Stone idols of Easter Island. Easter Island and its silent idols
On Easter Island there are mysterious giants called "moai" in the local language. They rise silently on the shore, lining up and looking towards the shore. These giants are like an army defending their domain. Despite the simplicity of the figures, moai are fascinating. These statues look especially powerful in the rays of the setting sun, when only huge silhouettes appear ...
The location of the Easter Island statues:
Giants are on one of the most unusual islands of our planet - Easter. It has the shape of a triangle with sides of 16, 24, and 18 kilometers. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it is thousands of miles away from the nearest civilized country (the nearest neighbor is 3,000 km away). The locals belong to three different races - blacks, reds and, finally, completely white people.
The island is now a small piece of land - only 165 square meters, but at the time of the erection of the statues, Easter Island was 3 or even 4 times larger. Some part of it, like Atlantis, went under water. In good weather, some areas of flooded land are visible at depth. There is an absolutely incredible version: the progenitor of all mankind - the continent of Lemuria - sank 4 million years ago, and Easter Island is its tiny surviving part.
Stone statues stand by the Pacific Ocean along the entire coast, they are located on special sites, locals call these pedestals "ahu".
Not all of the statues have survived to this day, some have been completely destroyed, others have been knocked down. Many statues have survived - there are more than a thousand figures. They are not the same size and differ in thickness. The smallest are 3 meters long. Large ones weigh 80 tons and reach 17 meters in height. All have very large heads with a heavy protruding chin, short necks, long ears and no legs at all. Some have “hats” made of stone on their heads. All facial features are the same - a somewhat gloomy expression, with low foreheads and tightly compressed lips.
About the whole process in detail. Let's now turn to the "heads" and go to Easter Island
Easter Island, covering 117 sq. km. -: it is located in the Pacific Ocean at a distance of over 3700 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 find made in 1578 a secret, and after some time 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 Roggeven stumbled upon Easter Island, and this event took place on the day of Christian Easter. So, quite by accident, the island of Te Pito about those Henois, which in translation from the local dialect means the Center of the World, turned into Easter Island.
It is interesting that Admiral Roggeven with his squadron did not just sail in the 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 for Davis and his team, has ever seen the newly discovered archipelago.
In 1687, the pirate Edward Davis, whose ship was carried away to the west of Copiapo, the administrative center of the Atacama region (Chile), by sea winds and the Pacific current, noticed the land on the horizon, where the silhouettes of high mountains loomed. However, without even trying to find out whether it was a mirage or an island not yet discovered by the Europeans, Davis turned the ship and headed towards the Peruvian current.
This "Davis Land", which much later began to be identified with Easter Island, reinforced the conviction of the cosmographers of that time that there was a continent in this region that was, as it were, a counterbalance to Asia and Europe. This led to the fact that brave sailors began to search 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 escaping from man, on which a highly developed civilization existed for millennia, which later disappeared into the depths of the ocean, and only high mountain peaks survived from the continent (in fact, these are extinct volcanoes ). The existence of huge statues on the island, moai, unusual Rapanui tablets only confirmed this opinion.
However, modern study of the adjacent waters has shown that this is unlikely.
Easter Island is located 500 km from a range of seamounts known as the East Pacific Rise on the Nazca lithospheric 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 happened 4.5-5 million years ago.
According to local legends, in the distant past, the island was large. 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 research, Easter Island has never been part of a sunken continent.
Easter Island's mild climate and volcanic origins should have made it a haven of paradise, away from the problems plaguing the rest of the world, but Roggeven's first impression of the island was like a desolate area covered with dried grass and scorched vegetation. There were no trees or bushes to be seen.
Modern botanists have found on the island only 47 species of higher plants characteristic of this area; mainly grass, sedge and ferns. The list also includes two types of dwarf trees and two types of shrubs. With such vegetation, the inhabitants of the island had no fuel to keep warm in the cold, wet and windy winters. The only domestic animals were chickens; there were no bats, birds, snakes or lizards. Only insects were found. In total, about 2000 people lived on the island.
