed with each other, trying to show that their mana was more powerful. Artistic decoration in the Middle period is more sophisticated. The bodies of the idols are covered with carvings depicting clothes and wings, and the moai often have huge cylindrical caps made of red tuff placed on their heads.
Transportation
No less a mystery than the Easter Island idols, the secret of their movement to the ahu platforms remained. The natives claimed that the moai themselves came there. The truth turned out to be more prosaic. In the lowest (more ancient) layers of the soil, scientists discovered the remains of an endemic tree that is related to the wine palm. It grew up to 26 meters, and its smooth trunks without branches reached a diameter of 1.8 m. The tree served as an excellent material for rolling sculptures from quarries to the shore, where they were installed on platforms. To hoist the idols, they used ropes that were woven from the bast of the hauhau tree. The environmental disaster also explains the fact why more than half of the sculptures ended up “stuck” in the quarries.
Short-eared and long-eared
Modern residents of Rapa Nui no longer have religious reverence for the moai, but consider them their cultural heritage. In the mid-50s of the last century, a researcher revealed the secret of who created the idols of Easter Island. He noticed that Rapa Nui was inhabited by two types of tribes. One of them had his earlobes lengthened since childhood by wearing heavy jewelry. The leader of this clan, Pedro Atana, told Thor Heyrdal that in their family, the ancestors passed on to their descendants the art of creating the status of moai and transporting them by dragging them to the installation site. This craft was kept secret from the “short-eared” and was passed on orally. At Heyerdahl's request, Atana and numerous assistants from his clan carved a 12-ton statue in a quarry and delivered it upright to the platform.
About the whole process in detail. Let's now turn to the "heads" and go to Easter Island
Easter Island, occupying 117 square meters. km. - : It is located in the Pacific Ocean at a distance of more than 3,700 km. from the nearest continent (South America) and 2600 km from the nearest inhabited island (Pitcairn).
In general, there are many secrets in the history of Easter Island. Its discoverer, Captain Juan Fernandez, fearing competitors, decided to keep his discovery, made in 1578, a secret, and some time later he accidentally died under mysterious circumstances. Although whether what the Spaniard found was Easter Island is still unclear.
144 years later, in 1722, the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen stumbled upon Easter Island, and this event happened on the day of Christian Easter. So, quite by accident, the island of Te Pito o te Henua, which translated from the local dialect means the Center of the World, turned into Easter Island.
It is interesting that Admiral Roggeveen and his squadron not only sailed in this area, he tried in vain to find the elusive land of Davis, an English pirate, which, according to his descriptions, was discovered 35 years before the Dutch expedition. True, no one except Davis and his team saw the newly discovered archipelago again.
In 1687, the pirate Edward Davis, whose ship was carried far to the west from Copiapo, the administrative center of the Atacama region (Chile), by sea winds and the Pacific current, noticed land on the horizon, where silhouettes loomed high mountains. However, without even trying to find out whether it was a mirage or not yet discovered by Europeans island, Davis turned the ship and headed towards the Peruvian Current.
This “Davis Land,” which much later became identified with Easter Island, reinforced the conviction of cosmographers of that time that there was a continent in this region that was, as it were, a counterweight to Asia and Europe. This led to brave sailors searching for the lost continent. However, it was never found: instead, hundreds of islands in the Pacific Ocean were discovered.
With the discovery of Easter Island, it became widely believed that this is the continent eluding man, on which it existed for thousands of years. highly developed civilization, which later disappeared into the depths of the ocean, and only high mountain peaks remained from the continent (in fact, these are extinct volcanoes). The existence of huge statues, moai, and unusual Rapa Nui tablets on the island only reinforced this opinion.
However, modern study of the adjacent waters has shown that this is unlikely.
Easter Island is located 500 km from the ridge of seamounts known as the East Pacific Rise, on the Nazca plate. The island sits on top of a huge mountain formed from volcanic lava. The last volcanic eruption on the island occurred 3 million years ago. Although some scientists suggest that it occurred 4.5-5 million years ago.
According to local legends, in the distant past the island was large sizes. It is quite possible that this was the case during the Pleistocene Ice Age, when the level of the World Ocean was 100 meters lower. According to geological studies, Easter Island was never part of a sunken continent
Easter Island's mild climate and volcanic origins should have made it a paradise away from the problems that beset the rest of the world, but Roggeveen's first impression of the island was that of a devastated area, covered with dried grass and scorched vegetation. Neither trees nor bushes were visible.
