Message about Easter Island. The history of Easter Island from beginning to end. Ecological disaster on a small scale

This is a volcanic island, its size is relatively small, only 166 square meters. km, and a height of 539 meters, is located in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean. The island has 70 extinct volcanoes that have never erupted in the 1,300 years since colonization. The island belongs to Chile (3,600 km to the west of the Chilean city of Valparaiso). Its population is only about 2,000 people, so it is said that it is the most secluded corner of the world.

Ancient sculptors tried to use natural material sparingly and not to do unnecessary work; for this, when marking future statues, they used the slightest cracks in the stone monolith and cut out the statues in whole series, and not one at a time.

Easter Island and its entire history are shrouded in mystery. Where did its first settlers come from? How did they even manage to find this island? Why were 600 multi-ton stone statues made and installed? In 1772, the island was discovered by the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen, this happened on Easter Sunday, hence the name - Easter Island (in the language of the Polynesians the island was called Rapanui).

Imagine J. Roggeveen’s surprise when he discovered that three different races, blacks, redskins and completely white people, were living peacefully here. They were all welcoming and friendly to guests.

The Aborigines worshiped a god they called Mak-Mak. Researchers found carved writings made on wooden tablets. Most of them were burned by Europeans and it can be called a miracle that something survived. Researchers think these may be statues of leaders deified local residents after their death.

These tablets, called rongo-rongo, were written first from left to right, and then from right to left. For a long time, it was not possible to decipher the symbols printed on them, and only in 1996 in Russia was it possible to decipher all 4 surviving tablets.

But the most mysterious and fascinating discovery on Easter Island is the giant monolithic statues, called moai by the aborigines. Most of them reach a height of up to 10 meters (some are smaller than 4 meters) and weigh 20 tons. Some reach even larger sizes, and their weight is simply fantastic, about 100 tons.

The idols have a very massive head, long ears, a heavy protruding chin and no legs at all. A few have red stone caps on their heads (perhaps these are leaders deified after death in the form of statues).

To create the moai, builders used solidified lava. The moai were hewn straight out of the rock and were supported only by a thin bridge, from which, after processing was completed, the statue was chipped off and brought to the desired shape. The crater of the Rano Raraku volcano, as a visual aid, still preserves all the stages of processing stone giants. First, the general appearance of the statue was carved, then the craftsmen moved on to the contours of the face and carved the front part of the body.

Then they treated the sides, ears and finally, hands folded on the stomach with disproportionately long fingers. After this, the excess rock was removed, and only the lower part of the back was still connected to the Rano Raraku volcano by a narrow strip. Next, the statue was moved from the crater, across the entire island, to the installation site (ahu).

How difficult it was to move the moai is evidenced by the fact that many of the statues were never installed on their ahu and a large number of them were left lying halfway to the goal. Sometimes this distance reached 25 kilometers. And now it remains a mystery how these statues, which weighed dozens of tons, were actually moved. Legends say that the idols themselves walked to the ocean shore.

Scientists conducted an experiment where they swung a vertically mounted statue (with ropes tied to the top) and alternately pushed forward with either the left or the right shoulder. To those who watched the work, it gave the impression that the statue was moving on its own. And yet, simple calculations prove that a small population could not process, move and install even half of the finished statues.

Who are the inhabitants of Polynesia, who did they come from, how and when did they populate these islands? The mystery about the origin of the local residents has given rise to many different hypotheses. And since there were no records of the history of Easter Island, but only oral stories, it is clear that with the passing of generations, the culture and traditions of the islanders became increasingly vague.

There is an opinion that local population Polynesia originated from the Caucasus, India, Scandinavia, Egypt and of course from Atlantis. The islanders themselves claim that 22 generations have passed since then, when the leader Hotu Matua brought the first settlers to this paradise, but no one on the island knows where it came from.