Inhabitants of Easter Island. 1860 engraving
Now about three thousand people live on the island. Of these, only 150 people are purebred Rapanui, the rest are Chileans and mestizos. Although, again, it is not entirely clear who exactly can be considered purebred. Indeed, even the first Europeans who landed on the island were surprised to find that the inhabitants of Rapanui - the Polynesian name of the island - are ethnically heterogeneous. Our acquaintance, Admiral Roggeven, wrote that white, swarthy, brown and even reddish people lived on the land he discovered. Their language was Polynesian, a dialect that had been isolated since about 400 AD. e., and characteristic of the Marquesas and Hawaiian Islands.
It seemed completely inexplicable about 200 giant stone statues - "Moai", located on massive pedestals along the coast of the island with miserable vegetation, far from the quarries. Most of the statues were located on massive plinths. At least 700 more sculptures, in varying degrees of completion, were left in quarries or on ancient roads connecting the quarries with the coast. One got the impression that the sculptors suddenly abandoned their tools and stopped working ..
Distant craftsmen 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, at a distance of more than 10 km. The height of most of the idols is from five to seven meters, while the later sculptures reached both 10 and 12 meters. Tuff, or, as it is also called, pumice, from which they are made, resembles a sponge in 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: they reached 150 m in length and 3 m in height, and consisted of pieces weighing up to 10 tons.
At one time, Admiral Roggeven, recalling his journey to the island, argued that the natives made fires in front of the "moai" idols and squatted next to them, bowing their heads. Then they folded their arms and swung them up and down. Of course, this observation is not able to explain who the idols really were for the islanders.
Roggeven 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 for the movement of "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. What did they do it for? This is where the discrepancies 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 standing idols were last seen 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 took place relatively recently - from 1992 to 1995. Moreover, the Japanese were engaged in the restoration work.
In the second half of the 19th century, the cult of the bird-man also died. This strange, unique for the whole of Polynesia, rite was dedicated to Makemake - the supreme deity of the islanders. The Chosen One became his earthly incarnation. And, interestingly, the elections were held regularly, once a year. At the same time, servants or soldiers took the most active part in them. It depended on them whether their master, the head of the family clan, Tangata-manu, or a bird-man. It is to this rite that the main cult center, the rocky 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 Tangata-manu cult. 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, the 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 deliver it by swimming 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 of the XIX century. After the disastrous pirate raid of the Peruvians in 1862, when pirates took the entire male population of the island into slavery, there was no one and no one to choose the bird-man.
Why did the natives of Easter Island carve the "moai" statues in the quarry? Why did they stop doing this? The society that created the statues had to be significantly different from the 2,000 people Roggeven 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 tradition. This happens because no one still can understand what is written in written sources - the famous tablets "ko hau motu mor rongorongo", which roughly means - a manuscript for recitation. Most of them 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 repeatedly been agitated by reports that the ancient writings have finally been deciphered, upon careful verification, all this turned out to be not a 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 flora and fauna were like in the past. The result was data for a new, surprising and instructive interpretation of the history of its settlers.
According to one version, Easter Island was inhabited around 400 AD. NS. (although radiocarbon data obtained by scientists Terry Hunt and Karl Lipo of the University of California, USA, during the study of eight samples of charcoal from Anakena, indicate that Rapa Nui was inhabited around 1200 A.D. ) The islanders grew bananas, taro, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, mulberry. In addition to chickens, there were also rats on the island, who arrived with the first settlers.
The period of making 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 are enough, who used ropes and rollers from trees, which were available at that time in sufficient quantities.
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 small forests towered over shrubs, grasses, ferns and sod. The forest was home to tree daisies, hauhau trees, which could be used to make ropes, and toromiro, which was useful as fuel. There were also varieties of palm trees, which are now not on the island, but before there were so many that the foot of the trees was densely covered with their pollen. They are related to the Chilean palm tree, which grows up to 32 m and up to 2 m in diameter. Tall, without branches, the trunks were ideal material for ice rinks and canoes. 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. Dolphins and seals were the main marine prey. To hunt them, they went out into the open sea and used harpoons. Before the arrival of humans, the island was an ideal place for birds, since they did not have any enemies here. Albatrosses, gannets, frigates, fulmars, parrots and other birds - 25 species in total - were nesting here. It was probably the richest breeding ground in the entire Pacific Ocean.