Modern botanists have discovered on the island only 47 species of higher plants characteristic of this area; mostly grass, sedge and ferns. The list also includes two species of dwarf trees and two species of shrubs. With such vegetation, the inhabitants of the island had no fuel to keep warm during the cold, wet and windy winter. The only domestic animals were chickens; there were no bats, birds, snakes or lizards. Only insects were found. In total, about 2,000 people lived on the island.
Residents of Easter Island. Engraving from 1860
Now about three thousand people live on the island. Of these, only 150 people are purebred Rapa Nui, the rest are Chileans and mestizos. Although, again, it is not entirely clear who exactly can be considered purebred. After all, even the first Europeans who landed on the island were surprised to discover that the inhabitants of Rapa Nui - the Polynesian name of the island - were ethnically heterogeneous. Admiral Roggeveen, whom we knew, wrote that on the land he discovered there lived white, dark, brown and even reddish people. Their language was Polynesian, belonging to a dialect isolated from about 400 AD. e., and characteristic of the Marquesas and Hawaiian Islands.
Completely inexplicable were about 200 giant stone sculptures - “Moai”, located on massive pedestals along the coast of the island with pathetic vegetation, far from the quarries. Most of the statues were located on massive pedestals. At least 700 more sculptures, in varying degrees of completion, were left in quarries or on ancient roads connecting the quarries with the coast. It seemed as if the sculptors suddenly abandoned their tools and stopped working...
Distant masters carved “moai” on the slopes of the Rano Roraku volcano, located in the eastern part of the island, from soft volcanic tuff. Then the finished statues were lowered down the slope and placed along the perimeter of the island, over a distance of more than 10 km. The height of most idols ranges from five to seven meters, while later sculptures reached 10 and 12 meters. The tuff, or, as it is also called, pumice, from which they are made, has a sponge-like structure and easily crumbles even with a slight impact on it. so the average weight of a “moai” does not exceed 5 tons. Stone ahu - platform-pedestals: reached 150 m in length and 3 m in height, and consisted of pieces weighing up to 10 tons.
At one time, Admiral Roggeveen, recalling his trip to the island, claimed that the aborigines lit fires in front of the “moai” idols and squatted next to them, bowing their heads. After that, they folded their hands and swung them up and down. Of course, this observation is not able to explain who the idols really were for the islanders.
Roggeveen and his companions could not understand how, without using thick wooden rollers and strong ropes, it was possible to move and install such blocks. The islanders had no wheels, no draft animals, and no other source of energy other than their own muscles. Ancient legends say that the statues walked on their own. There is no point in asking how this actually happened, because there is no documentary evidence left anyway. There are many hypotheses about the movement of the “moai”, some are even confirmed by experiments, but all this proves only one thing - it was possible in principle. And the statues were moved by the inhabitants of the island and no one else. So why did they do this? This is where the differences begin.
It is also surprising that in 1770 the statues were still standing. James Cook, who visited the island in 1774, mentioned the lying statues; no one had noticed anything like this before him. The last time the standing idols were seen was in 1830. Then a French squadron entered the island. Since then, no one has seen the original statues, that is, installed by the inhabitants of the island themselves. Everything that exists on the island today was restored in the 20th century. The last restoration of fifteen “moai” located between the Rano Roraku volcano and the Poike Peninsula occurred relatively recently - from 1992 to 1995. Moreover, the Japanese were involved in the restoration work.
In the second half of the 19th century, the cult of the bird man also died. This strange, unique ritual for all of Polynesia was dedicated to Makemaka, the supreme deity of the islanders. The chosen one became his earthly incarnation. Moreover, interestingly, elections were held regularly, once a year. At the same time, servants or warriors took the most active part in them. It depended on them whether their owner, the head of the family clan, would become Tangata-manu, or a bird-man. It is to this ritual that the main cult center, the rock village of Orongo on the largest volcano Rano Kao in the western tip of the island, owes its origin. Although, perhaps, Orongo existed long before the emergence of the cult of Tangata-manu. Legends say that the heir to the legendary Hotu Matua, the first leader to arrive on the island, was born here. In turn, his descendants, hundreds of years later, themselves gave the signal for the start of the annual competition.
In the spring, messengers of the god Makemake - black sea swallows - flew to the small islands of Motu-Kao-Kao, Motu-Iti and Motu-Nui, located not far from the coast. The warrior who was the first to find the first egg of these birds and swim it to his master received seven beautiful women as a reward. Well, the owner became a leader, or rather, a bird-man, receiving universal respect, honor and privileges. The last Tangata Manu ceremony took place in the 60s years XIX century. After the disastrous pirate raid of the Peruvians in 1862, when the pirates took the entire male population of the island into slavery, there was no one left to choose the bird-man.