Thor Heyerdahl put forward his hypothesis. He drew attention to the physical coincidences between the elongated appearances of Easter statues with certain peoples South America. Heyerdahl wrote that the sweet potatoes that grew in abundance on the island could only have been brought from the Amazon. Having studied local legends and myths, he concluded that all the poetic epics of the Polynesians are in one way or another connected with the god Tiki (son of the Sun), who once sailed here from the eastern mountainous country.

Then Heyerdahl began to study the South American culture of ancient times. Legends have been preserved in Peru that people of white gods came from the north and installed giant statues made of solid stone in the mountains. After a clash with the Incas at Lake Titicaca and complete defeat, this people, led by the leader Kon-Tiki, which translates as Sun-Tiki, disappeared forever.

In legends, Kon-Tiki led the remnants of his people across the Pacific Ocean to the west. Thor Heyerdahl argued in his book that the Polynesians have an American past, but the scientific world did not pay due attention to his work. Can we seriously talk about the resettlement of American Indians to Easter Island if they did not have ships, but only primitive rafts!

Then Heyerdahl decided to prove in practice that he was right, but the methods by which he wanted to achieve this were not at all scientific. He studied the records of the Europeans who first came here and found many drawings describing Indian rafts, which were made from balsa wood; it was very durable and weighed half as much as cork. He decided to build a raft based on ancient models. The crew was immediately selected: Yorick Hesselberg the artist, Hermann Watzinger the engineer, the Swede Bengt Danielsson the ethnographer, Torstein Raaby and Knut Haugland..

The raft was built and in 1947, on April 28, they sailed from the port of Callao, many people gathered to see off the brave sailors. It should be noted that few people believed in the successful end of this expedition; they predicted its certain death. On the square sail was depicted Kon-Tiki himself, the great navigator who (as Heyerdahl was sure of) in 500 AD. discovered Polynesia.

They named him after him unusual ship. In 101 days, the expedition members covered 8,000 km in the Pacific Ocean. On August 7 the raft reached desert island Raroia, almost crashing on a coral reef at the very edge of the shore. After some time, the Polynesians sailed there on pirogues, they gave a worthy welcome to the brave sailors.

And after a few days, the travelers were picked up by the French schooner “Tamara,” which had specially sailed for them from Tahiti. A grand success of the expedition. Thor Heyerdahl proved that American Peruvians could reach the islands of Polynesia.

Obviously, the Polynesians were the first to populate the island, or maybe it was the Peruvians or even tribes from South-East Asia. A. Metro, a professor who led the Franco-Belgian expedition to Easter Island in 1934-1935, came to the conclusion that the first settlers led by the leader Hotu Matua sailed here in the 12th-13th centuries.

S. Englert is sure that the settlement of the island began even at a later time, and the installation of giant idols began in the 17th century, almost on the eve of the discovery of this island by Europeans. There are many more different versions. For example, supporters of mystical sects are confident that the cradle of humanity is Lemuria, a continent that died four million years ago and Easter may be part of it.

In scientific circles they are still arguing about the purpose of stone statues, why they threw ready-made moai in the quarry, who knocked down the already standing statues and why, why were some people given red hats? James Cook wrote that the moai were erected by the inhabitants in honor of the deceased rulers and leaders of the island; other researchers think that the Easter giants marked the boundaries between sea and land in this way. These are ritual "guards" that warn against any invasion from the sea. There were those who thought that the statues served as boundary pillars marking the possessions of tribes, clans and clans.

Jacob Roggeveen thought that statues were idols. In the ship’s log he wrote: “About their worship services... we only noticed that they made a fire near tall statues and squat down next to them, bowing their heads. Then they fold their hands and swing them up and down. They placed a basket of cobblestones on the head of each statue, painting them white in advance.”

On Easter Island there are statues that reach a height of 22 meters (the height of a 7-story building!) The head and neck of such statues are 7 meters high with a diameter of 3 m, the body is 13 m, the nose is a little more than 3 m, and the weight is 50 tons! In the whole world, even nowadays, there are not many cranes that can cope with such a mass!