The destruction of forests began around the 800s. More and more often, layers of charcoal from forest fires began to occur, there was less and less wood pollen and more and more pollen from grasses that replaced the forest. Not later than 1400, the palm trees disappeared completely, not only as a result of felling, but also because of the ubiquitous rats, which did not give them the opportunity to recover: a dozen surviving remains of nuts preserved in caves had traces of gnawing by rats. Such nuts could not germinate. Hauchau trees did not disappear completely, but they were no longer enough to make the ropes.
In the 15th century, not only palm trees disappeared, but the entire forest as a whole. It was destroyed by people who cleared areas for gardens, cut down trees to build canoes, to make rollers for sculptures, for heating. The rats ate the seeds. It is likely that the birds were dying out due to contamination of flowers and a decrease in fruit yields. The same thing happened that is happening everywhere in the whole world where forests are being destroyed: most of the inhabitants of the forest disappear. All species of local birds and animals have disappeared on the island. All the coastal fish were caught. Small snails were eaten. From the diet of people by the 15th century. dolphins disappeared: there was nothing to go to sea on, and there was nothing to make harpoons from. It came down to cannibalism.
The corner of paradise, opened by the first settlers, became practically lifeless 1600 years later. Fertile soil, an abundance of food, a lot of building materials, sufficient living space, all possibilities for a comfortable existence were destroyed. At the time of Heyerdahl's visit to the island, there was a single toromiro tree; now he is gone.
It all began with the fact that several centuries after arriving on the island, people began, like their Polynesian ancestors, to set stone idols on platforms. Over time, the statues grew larger; their heads began to be decorated with red 10-ton crowns; the spiral of competition was unrolling; rival clans tried to surpass each other, demonstrating health and strength like the Egyptians who built their giant pyramids. On the island, as in modern America, there was a complex political system for allocating available resources and integrating the economy in various areas.
1873 engraving from the English newspaper Harper Weekly. Engraving signed: Easter Island Stone Idols Festival Dancing Tatoos.
The ever-growing population was wiping out the forests faster than they could regenerate; more and more space was occupied by vegetable gardens; the soil devoid of forest, springs and streams dried up; the trees, which were spent on transporting and lifting the statues, as well as on the construction of 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 began. Intensive chicken farming and cannibalism did not solve the food problem. The ready-to-move statues with sunken cheeks and visible ribs are evidence of the beginning of the famine.
With a shortage of food, the islanders could no longer support the leaders, bureaucracy and shamans who governed society. The surviving islanders told the first Europeans who visited them how chaos had replaced the centralized system, and the warlike class had defeated the hereditary leaders. Images of spears and daggers made by the warring parties in the 1600s and 1700s appeared on the stones; they are still scattered throughout Easter Island. By 1700, the population was between a quarter and one tenth of its former number. People moved to caves to hide from their enemies. Around 1770, the opposing clans began to overturn statues from each other and blow off their heads. The last statue was overturned and desecrated in 1864.
As the picture of the decline of the civilization of Easter Island appeared before the researchers, they asked themselves: - Why did they not look back, did not realize what was happening, didn’t stop until it was too late? What were they thinking when cutting down the last palm tree?
Most likely, the catastrophe did not occur suddenly, but stretched out over several decades. The changes taking place in nature were not noticeable for one generation. Only the elderly, recalling their childhood years, could understand what was happening and understand the threat posed by the destruction of forests, but the ruling class and masons, fearing the loss of their privileges and jobs, treated the warnings in the same way as today's loggers in the Northwest USA: "Work is more important than the forest!"
The trees gradually got smaller, thinner and less significant. Once the last fruiting palm was cut, and young shoots were destroyed along with the remnants of shrubs 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 plant species growing on Rapa Nui. Most of them were brought from other islands of Oceania, America, Europe. Many plants that were previously widespread on Rapa Nui have been exterminated. Between the 9th and 17th centuries, active felling of trees took place, which led to the disappearance of forests on the island (probably before that, palm trees of the Paschalococos disperta species grew on it). Another reason was rats eating tree seeds. In connection with irrational economic activities of man and other factors, the resulting accelerated soil erosion caused enormous damage to agriculture, as a result of which the population of Rapa Nui was significantly reduced.