Why did the Easter Island natives carve moai statues in a quarry? Why did they stop this activity? The society that created the statues must have been significantly different from the 2,000 people Roggeveen saw. It had to be well organized. What happened to him?
For more than two and a half centuries, the mystery of Easter Island remained unsolved. Most theories about the history and development of Easter Island are based on oral traditions. This happens because no one still can understand what is written in written sources - the famous tablets “ko hau motu mo rongorongo”, which roughly means a manuscript for recitation. Most they were destroyed by Christian missionaries, but those that survived could probably shed light on the history of this mysterious island. And although the scientific world has more than once been excited by reports that ancient writings have finally been deciphered, upon careful verification, all this turned out to be a not very accurate interpretation of oral facts and legends
Several years ago, paleontologist David Steadman and several other researchers carried out the first systematic study of Easter Island in order to find out what its plant life and fauna. The result was evidence for a new, surprising and instructive interpretation of the history of its settlers.
According to one version, Easter Island was settled around 400 AD. e. (although radiocarbon dating data obtained by scientists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo from the University of California (USA) during a study of eight samples of charcoal from Anakena indicate that Rapa Nui island was settled around 1200 AD. e.,) The islanders grew bananas, taro, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, and mulberries. In addition to chickens, there were also rats on the island, which arrived with the first settlers.
The period of production of the statues dates back to 1200-1500. The number of inhabitants by that time ranged from 7,000 to 20,000 people. To lift and move the statue, several hundred people were enough, who used ropes and rollers from trees, which were available in sufficient quantities at that time.
The painstaking work of archaeologists and paleontologists has shown that approximately 30,000 years before the arrival of people and in the first years of their stay, the island was not at all as deserted as it is now. A subtropical forest of trees and undergrowth rose above the shrubs, grasses, ferns and turf. The forest contained tree daisies, hauhau trees, which can be used to make ropes, and toromiro, which is useful as fuel. There were also varieties of palm trees that are not now on the island, but formerly there were so many of them that the base of the trees was densely covered with their pollen. They are related to the Chilean palm, which grows up to 32 m and has a diameter of up to 2 m. Tall, branchless trunks were ideal material for skating rinks and canoe construction. They also provided edible nuts and juice from which Chileans make sugar, syrup, honey and wine.
The relatively cold coastal waters provided fishing in only a few places. The main marine prey were dolphins and seals. To hunt them, they went out into the open sea and used harpoons. Before the arrival of people, the island was an ideal place for birds, because they did not have any enemies here. Albatrosses, gannets, frigate birds, fulmars, parrots and other birds nested here - 25 species in total. It was probably the richest nesting site in the entire Pacific Ocean.
Around the 800s, forest destruction began. Layers of charcoal from forest fires began to appear more and more often, tree pollen became less and less, and pollen from grasses that replaced the forest appeared more and more. No later than 1400, the palm trees disappeared completely, not only as a result of cutting down, but also because of the ubiquitous rats, which did not give them the opportunity to recover: a dozen surviving remains of nuts preserved in the caves showed signs of being chewed by rats. Such nuts could not germinate. The hauhau trees did not disappear completely, but there were no longer enough of them to make ropes.
In the 15th century, not only the palm trees disappeared, but the entire forest disappeared. It was destroyed by people who cleared areas for gardens, cut down trees to build canoes, to make skating rinks for sculptures, and for heating. The rats ate the seeds. It is likely that the birds died out due to polluted flowers and decreased fruit yields. The same thing happened that happens everywhere in the world where forests are destroyed: most of the forest inhabitants disappear. All species of local birds and animals have disappeared on the island. All coastal fish were also caught. Small snails were used as food. From the diet of people by the 15th century. the dolphins disappeared: there was nothing to go out to sea on, and there was nothing to make harpoons from. It came down to cannibalism.
The paradise that opened to the first settlers became almost lifeless 1600 years later. Fertile soils, an abundance of food, plenty of building materials, sufficient living space, and all opportunities for a comfortable existence were destroyed. At the time of Heyerdahl's visit to the island, there was only a toromiro tree on the island; now he is no longer there.