People have always and at all times been drawn to the mysterious and mysterious. Apparently, in the very human essence lies an irresistible desire to reveal all the secrets of the world. This desire was the reason that the mysteries of Easter Island have not left the minds of scientists and researchers for more than a hundred years.

In addition to the gigantic moai, statues in the form of human heads made of volcanic rock, it is impossible to guess when, by whom and how Easter Island was inhabited. Over the years of research into this issue, the date of settlement has changed several times. The latest conclusions regarding the time when settlers appeared on the island, based on radiocarbon dating, were made by scientists at the University of California. Carl Lipo and Terry Hunt established that islanders settled on Rapa Nui, as the island is called locally, in 1200. This date is relative, because it is much easier to establish how the islands appear than to find out the exact date of their settlement.

To find out where people came to the island, research was carried out by archaeologists, ethnologists, linguists and geneticists from all over the world, thanks to which three main versions were put forward. According to the first of them, the settlement of Rapa Nui is attributed to American Indians. A proponent of this theory was the traveler Thor Heyerdahl, who believed that from the time the islands were formed, American Indians sailed to them on rafts and could well have reached the shores of Easter Island, and the buildings found on the island, characteristic of the Indians, confirm this. Based on local folklore, we can come to the conclusion that the Indians actually reached Rapa Nui, but at that time it was already inhabited.

The second version suggests that the island was inhabited by Melanesians from Solomon Islands, as the group of islands in the Pacific Ocean east of New Guinea or any other Melanesian archipelago is called. This version also does not stand up to criticism due to little support by facts and the significant distance of the Melanesian archipelagos from Rapa Nui. The theory of the Polynesian settlement of Easter Island seems to be the most plausible and supported by facts. It is not known what prompted the inhabitants of Tahiti or Marquesas Islands to how to go to live on islands that are so far away, but the similarity of cultures speaks volumes. This is also confirmed by the presence in the Rapa Nui writing of petroglyphs identical to the Polynesian ones.

Each version of the settlement of Easter Island has its supporters, and there is still debate on this topic in the scientific world. And if scientists have come to an agreement regarding the method of delivery of the moai, then it is unknown whether the issue of settlement will be settled.

The natives who greeted the Dutch sailors on Easter Sunday 1722 seemed to have nothing in common with the giant statues of their island. Detailed geological analysis and new archaeological finds allowed us to uncover the mystery of these sculptures and learn about the tragic fate of the stonemasons.

The island became desolate, its stone sentries fell, and many of them drowned in the ocean. Only the pitiful remnants of the mysterious army managed to rise with outside help.

Briefly about Easter Island

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui in local parlance, is a tiny (165.5 sq. km) piece of land lost in the Pacific Ocean halfway between Tahiti and Chile. It is the most isolated inhabited place (about 2000 people) in the world - the nearest Town (about 50 people) is 1900 km away, on Pitcairn Island, where the rebellious Bounty crew found refuge in 1790.

The coastline of Rapa Nui is decorated with hundreds of frowning idols - the natives call them “moai”. Each is hewn from a single piece of volcanic rock; the height of some is almost 10 m. All the statues are made according to the same model: a long nose, drawn-out earlobes, a gloomily compressed mouth and a protruding chin over a stocky torso with arms pressed to the sides and palms resting on the stomach.

Many "moai" are installed with astronomical precision. For example, in one group, all seven statues look at the point (photo on the left) where the sun sets on the evening of the equinox. More than a hundred idols lie in the quarry, not completely hewn or almost finished and, apparently, waiting to be sent to their destination.

For more than 250 years, historians and archaeologists could not understand how and why, with a shortage of local resources, primitive islanders, completely cut off from the rest of the world, managed to process giant monoliths, drag them for kilometers over rough terrain and place them vertically. Many more or less scientific theories were proposed, with many experts believing that Rapa Nui was at one time inhabited by a highly developed people, perhaps bearers of American pre-Columbian culture, who died as a result of some kind of catastrophe.