One of the extinct plants is Sophora toromiro, the local name of which is toromiro (rap. Toromiro). This plant on the island in the past played an important role in the culture of the Rapanui people: “talking signs” with local pictograms were made from it.
The toromiro trunk, about a human thigh in diameter and thinner, was often used in the construction of houses; also spears were made from it. In the XIX-XX centuries, this tree was exterminated (one of the reasons was that the young growth was destroyed by the sheep brought to the island).
Another plant on the island is the mulberry tree, the local name for which is mahute. In the past, this plant also played a significant role in the life of the islanders: white clothes called tapa were made from the bast of a mulberry tree. After the appearance of the first Europeans on the island - whalers and missionaries - the importance of mahuta in the everyday 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 a 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 that grows on the slopes of the Rano Kao and Rano Raraku craters is Scirpus californicus, used in the construction of houses.
In recent decades, a small growth of eucalyptus has begun to appear on the island. In the 18th-19th centuries, grapes, banana, melon, 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 raised on the island. The species of local fauna that previously inhabited Rapa Nui became extinct. For example, the rat species Rattus exulans, which in the past was used by the local people for food. Instead, European ships brought rats of the species Rattus norvegicus and Rattus rattus to the island, which became carriers of various diseases previously unknown to Rapanui.
Now the island is home to 25 species of seabirds and 6 species of terrestrial birds.
The statistics for moai are as follows. The total number of moai is 887. The number of moai that are installed on the Ahu pedestals is 288 (32 percent of the total). The number of moai that stand on the slopes of the Rano Raraku volcano, where the moai 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 immersed up to their necks in sedimentary rocks that have 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 is also different - 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.
Easter Island Mysteries.
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, signs on stones.
One of the main mysteries of the island, which has haunted for several generations of travelers and explorers, is 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 colossus 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 ashore, put them on specially made pedestals and crowned them with weighty headdresses?
The statues have an extremely strange appearance - they have very large heads with a heavy protruding chin, long ears and no legs at all. Some have red stone caps on their heads. Which human tribe did those whose portraits remained on the island in the form of moai? Pointed raised nose, thin lips, slightly protruding, as if in a grimace of mockery and contempt. Deep indentations under the brow ridges, large forehead - who are they?
Clickable
Some of the statues bear necklaces carved into stone, or tattooed with a chisel. The face of one of the stone giants is dotted with holes. Perhaps in ancient times, the sages who lived on the island, who studied the movement of heavenly bodies, tattooed their faces with a map of the starry sky?
The eyes of the statues look up to the sky. Into the sky - the same as when, centuries ago, a new homeland was opened for those who sailed over the horizon?
In earlier times, the islanders were convinced that the moai protect their land and themselves from evil spirits. All standing moai are facing the island. Incomprehensible as time, they are immersed in silence. These are the mysterious symbols of a bygone civilization.
It is known that the sculptures were forged from volcanic lava at one of the extremities of the island, and then the finished figures were transported along three main roads to the places of ceremonial pedestals - ahu - scattered along the coastline. The length of the largest now destroyed ahu was 160 m, and on its central platform, about 45 m long, there were 15 statues.
The vast majority of the 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 ridge of the volcano and seem to be heading towards the ocean. Everything seemed to have stopped at one moment, engulfed in a whirlwind of an unknown cataclysm. Why did the sculptors suddenly stop their work? Everything is left in place - stone axes, unfinished statues, and stone giants, as if frozen on the way in their movement, as if people just left their work for a minute and could not return to it.
Some of the statues, previously installed on stone platforms, have been knocked down and split. The same applies to stone platforms - ahu.
The construction of the ahu required no less effort and art than the creation of the statues themselves. It was required to make blocks and form an even pedestal from them. The density with which the bricks adhere to each other is amazing. Why the first axes 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 the leaders.
Excavations carried out on several sections of ancient roads, along which, presumably, the islanders carried statues of many tons (sometimes over a distance of more than 20 kilometers), showed that all roads clearly bypass flat sections. The roads themselves are V or U-shaped hollows about 3.5 meters wide. In some areas, there are long curb-shaped connecting fragments. In some places, the pillars are clearly visible, dug in outside the curbs - perhaps they served as a support for some device like a lever. Scientists have not yet established the exact date of the construction of these roads, however, according to the assumptions of the researchers, the process of moving the statues was completed on Easter Island by about 1500 BC.