It all started with the fact that several centuries after arriving on the island, people began, like their Polynesian ancestors, to install stone idols on platforms. Over time, the statues became larger; their heads began to be decorated with red 10-ton crowns; the spiral of competition was unwinding; Rival clans tried to outdo each other with displays of health and strength like the Egyptians building their giant pyramids. On the island, as in modern America, there was a complex political system distribution of available resources and integration of the economy in various areas.
An 1873 engraving from the English newspaper Harper Weekly. The engraving is signed: “Easter Island Stone Idols Festival Dancing Tatoos.”
The ever-growing population depleted the forests faster than they could regenerate; vegetable gardens took up more and more space; the soil, devoid of forests, springs and streams dried up; the trees that were spent on transporting and lifting the statues, as well as on building canoes and dwellings, were not enough even for cooking. As birds and animals were destroyed, famine set in. The fertility of arable lands decreased due to wind and rain erosion. Droughts have begun. Intensive chicken breeding and cannibalism did not solve the food problem. The statues, prepared for moving, with sunken cheeks and visible ribs, are evidence of the onset of hunger.
With food scarce, the islanders could no longer support the chiefs, bureaucracy, and shamans who administered the society. The surviving islanders told the first Europeans to visit them how the centralized system had been replaced by chaos and the warlike class had defeated the hereditary leaders. The stones appeared to depict spears and daggers made by the warring parties in the 1600s and 1700s; They are still scattered throughout Easter Island. By 1700 the population was between a quarter and a tenth of its former size. People moved into caves to hide from their enemies. Around 1770, rival clans began knocking over each other's statues and cutting off their heads. The last statue was toppled and desecrated in 1864.
As the picture of the decline of the civilization of Easter Island appeared before the researchers, they asked themselves: “Why didn’t they look back, didn’t realize what was happening, didn’t stop until it was too late?” What were they thinking when they cut down the last palm tree?
Most likely, the disaster did not occur suddenly, but stretched out over several decades. The changes occurring in nature were not noticeable for one generation. Only old people, looking back on their childhood years, could realize what was happening and understand the threat posed by the destruction of forests, but the ruling class and stonemasons, afraid of losing their privileges and jobs, treated the warnings in the same way as today's loggers in the northwestern United States: “Work is more important than forest!”
The trees gradually became smaller, thinner and less significant. Once upon a time, the last fruit-bearing palm was cut off, and the young shoots were destroyed along with the remains of bushes and undergrowth. No one noticed the death of the last young palm tree.
The flora of the island is very poor: experts count no more than 30 species of plants growing on Rapa Nui. Most of them were brought from other islands of Oceania, America, and Europe. Many plants that were previously widespread on Rapa Nui have been exterminated. Between the 9th and 17th centuries there was active cutting down of trees, which led to the disappearance of forests on the island (probably before that, palm trees of the species Paschalococos disperta grew on it). Another reason was rats eating tree seeds. Due to irrational human economic activities and other factors, the resulting accelerated soil erosion caused enormous damage to agriculture, as a result of which the population of Rapa Nui decreased significantly.
One of the extinct plants is Sophora toromiro, whose local name is toromiro (rap. toromiro). This plant on the island in the past played an important role in the culture of the Rapa Nui people: “talking tablets” with local pictograms were made from it.
The trunk of the toromiro, with a diameter of a human thigh and thinner, was often used in the construction of houses; spears were also made from it. In the 19th-20th centuries, this tree was exterminated (one of the reasons was that the young shoots were destroyed by sheep brought to the island).
Another plant on the island is the mulberry tree, whose local name is mahute. In the past, this plant also played a significant role in the life of the islanders: white clothing called tapa was made from the bast of the mulberry tree. After the arrival of the first Europeans on the island - whalers and missionaries - the importance of mahute in the life of the Rapanui people decreased.
The roots of the ti plant, or Dracaena terminalis, were used to make sugar. This plant was also used to make dark blue and green powder, which was then applied to the body as tattoos.
Makoi (rap. makoi) (Thespesia populnea) was used for carving.
One of the island's surviving plants, which grows on the slopes of the Rano Kao and Rano Raraku craters, is Scirpus californicus, used in the construction of houses.
In recent decades, small growths of eucalyptus have begun to appear on the island. In the 18th-19th centuries, grapes, bananas, melons, and sugar cane were brought to the island.
Before the arrival of Europeans on the island, the fauna of Easter Island was mainly represented by marine animals: seals, turtles, crabs. Until the 19th century, chickens were bred on the island. Species of the local fauna that previously inhabited Rapa Nui have become extinct. For example, the rat species Rattus exulans, which was used as food by local residents in the past. Instead, rats of the species Rattus norvegicus and Rattus rattus were brought to the island by European ships, which became carriers of various diseases previously unknown to the Rapanui people.