A detailed analysis of its soil samples allowed us to reveal the secret of the island. The truth about what happened here can serve as a sobering lesson for people around the world.

Born sailors. Rapanui people once hunted dolphins from canoes dug out of palm trunks. However, the Dutch who discovered the island saw boats made of many planks fastened together - there were no large trees left.

History of the discovery of the island

On April 5, Easter Day 1722, three Dutch ships under the command of Captain Jacob Roggeveen stumbled upon an island in the Pacific Ocean that was not shown on any map. When they dropped anchor off it eastern shore, a few natives swam up to them in their boats. Roggeveen was disappointed, The islanders' boats, he wrote: “poor and fragile... with a light frame covered with many small planks”. The boats were leaking so much that the rowers had to bail out water every now and then. The landscape of the island also did not warm the captain’s soul: “Its desolate appearance suggests extreme poverty and barrenness.”.

Conflict of civilizations. Images from Easter Island now decorate Parisian and London museums, but getting these exhibits was not easy. The islanders knew each “moai” by name and did not want to part with any of them. When the French removed one of these statues in 1875, a crowd of natives had to be held back with rifle shots.

Despite the friendly behavior of the brightly colored natives, the Dutch went ashore, prepared for the worst, and formed into a battle square under the astonished gaze of their hosts, who had never seen other people, let alone firearms.

The visit was soon overshadowed by tragedy. One of the sailors fired. Then he claimed that he allegedly saw the islanders lifting stones and making threatening gestures. The “guests,” on Roggeveen’s orders, opened fire, killing 10-12 hosts on the spot and wounding as many more. The islanders fled in horror, but then returned to the shore with fruits, vegetables and poultry - to appease the ferocious newcomers. Roggeveen noted in his diary an almost bare landscape with sparse bushes no higher than 3 m. On the island, which he named after Easter, the only things of interest were the unusual statues (heads) standing along the shore on massive stone platforms (“ahu”).

At first these idols shocked us. We could not understand how the islanders, who did not have strong ropes and a lot of construction wood to make mechanisms, were nevertheless able to erect statues (idols) at least 9 m high, and quite voluminous ones at that.

Scientific approach. French traveler Jean François La Perouse landed on Easter Island in 1786, accompanied by a chronicler, three naturalists, an astronomer and a physicist. As a result of 10 hours of research, he suggested that in the past the area was wooded.

Who were the Rapanui people?

People settled Easter Island only around the year 400. It is generally accepted that they arrived in huge boats from Eastern Polynesia. Their language is close to the dialects of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian and Marquesas Islands. Ancient fishhooks and stone adzes of the Rapanui people found during excavations are similar to the tools used by the Marquesanes.

At first, European sailors encountered naked islanders, but by 19th century they wove their own clothes. However, family heirlooms were more valued than ancient crafts. Men sometimes wore headdresses made from the feathers of birds long extinct on the island. Women wove straw hats. Both of them pierced their ears and wore bone and wooden jewelry in them. As a result, the earlobes were pulled back and hung almost to the shoulders.

Lost Generations - Answers Found

In March 1774, the English captain James Cook discovered about 700 natives emaciated from malnutrition on Easter Island. He suggested that the local economy had suffered greatly from the recent volcanic eruption: This was evidenced by many stone idols falling from their platforms. Cook was convinced: they were hewn out and placed along the coast by the distant ancestors of the current Rapanui people.

“This work, which took an enormous amount of time, clearly demonstrates the ingenuity and tenacity of those who lived here during the era of the statues’ creation. Today’s islanders almost certainly have no time for this, because they do not even repair the foundations of those that are about to collapse.”

Scientists have only recently found answers to some of the mysteries of the Moai. Analysis of pollen from sediments accumulated in the island's swamps shows that it was once covered with dense forests, thickets of ferns and shrubs. All this was teeming with a variety of game.