Another mystery: simple calculations show that over hundreds of years, a small population could not hew, transport and install even half of the existing statues. Ancient wooden tablets with carved inscriptions were found on the island. Most of them were lost during the conquest of the island by Europeans. But some of the tablets have survived. The letters went from left to right, and then in reverse order - from right to left. It took a long time to decipher the signs inscribed 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 riddle. Old maps show other territories around Easter Island. Oral legends tell of the slow sinking of the earth under water. Other legends tell about catastrophes: about the fiery staff of the god Uvok, which split the earth. Couldn't there have been larger islands or even a whole continent with a highly developed culture and technology here in ancient times? For him, they even came up with the beautiful name of Pasifis.
Some scholars suggest that there is still a certain clan (order) of the Easterlings, which 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 - "the navel of the earth");
Rapa Nui (rap. Rapa Nui - "Great Rapa"), the name mainly used by whalers;
San Carlos Island, named after the King of Spain by Gonzalez Don Felipe;
Teapi (rap. Teapi) - this is how 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 François de Halo (a bay in the northeast of the island was named after him);
Easter Island, named so by the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeven because he discovered it on Easter 1722. Very often, Easter Island is called Rapa Nui (translated as "Big Rapa"), although it is not of Rapanui, but of Polynesian origin. Such
The island got its name thanks to the Tahitian seafarers 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 the word "Rapa Nui" (2 words) is used to name the island, the word "Rapanui" (1 word) - when it comes to 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 i Gomez. Since 1966, a local council of 6 members, headed by the mayor, has been elected every four years in the Hanga Roa settlement.
There are about two dozen police officers on the island, mainly responsible for security at the local airport.
Chilean armed forces (mainly the Navy) are also present. The current currency on the island is the Chilean peso (there are also US dollars in circulation on the island). Easter Island is a duty-free zone, so the island's tax revenues are relatively insignificant. To a large extent, it consists of government subsidies.
colossus (height 6 m) after excavation of Easter Island (after: Heyerdahl, 1982
By the way, this is the props thrown into the sea during the filming of the next film on the island. So there were no underwater statues.
Here's another theory of how things should look.
In 1722, a Dutch ship led by Jacob Roggeven arrived on an island 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 to the whole world. Its main treasure is moai, statues scattered throughout the island and unique in all human culture.
According to Roggeven's description, local residents made bonfires in the evenings in front of the statues and sat down in a circle, making prayers. At the same time, the lifestyle of the inhabitants corresponded to the primitive. They lived in small reed huts, 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 moai are not made of stone, but of clay, sprinkled with stones. Roggeven spent only 24 hours on the island, so no qualitative research was carried out.
The next time Europeans looked here in 1770. The Spanish expedition of Felipe Gonzalez immediately identified the island in the possession of Spain. The expedition saw that the statues were still made of stone. They even expressed doubts that the moai were made on this island, and not delivered from the mainland.
This was followed by the expeditions of Cook and La Perouse. Cook noted the high level of skill of the 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 reason for this was not natural destruction.
Together with Cook, a Polynesian who understands the language of the inhabitants of Easter Island landed on the island. They found out that these statues were not erected 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 have left their mark on the inhabitants of the island. The export of Aboriginal objects and valuables to museums around the world began. Much of this legacy has been 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 moai on Easter Island was carried out in 1914-1915 by the Englishwoman Katrie Rutledge. She compiled a map of the island with the Rano Raraku volcano, where most of the colossi were carved, the paths from the volcano to the platforms with statues installed, about 400 statues.
Another development of events is associated with the name of Thor Heyerdahl. The breadth of the problem was determined before the scientific community. There were many problems and questions, answers to some of them have not been found to this day.
Secrets and numbers
The Moai of Easter Island were established from the 10th to the 16th century. The creation of huge megalithic statues was spread throughout the world in the early stages of the development of civilizations, so it is not surprising that the idea of creating moai could have originated here.