Currently, the island is home to 25 species of seabirds and 6 species of land birds.
The statistics for moai are as follows. The total number of moai is 887. The number of moai that are installed on Ahu pedestals is 288 (32 percent of total number). The number of moai that stand on the slopes of the Rano Raraku volcano, where the moai carving quarry was located, is 397 (45 percent of the total). The number of moai that lie scattered throughout the island is 92 (10 percent of the total). Moai have different heights - from 4 to 20 meters. The largest of them stand alone on the slope of the Rano Raraku volcano. They are neck-deep in sediment that has accumulated on the island over the long history of this piece of land. Some moai stood on stone pedestals called ahu by the natives. The number of ahu exceeds three hundred. The size of ahu also varies - from several tens of meters to two hundred meters. The largest moai, nicknamed "El Gigante", is 21.6 meters high. It is located in the Rano Raraku quarry and weighs approximately 145-165 tons. The largest moai standing on a pedestal is located on ahu Te Pito Kura. He has the nickname Paro, his height is about 10 meters, and his weight is about 80 tons.
Mysteries of Easter Island.
Easter Island is full of mysteries. Everywhere on the island you can see entrances to caves, stone platforms, grooved alleys leading directly to the ocean, huge statues, and signs on stones.
One of the main mysteries of the island, which has haunted several generations of travelers and researchers, remains completely unique stone statues - moai. These are stone idols of various sizes - from 3 to 21 meters. On average, the weight of one statue is from 10 to 20 tons, but among them there are real colossi weighing from 40 to 90 tons.
The glory of the island began with these stone statues. It was completely incomprehensible how they could appear on an island lost in the ocean with sparse vegetation and a “wild” population. Who hewed them out, dragged them to the shore, placed them on specially made pedestals and crowned them with weighty headdresses?
The statues have an extremely strange appearance - they have very large heads with heavy protruding chins, long ears and no legs at all. Some have red stone “caps” on their heads. To which human tribe did those whose portraits remained on the island in the form of moai belong? A pointed, raised nose, thin lips, slightly protruded as if in a grimace of mockery and contempt. Deep grooves under the brow ridges, a large forehead - who are they?
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Some statues have necklaces carved in stone, or tattoos made with a chisel. The face of one of the stone giants is riddled with holes. Perhaps in ancient times, the sages who lived on the island, studying the movement of the heavenly bodies, tattooed their faces with a map of the starry sky?
The eyes of the statues look to the sky. Into the sky - the same as when centuries ago, a new homeland opened up for those who sailed over the horizon?
In former times, the islanders were convinced that the moai protected their land and themselves from evil spirits. All standing moai face the island. Incomprehensible as time, they are immersed in silence. These are mysterious symbols of a bygone civilization.
It is known that the sculptures were carved from volcanic lava at one end of the island, and then the finished figures were carried along three main roads to the sites of ceremonial plinths - ahu - scattered along the coastline. The largest ahu, now destroyed, was 160 m long, and on its central platform, about 45 m long, there were 15 statues.
The vast majority of statues lie unfinished in quarries or along ancient roads. Some of them are frozen in the depths of the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano, some go beyond the crest of the volcano and seem to be heading towards the ocean. Everything seemed to stop at one moment, engulfed in a whirlwind of an unknown cataclysm. Why did the sculptors suddenly stop working? Everything was left in place - stone axes, unfinished statues, and stone giants, as if frozen on the path in their movement, as if people simply left their work for a minute and were never able to return to it.
Some statues, previously installed on stone platforms, have been toppled and split. The same applies to stone platforms - hoo.
The construction of the ahu required no less effort and skill than the creation of the statues themselves. It was necessary to make blocks and form them into an even pedestal. The density with which the bricks fit together is amazing. Why the first axy were built (their age is about 700-800 years) is still unclear. Subsequently, they were often used as burial places and perpetuating the memory of leaders.
Excavations carried out on several sections of ancient roads, along which the islanders supposedly carried multi-ton statues (sometimes over a distance of more than 20 kilometers), showed that all the roads clearly bypassed flat areas. The roads themselves are V- or U-shaped hollows about 3.5 meters wide. In some areas there are long connecting fragments, shaped like curbstones. In some places, pillars dug outside the curbs are clearly visible - perhaps they served as a support for some kind of device like a lever. Scientists have not yet established the exact date of construction of these roads, however, according to researchers, the process of moving the statues was completed on Easter Island around 1500 BC.