Exploring the stratigraphic (and chronological) distribution of finds, scientists discovered in the lower, most ancient layers the pollen of an endemic tree close to the wine palm, up to 26 m high and up to 1.8 m in diameter. Its long, straight, unbranched trunks could serve as excellent rollers for transportation of blocks weighing tens of tons. Pollen of the plant “hauhau” (triumphetta semi-three-lobed) was also found, from the bast of which ropes are made in Polynesia (and not only).

The fact that the ancient Rapanui people had enough food follows from DNA analysis of food remains on excavated dishes. The islanders grew bananas, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, taro, and yams.

The same botanical data demonstrate the slow but sure destruction of this idyll. Judging by the contents of swamp sediments, by 800 the forest area was declining. Tree pollen and fern spores are displaced from later layers by charcoal - evidence of forest fires. At the same time, woodcutters worked more and more actively.

Wood shortages began to seriously affect the islanders' way of life, especially their menus. A study of fossilized garbage heaps shows that at one time the Rapa Nui people regularly ate dolphin meat. Apparently, they caught these animals swimming in the open sea from large boats hollowed out from thick palm trunks.

When there was no ship timber left, the Rapanui people lost their “ocean fleet,” and with it their dolphin meat and ocean fish. In 1786, the chronicler of the French expedition La Perouse wrote that in the sea the islanders only caught shellfish and crabs that lived in shallow waters.

The end of the moai

Stone statues began to appear around the 10th century. They probably represent Polynesian gods or deified local chiefs. According to Rapa Nui legends, the supernatural power of “mana” raised the hewn idols, led them to a designated place and allowed them to wander at night, protecting the peace of the makers. Perhaps the clans competed with each other, trying to carve the “moai” larger and more beautiful, and also to place it on a more massive platform than its competitors.

After 1500, practically no statues were made. Apparently, there were no trees left on the devastated island necessary to transport and raise them. Since about the same time, palm pollen has not been found in swamp sediments, and dolphin bones are no longer thrown into garbage dumps. The local fauna is also changing. All local land birds and half of the sea birds are disappearing.

The food supply is getting worse, and the population, which once numbered about 7,000 people, is declining. Since 1805, the island has suffered from raids by South American slave traders: they take away some of the natives, many of the remaining ones suffer from smallpox contracted from strangers. Only a few hundred Rapa Nui survive.

The inhabitants of Easter Island erected “moai”, hoping for the protection of the spirits embodied in stone. Ironically, it was this monumental program that led their land to environmental disaster. And the idols rise as eerie monuments to thoughtless management and human recklessness.

Easter Island has unique landscape with volcanic craters, lava formations, sparkling blue water, beaches, low hills, cattle farms and plenty archaeological excavations, and most of them are devoted to the study of Moai figures. They reach a height of 10 m. One of the figures, on Anakena beach, was installed almost in its original position, and placed next to Memorial plaque in memory of the visit of Thor Heyerdahl in 1955.

The remaining figures are scattered around the island. Each of them has its own name. Poike is a statue with an open mouth that is very popular among locals. Ahu Tahai is another notable statue, with beautifully shaped eyes and a hair stone on the top of its head. From here you can reach two of the island's many caves - one of which appears to have been the center of religious ceremonies.

History of Easter Island

The sailors, when they first saw the island, were amazed by these colossal stone sculptures, lined along the shore of the island. What kind of people were they capable of installing multi-ton stone giants? Why did they settle in such a secluded place? Where did the stone from which the sculptures are made come from?

The first settlers on the island were Polynesians in the 5th century. Their culture has survived to this day in the form of giant stone figures. (moai). The carriers of this culture were also called “long-eared” because it was customary for them to stretch their earlobes to their shoulders. In the XIV century. under the leadership of Hotu Matu, the “short-eared” people, adherents of the “bird-man” culture, landed on the island. By the end of the 17th century, they managed to destroy the “long-eared” aborigines, and their culture was lost. ancient culture Easter Island, only fragmentary information has been preserved.