In total, about 1000 remains of statues were found, made in the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano. Most of them remained here. Here lies the largest of them - a 19-meter giant. Several statues were produced at the same time, therefore, among the left works, you can trace all the stages of making moai.
The work began with the face. Further, the treatment flowed to the sides, ears, hands on the stomach. The figures were made without legs, like a long bust. When the back was freed from the breed, the workers began to deliver the idol to the foot. On this path, many destroyed statues were found that did not survive the road.
At the foot, the statues were installed in an upright position, and their refinement and decoration took place. After this stage, one more transportation awaited them.
383 statues managed to get out of the volcano. Here they were installed on platforms from two to 15 pieces at a time. The height of the statues located here reaches 8 meters. In the olden days, idols' heads were covered with pukao imitating red hair. The first visitors from Europe still found them standing in the pukao. The last giant was overturned in 1840.
The question of the delivery method was also resolved. So the towing of megaliths in other peoples was carried out by human force with the help of ropes and sleighs with rotating rollers. Such videos were found on Easter Island, which once again confirmed this assumption.
At the moment, most of the monuments have been re-erected on platforms and continue to gaze at the ocean. Moai are truly a unique structure all over the world, they continue to delight and amaze visitors to the island.
Location: Chile, Easter Island
Manufactured by: between 1250 - 1500
Coordinates: 27 ° 07 "33.7" S 109 ° 16 "37.2" W
Short description
Easter Island is lost in the Pacific Ocean at a distance of 4000 km from Chile. The closest neighbors - the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island - live 2,000 km away.
Easter Island got its unusual name for a reason: it was discovered by a Dutch navigator on Easter Sunday morning on April 5, 1722. The island's landscapes are composed of extinct volcanoes, mountains, hills and meadows. There are no rivers here, the main source of fresh water is rainwater, which accumulates in the craters of volcanoes. Paschal people call their island "The Navel of the Earth" (Te-Pito-te-Henua). This secluded and isolated corner from the rest of the world attracts scientists, mystics, lovers of secrets and riddles.
First of all, Easter Island is famous for giant stone statues in the form of a human head, they are called "moai". Silent idols weighing up to 200 tons and up to 12 meters high stand with their backs to the ocean. A total of 997 statues were found on Easter Island. All moai are monolithic. Craftsmen carved them from soft volcanic tuff (pumice) in a quarry on the slopes of the Rano Roraku volcano. Some of the statues have been moved to the ritual site ("ahu") and supplemented with a red stone hat (pucau). According to scientists, moai once had eyes: squirrels were laid out from coral, and pupils from sparkling pieces of volcanic glass.
Obviously, the installation of the statues was labor intensive. According to legend, the idols walked by themselves. However, hypotheses, confirmed by scientific experiments, prove that moai were moved by the inhabitants of the island and no one else, but it has not yet been determined in what way they did it. In 1956, the Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl experimented with moving a moai statue by hiring a team of Easter Island natives who successfully replicated all the stages of making and installing the moai.
Armed with stone axes, the natives hewed out a 12-ton statue, and, grabbing the ropes, began to pull it along the ground. And in order not to damage the fragile giant, the islanders made wooden skids to prevent him from rubbing against the ground. With the help of wooden levers and stones placed under the base of the statue, it was hoisted onto a pedestal platform.
In 1986, the Czech explorer P. Pavel, together with Thor Heyerdahl, organized an additional test in which a group of 17 natives quickly set the 20-ton statue upright using ropes.
"A petrified world with its petrified inhabitants"
The settlement of Easter Island began in the years 300 - 400 by immigrants from Eastern Polynesia. According to another version, proposed by Thor Heyerdahl, the first inhabitants of the island were immigrants from Ancient Peru. Having crossed the Pacific Ocean from the shores of South America to Polynesia on a wooden raft "Kon-Tiki", the Norwegian scientist proved that even in the conditions of ancient civilization, American Indians could cross large bodies of water.
The indigenous population of Easter Island belonged to two tribes - the "long-eared", who created the moai, and the "short-eared". "Long-eared" got their name because they wore heavy jewelry in their ears, sometimes of such size that the lobes were pulled up to the shoulders. The Paschal people believed that the stone sculptures contained the supernatural power of their clan, called "mana". The long-eared and the short-eared at first lived in peace and harmony with each other, but their later history is marked by a series of brutal wars caused by food shortages.