Another mystery: simple calculations show that over hundreds of years a small population could not carve, transport and install even half of the existing statues. Ancient wooden tablets with carved writings were found on the island. Most of them were lost during the conquest of the island by Europeans. But some signs have survived. The letters went from left to right, and then in the reverse order - from right to left. It took a long time to decipher the signs written on them. And only at the beginning of 1996 in Moscow it was announced that all 4 surviving text tablets had been deciphered. It is curious that in the language of the islanders there is a word denoting slow movement without the help of legs. Levitation? Was this fantastic method used when transporting and installing the moai?
And one more mystery. Old maps around Easter Island show other areas. Oral traditions tell of the land slowly sinking under water. Other legends tell of catastrophes: about the fiery staff of the god Uvok, which split the earth. Couldn’t larger islands or even an entire continent with a highly developed culture and technology have existed here in ancient times? They even came up with the beautiful name Pasifida for it.
Some scientists suggest that there is still a certain clan (order) of Easter people that preserves the secrets of their ancestors and hides them from the uninitiated in ancient knowledge.
Easter Island has many names:
Hititeairagi (rap. Hititeairagi), or Hiti-ai-rangi (rap. Hiti-ai-rangi);
Tekaouhangoaru (rap. Tekaouhangoaru);
Mata-Kiterage (rap. Mata-Kiterage - translated from Rapanui “eyes looking into the sky”);
Te-Pito-te-henua (rap. Te-Pito-te-henua - “navel of the earth”);
Rapa Nui (Rapa Nui - "Great Rapa"), a name mainly used by whalers;
San Carlos Island, named by Gonzalez Don Felipe in honor of the King of Spain;
Teapi (rap. Teapi) - that’s what James Cook called the island;
Vaihu (rap. Vaihu), or Vaihou (rap. Vaihou), - this name was also used by James Cook, and later by Forster Johann Georg Adam and La Perouse Jean Francois de Galo (a bay in the northeast of the island was named in his honor);
Easter Island, so named by the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen because he discovered it on Easter Day 1722. Very often, Easter Island is called Rapa Nui (translated as “Big Rapa”), although it is not of Rapanui, but of Polynesian origin. This
The island received its name thanks to Tahitian navigators, who used it to distinguish between Easter Island and Rapa Island, which lies 650 km south of Tahiti. The very name "Rapa Nui" has caused a lot of controversy among linguists about the correct spelling of this word. Among
English-speaking specialists use the word “Rapa Nui” (2 words) to name the island, the word “Rapanui” (1 word) when talking about the people or local culture.
Easter Island is a province within the Chilean region of Valparaiso, headed by a governor accredited to the Chilean government and appointed by the president. Since 1984, only a local resident can become the governor of the island (the first was Sergio Rapu Haoa, a former archaeologist and museum curator). Administratively, the province of Easter Island includes the uninhabited islands of Sala y Gomez. Since 1966, the settlement of Hanga Roa has elected a local council of 6 members, headed by a mayor, every four years.
There are about two dozen police officers on the island, mainly responsible for security at the local airport.
The Chilean armed forces (mainly the Navy) are also present. The current currency on the island is the Chilean peso (US dollars are also in circulation on the island). Easter Island is a duty-free zone, so tax revenues to the island's budget are relatively small. It largely consists of government subsidies.
colossus (height 6 m) after excavations Easter Island (after: Heyerdahl, 1982
By the way, this is a prop thrown into the sea during the filming of another film on the island. So there were no underwater statues.
Here's another theory of what it should look like.
Statues of Easter Island (Chile) - description, history, location. Exact address, phone number, website. Tourist reviews, photos and videos.
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Chile has the amazing island of Rapa Nui in the South Pacific Ocean, 3514 km away from the mainland. Easter Island, as it is also called, is known primarily for its moai - stone statues from compressed volcanic ash.
Riddles of the Easter Island idols
According to the legends of the few inhabitants of the island, in stone sculptures contains the power of the ancestors of the first king of Easter Island - Hotu Matua. Then the inhabitants of the island worshiped God Make-make, who, according to Rapa Nui mythology, created man. This is how the cult of bird-men, or tangata-manu, appeared.
Many moai are, as we would say now, sculptural busts depicting a head on a long pedestal, ranging from 3 to 20 m in height, most often located along the perimeter of the island. However, the most famous type of moai is not the only one; 4 types of statues from an earlier period are known. Some statues have preserved cylinders-“caps” made of red stone.