It is generally accepted that the leader of the tribe, on the eve of death, ordered a moai - his own portrait in the form of a bird-man - to be carved into the tuff rock of the Ranu-Raraku volcano. After the death of the leader, the moai were placed on ahu, i.e. in the sanctuary, and his gaze was fixed on the dwellings of the tribe. It was believed that in this way he was able to convey strength and wisdom to the heirs, and at the same time protect them in times of trouble. These days many moai (12 m high, weighing several tons) restored and can be viewed. These are Tahai, Tongariki, Akivi, Hekii and Anakena - the place where Hotu Matu made landfall.

To Orongo (Orongo), a place at the foot of the Ranu-Kau volcano, the first settlers built a sanctuary for the supreme deity Makemake and annually made sacrifices to the bird-man. To do this, the first tern egg, which was considered the incarnation of a deity, was delivered here from the island of Motu Nui, located at a distance of 1 km. Everyone took part in the swimming speed competition local tribes, and the leader of the victorious tribe took the place of the bird-man.

His head and eyebrows were shaved, his face was covered with black and red paint and he was placed in a special ritual dwelling. Thus, for a year he became the spiritual leader of all the tribes inhabiting the island. The warrior who won the competition, bringing victory to his leader, was not forgotten - he was awarded with all kinds of gifts.

The inhabitants of Easter Island had a writing system that has not been fully deciphered. Small wooden tablets are covered with carved writings (gopdo gopdo), preserved to this day. These signs are in every house on the island, but none of the residents could really explain their meaning and purpose. Rongo-rongo is no more than 30-50 cm in size, the designs on them depict animals, birds, plants and astronomical signs. Conventionally, the images can be divided into three themes: the first depict local gods, the second depict the actions of the islanders, including the crimes they committed, and the third are dedicated to the history of internecine wars. The islanders were also excellent portrait carvers, as evidenced by the small church at Hanga Roa. Here, ancient pagan beliefs merge with Christianity: a bird is certainly depicted above the heads of the saints.

According to legend, in 1400, a small handful of Polynesians, led by the leader Hotu Matua, reached an uninhabited island in the vast Pacific Ocean in their canoes. They named it Te-Pito-te-Whenua, "The Navel of the Earth." And Hotu Matua established several holy places along the coast. On the islands where he was from, perhaps the Marquesas, there was a custom of erecting moai, monuments to tribal leaders in the form of monumental stone statues.

The statues - 900 in number when completed - have a height of more than 10 m and a girth of 4.5 m, and in the quarry there are unfinished statues, whose height should have been 22 m! Perhaps they were moved from place to place using thick wooden rollers made from tree trunks that grew in the jungle.

The grandiose figures first sank onto tree trunks, which served either as rollers or sleds. They were then slowly pushed through kilometers of impenetrable jungle. To cope with such work would require the efforts of more than one hundred people.

In 1722, the first European landed on the island - the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen. On this day the Christian world celebrated Easter, hence the European name Rapa Nui.

Captain James Cook visited Easter Island in 1774 and found that most of the idols had been destroyed, and some were completely broken or showed signs of abuse. The island was practically uninhabited, and the pitiful remnants of the once numerous tribe huddled in fear in some creepy caves. What's happened? The islanders' explanations were abrupt and contradictory. Archeology provided scientists with more coherent information: soon after the departure of the Dutch expedition, a demographic catastrophe occurred on the island - overpopulation and famine. The cult of stone idols led to the deforestation on the island, correspondingly reducing the sources of food. Several years of poor harvests in a row made the situation catastrophic. Bloody civil strife and cannibalism began. When Captain Cook arrived on the island, he counted only 4,000 inhabitants instead of the 20,000 reported by Roggeveen in 1722. But the worst was yet to come. In 1862, Peruvian soldiers landed on the island and took 900 people as slaves. Later, part of the population was sent to Peru as slaves, and the rest also did not stay long on the island. By 1877, only 111 people remained on Easter Island. Later, part of the population was sent to Peru as slaves, and the rest also did not stay long on the island. In 1888, Chile annexed it to its territory. There was no self-government until 1966, when the islanders elected their own president for the first time.