Due to the drought, yields were declining, there were not enough trees to make boats from which to fish. Now the moai were identified with the image of the enemy, and the statues were destroyed by rival tribes. There are many theories regarding the purpose of moai. Perhaps these were the island gods, imprinted in stone, or portraits of the leaders who ruled the island. According to Thor Heyerdahl, the statues depict white Indians who arrived on the island from Latin America.... In the era of cultural flourishing (XVI-XVII centuries), up to 20 thousand people lived on Easter Island.
After the arrival of the Europeans, the population declined; many Paschal were taken to Peru for hard labor. Today the island is inhabited by about 4,000 people. The living conditions of the islanders have improved significantly, an airport has been built, tourists bring little income. But Easter Island still seems deserted, as during the exploration of Thor Heyerdahl, when the Norwegian saw "some petrified world with its petrified inhabitants."
All 300 years that have passed since that moment, scientists and researchers are trying to find out all the secrets of the Rapanui civilization, which once lived on the territory of this island and to answer the question: who built these monuments?
Many researchers who studied these statues came to the conclusion that the locals could not, in such isolation (the island is in the middle of the ocean), gain knowledge that would be sufficient to create such monuments. Moreover, similar statues (they are called moai) were found during excavations in Tiahuanaco (Bolivia) and on the territory of the Marquesas Islands (Polynesia).
So, Easter Island is one of the most remote islands in the world ...
- The island's territories are located almost 4000 km from the coast of South America, in the southeastern part of the Pacific Ocean.
- The area of the island is 163.6 sq. Km, which today is home to about 5,000 people
- The bulk of the population lives in the capital of the island - the city of Hanga Roa. It is the only town on the island where there are also 2 other small settlements: Mataveri and Moeroa
Easter Island is the highest point above sea level in a huge hill called the East Pacific Rise.
Local legends claim that Easter Island was once only part of one large country (many consider it the remainder of it). It is noteworthy that the legend looks believable, since today on the island you can find a lot of evidence of this legend: roads that lead directly to the ocean, many underground tunnels that begin in local caves and lead in an unknown direction, and other facts.
Who built the idols of Easter Island?
Since the discovery of the island, scientists from all over the world have put forward hypotheses about how the locals could build the statues without modern technology and how they transported such massive stone blocks from the quarry (it is located 7 km from the location of the statues). After all, the population of the island, even during its heyday, did not exceed 4000 people.
There are 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 ones are immersed in the soil near the Rano Raraku volcano. Some statues have a "headdress" - stone caps. The largest of the idols on Easter Island is 21.6 m high, and 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 incomplete to the end, some are installed on the site on the slopes of the crater. All these statues were not cut down to the end, as if something prevented them from doing it. They are still there, waiting for their transportation.
Recently, archaeologists stunned the world community by excavating one of the statues. It turned out that each statue has a "body" that is hidden underground. Unknown petroglyphs were found on the "bodies" of idols on Easter Island, the meaning of which is still unknown.
Many researchers, having learned about the discovery, suggested that the statues were covered to the level of the neck as a result of a powerful tsunami that struck the island during the Great Flood. The water brought with it destruction and dirt, which later hid the bodies of the moai deep in the soil.
But who built these statues? Undoubted evidence that a highly developed civilization did this 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 rocks are ideally matched to each other and stacked without the use of any binding agent (mortar, cement, etc.). Such masonry can be observed in the pyramid complex in Giza (Egypt), and other megalithic structures, which are more and more often discovered every year in various parts of the planet.
Local legends tell that the statues were moved by the power of "mana" - the thoughts of the people who built them. The earliest architects, according to legends, 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 dug up a massive wall of megalith stones at a depth of several meters. He was surprised, since the manufacturing technology of these blocks was identical to that which he saw in the Machu Picchu complex and.
A researcher from the United States, J. Chechrward, 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 idols of Easter Island moved ready-made thanks to the use of anti-gravity. This allowed a civilization that, according to modern historians, disappeared more than 20,000 years ago, to create such massive structures and move huge objects with ease.