One of these cylinders is 7.6 m in circumference and 2.18 m in height.
During the research, it was discovered that the moai were made in quarries in the center of the island, where unfinished statues still remain. But how they ended up on the coast is a question that has given rise to controversy and various versions. Aboriginal legend says that they “walked” on their own, that is, they moved in an upright position. Thor Heyerdahl, who visited Easter Island in 1955-1956, communicating with local tribes, revealed the secret of making moai. At his request, the locals re-established the process of carving the statue out of stone in the middle of the island and moving it to the coast. Many moai, which were destroyed in the mid-20th century by ignorant Europeans trying to find Inca treasures in the core of the statues, have been partially restored.
Legends of Easter Island
Until the mid-20th century, there was a popular theory about the creation of the moai by settlers from Polynesia, but the Norwegian Thor Heirdal established that the creators of the mystical statues were the endangered indigenous tribe of the “long-ears”. They passed on the secrets of making statues from mouth to mouth even in those days when moai had already ceased to be created.
The foot of the Rano Raraku volcano is a site where 300 moai are lined up, like army warriors, distinguished by their height, size, and frozen facial expression. Near the bay on the ahu Tongariki, the largest ritual platform, 15 installed giants stand majestically.
On Easter Island, a big holiday is held annually with chants and competitions, the goal of one of which is to climb onto a reef sticking out of the water, find an egg there and deliver it unharmed to the island. It is implied that the egg belongs to the bird-man. In fact, these are fossilized eggs of large birds.
Mysterious Easter Island
All the 300 years that have passed since that moment, scientists and researchers have been trying to find out all the secrets of the Rapa Nui civilization that once lived on the territory of this island and answer the question: who built these monuments?
Many researchers who studied these statues came to the conclusion that the local residents could not, in such isolation (the island is located in the middle of the ocean), obtain knowledge that would be sufficient to create such monuments. Moreover, similar statues (they are called moai) were found during excavations in Tiahuanaco (Bolivia) and in the Marquesas Islands (Polynesia).
So, Easter Island is one of the most remote islands from land in the world...
- The island's territories are located almost 4000 km from the coast South America, in the southeastern Pacific Ocean
- The area of the island is 163.6 sq. km, on which about 5,000 people live today
- The bulk of the population lives in the capital of the island - the city of Hanga Roa. It is the only city on the island, where there are also 2 other small settlements: Mataveri and Moeroa
Easter Island - highest point above sea level in a huge elevation called the East Pacific Rise.
Local legends claim that Easter Island was once just part of one big country(many consider it the remaining part). It is noteworthy that the legend looks plausible, since today on the island you can find a lot of evidence of this legend: roads that lead straight to the ocean, many underground tunnels, which begin in local caves and lead to an unknown direction and other facts.
Who built the Easter Island idols?
Since the discovery of the island, scientists from all over the world have put forward hypotheses about how local residents could build the statues without modern technology and how they transported such massive stone blocks from the quarry (which is located 7 km from the location of the statues). After all, the population of the island, even during its heyday, did not exceed 4,000 people.
There are a total of 887 monolithic statues on the island. The height of the moai ranges from 4 to 20 meters, some of them are placed on stone pedestals, the largest are immersed in the soil near the Rano Raraku volcano. Some statues have a “headdress” - stone caps. The largest of the Easter Island idols is 21.6 m high, its weight, according to experts, is about 160 tons.
Slightly less than half of the statues (394 pieces) remained in the quarry. Some of them lie there unfinished, some are installed on the site on the slopes of the crater. All these statues were not completely cut down, as if something prevented this from being done. They are still there, awaiting their transportation.
Recently, archaeologists stunned the world community by unearthing one of the statues. It turned out that each statue has a “body” that is hidden underground. Unknown petroglyphs were discovered on the “torsos” of the Easter Island idols, the meaning of which is still unknown.
Many researchers, having learned about the discovery, suggested that the statues were buried up to neck level as a result of a powerful tsunami that hit the island during the Great Flood. The water brought with it destruction and dirt, which subsequently hid the bodies of the moai deep into the soil.
But who built these statues? Undoubted proof that this was done by a highly developed civilization are the platforms on which the statues stand. Or rather, an incomprehensible method of making them. They are built on the principle of polygonal masonry, when huge massive blocks of stone are perfectly adjusted to each other and laid without the use of any binder (mortar, cement, etc.). Such masonry can be observed in the pyramid complex in Giza (Egypt), and other megalithic structures, which are increasingly opening every year in various parts of the planet.