The eastern part of Easter Island, called Poike, was formed 2.5 million years ago as a result of a powerful volcanic eruption. 1 million years later appeared South part islands, Ranu Kau, and 240 thousand years ago - Maunga Terevaka in the northeast, the highest island mountain (509 m).

On Easter Island there is a settlement called Hanga Roa, where most of the population lives. Their existence is provided mainly by tourism. There are various hotels and restaurants here, and the extremely friendly locals will ensure that your stay here is comfortable and memorable.

Since 1964, there has been an airport on Easter Island, which has strengthened ties with the outside world. Every year at least 20,000 tourists visit this mysterious piece of land. For the 3,800 people now living on the island, sheep farming is modeled after late XIX V. is an important component of the economy.

When to come

The most suitable period for visiting Easter Island is from October to April, during this period the air temperature warms up to 22-30 °C, and the water in the ocean reaches 20-23 °C. From May to September it often rains, the weather is windy and cloudy, but it is still warm and the temperature fluctuates between 17 and 20 °C.

Beaches of Easter Island

The beaches of Easter Island are some of the best in Chile, in summer time The water warms up well, so families with children often come here. Anakena Beach deserves a special recommendation: quiet bay, tall palm trees, sand, which, when wet, acquires a pink tint, silent statues of the formidable moai - all this captivates at first sight and makes you forget about time.

Tapati Rapa Nui Festival

If you find yourself on Easter Island at the end of January, be sure to visit the Tapati Rapa Nui folk festival, which is a competition of dance and musical ensembles. Both island groups and groups from Tahiti participate in the competition.

In addition, a Queen will be elected during the festival. Moreover, not only the contenders themselves, but also their relatives will fight for the title. The winner will be the girl who is the prettiest and whose relatives can catch the most fish and weave the longest cloth.

Visiting attractions

Since 2011 it has been operating on Easter Island new system payment for visiting attractions. Arriving on the island, each tourist will purchase a wrist bracelet, which will give him the right to multiple visits to all the attractions of the island. The exceptions are the Orongo ceremonial center and the Rano Raraku volcano, which can only be visited once. The authorities were forced to take such an unconventional step, because until now a large number of tourists tried to avoid paying for the visit. Now the situation with the “hares” must be resolved radically.

The bracelets can be purchased at Mataveri Airport, are valid for five days and cost $21 for residents of Chile and $50 for foreign tourists. The bracelet can be transferred to another person.

Mysterious moai

When you hear the phrase “Easter Island,” the first thing that appears before your eyes is the rows of huge moai statues, gazing their stern gaze into the distance. The creation and history of these frozen sculptures remained a mystery to scientists for a long time; even today, many aspects continue to remain unclear or controversial.

It is believed that the inhabitants of Easter Island made moai statues in honor of deceased relatives (in another version - deceased leaders) and installed on a special platform, which was called ahu and was nothing more than a burial place. Each clan had its own ahu. The islanders worshiped the moai, and they gave them strength and protected their descendants from various disasters. The rite of worship of the moai looked like this: a fire was lit in front of the ahu, next to which the worshipers were placed on their haunches, with their faces down, they rhythmically raised and lowered their palms folded together.

Today it is known that the statues were made in the quarry of the extinct volcano Ranu Raraku, where unfinished moai were discovered, including the largest 21-meter El Gigante. On average, the height of the statues ranges from 3 to 5 m; statues 10-12 m are less common. On the heads of some statues you can see “caps” made of red rocks from the Puno Pao volcano - pukao. They were supposed to symbolize the typical hairstyle of the islanders.