Local legends say that the statues were moved by the power of “mana” - the thoughts of the people who built them. The ancient architects, according to legend, used some kind of Te Pito Kura stone, which allowed them to concentrate their energy and move huge objects through the air.
During excavations on Easter Island, the famous Norwegian anthropologist T. Heyerdahl in 1987 unearthed a massive wall of megalith stones at a depth of several meters. He was surprised, since the technology for making these blocks was identical to the one he saw in the Machu Picchu complex and.
A researcher from the USA, J. Chechward, suggested that the builders of these monuments used such advanced technologies that they were tens and hundreds of times superior to modern ones. He suggested that the Easter Island idols moved ready-made due to the use of anti-gravity. This allowed a civilization that modern historians estimate disappeared more than 20,000 years ago to create such massive structures and move huge objects with ease.
In 1722, a Dutch ship led by Jacob Roggeveen arrived on an island located three thousand kilometers west of the coast of South America. Easter was celebrated on this day, so it was decided to name the island Easter Island. Now this island is known throughout the world. Its main asset is the moai, statues scattered throughout the island and unique in all human culture.
According to Roggeveen’s description, local residents lit fires in front of the statues in the evenings and sat in a circle, praying. At the same time, the lifestyle of the inhabitants corresponded to the primitive one. They lived in small huts made of reeds, slept on mats, and used stones instead of pillows. They cooked food on hot stones. Seeing their way of life, the Dutch could not believe that these people could build stone giants. They even made a proposal that the moai were made not of stone, but of clay sprinkled with stones. Roggeveen spent only a day on the island, so no qualitative research was carried out.
The next time Europeans came here was in 1770. The Spanish expedition of Felipe Gonzalez immediately assigned the island to Spain. The expedition saw that the statues were made of stone. They even expressed doubts that the moai were made on this island and not brought from the mainland.
This was followed by the expeditions of Cook and La Perouse. Cook noted high level skills of ancient engineers. Cook was surprised how ancient people without serious technology were able to install such giants on stone pedestals. He also noticed that some of the statues were overturned face down, and it was noticeable that the cause of this was not natural destruction.
Together with Cook, a Polynesian who understood the language of the Easter Islanders landed on the island. They found out that these statues were erected not in honor of the gods, but for representatives of local authorities of distant times. Modern researchers also come to the same opinion.
Research of our era
European discoveries did not pass without a trace for the inhabitants of the island. The removal of Aboriginal objects and valuables to museums around the world began. Much of this heritage was destroyed. Therefore, researchers of the 20th century faced many questions, and only grains of history were given to resolve them. The task was not easy.
The first serious study of the moai on Easter Island was carried out in 1914-1915 by an Englishwoman, Katherine Rutledge. She compiled a map of the island with the Rano Raraku volcano, where most of the colossi were carved, paths from the volcano to platforms with installed statues, about 400 statues.
The next development of events is associated with the name of Thor Heyerdahl. The scientific community was faced with the breadth of the problem. There were many problems and questions, some of which have not been answered to this day.
Secrets and numbers
The moai of Easter Island were erected from the 10th to the 16th centuries. The creation of huge megalithic statues was common throughout the world in the early stages of the development of civilizations, so it is not surprising that the idea of creating the moai could have originated here.
In total, about 1000 remains of statues made in the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano were discovered. Most of them remained lying here. The largest of them, a 19-meter giant, also lies here. Several statues were produced at the same time, so among the abandoned works one can trace all the stages of making the moai.
The work began with the face. Next, the treatment spread to the sides, ears, and hands on the stomach. The figures were made without legs, like a long bust. When the back was freed from the rock, the workers began delivering the idol to the base. Along this path, many destroyed statues were found that did not survive the road.
At the foot of the statues were installed in a vertical position, and they were refined and decorated. After this stage, another transportation awaited them.
383 statues managed to escape beyond the volcano. Here they were installed on platforms from two to 15 at a time. The height of the statues here reaches 8 meters. In the old days, the heads of idols were covered with pukao, imitating red hair. The first visitors from Europe found them standing in pukao. The last giant was toppled in 1840.
The issue regarding the delivery method was also resolved. Thus, towing of megaliths in other nations was carried out by human power using ropes and sleighs with rotating rollers. Such videos were also found on Easter Island, which once again confirmed this assumption.
At the moment, most of the monuments have been reinstalled on platforms and continue to look out over the ocean. Moai are truly a unique structure in the whole world and continue to delight and surprise visitors to the island.