Much of the scientific debate revolves around how the locals were able to transport these huge statues from the quarry to the ahu platforms. There are currently two main versions. According to one, the statues were transported to their destination by dragging with the help of various wooden rails, stops and other devices. As an argument in favor of this version, its defenders cite the fact that there are virtually no forested areas left on the island; all of them were used for rolling statues. In the mid-50s. XX century Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl, together with the descendants of the native “long-eared” tribe, conducted an experiment on carving, transporting and installing a moai statue. The last “long-ears” showed scientists how their ancestors carved statues using stone hammers, then dragged the statue while lying down and, finally, using a simple mechanism consisting of stones and three log-levers, installed it on a platform. When the scientists asked why they didn’t talk about this before, the natives replied that no one had asked them about it before. According to another version (it was put forward by the Czech researcher Pavel Pavel) the statues were moved in a vertical position using cables. This method of transportation created the impression that the statues were “walking.” In 2012, a group of anthropologists successfully proved the validity of this version during an experiment.

Heads and Tails: Easter Island

Data

• Name and dimensions: Easter Island is also known as Rapa Nui. Its area is about 162.5 square meters. km.
• Location: The island lies at 27° S and 109° W. Politically, it is considered Chilean territory. The nearest inhabited land is Pitcairn Island, more than 2000 km to the west. To Chile 3700 km, to Tahiti - 4000 km.
• Uniqueness: Easter Island became famous due to its stone idols made from local volcanic tuff. More than 10 m high, they weigh more than 150 tons.
• List World Heritage UNESCO: The island was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1995.

Based on the name of the island. But the island was created long before the concept of Easter arose, and there are much more anomalies in it, so we learn new knowledge immediately after the end of the world :)

Easter Island is an island in Pacific Ocean, the most distant from land of all famous islands(as a result, tourism to this island is expensive). The island has volcanic origin and is located at the intersection of several lithospheric plates (underneath it there is a fault boundary of giant tectonic plates that seem to divide the ocean floor; the Nazca and Pacific oceanic plates and the axial zones of underwater ocean ridges converge on the island). Well, the most famous attraction is the stone statues:

The island has the shape right triangle, the hypotenuse of which is the southeastern coast. The sides of this “triangle” have lengths of 16, 18 and 24 km. In the corners of the island there are extinct volcanoes:

1. Rano Kao (324 m)
2. Pua Katiki (377 m)
3. Terevaka (539 m - highest point islands)

Let's start our exploration of Easter Island with stone statues. All stone statues are monolithic, meaning they are carved from a single piece of stone rather than glued or fastened together. Ancient craftsmen carved “moai” - stone statues on the slopes of the Rano Roraku volcano, located in the eastern part of the island, from soft volcanic 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 statues had caps made of red pumice on their heads, and their eyes were painted:

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 statues were installed on stone “ahu” - pedestal platforms that reached 150 meters in length and 3 meters in height, and consisted of pieces weighing up to 10 tons from the same pumice.

According to another version, the stone statues of Easter Island are estimated to be much heavier: they say that their weight sometimes reaches more than 20 tons, and their height is more than 6 meters. An unfinished sculpture was found, about 20 meters tall and weighing 270 tons.

There are a total of 997,397 stone moai statues on Easter Island. All moai, except for seven statues, “look” into the interior of the island. These seven statues are also different in that they are located inside the island, and not on the coast. A detailed map of the location of stone statues, as well as other attractions, can be seen in this picture (click to enlarge):

It is also said that there are two types of statues on the island:

1. The first species, without “caps” (45% of the total) are 10-meter giants weighing 80 tons. All of them stand on the slopes of the Ranu Raraku crater chest-deep in sedimentary rocks - this is for the reason that they are much older than the other statues, those with “hats”. The fact that these statues are much older than the second type of moai is also indicated by the fact that traces of erosion on them appeared much more clearly than on the “dwarf” 4 meter statues. In addition, the 10-meter-high giant moai do not have “hat” and their appearance is slightly different from the second type. For example, their faces are narrower.
2. The second type are small 3-4 meter statues (32 percent of the total), which were placed on pedestals (ahu). All ahus stand near the seashore. These moai have "caps" weird shape. This type of moai is very well preserved. Their faces are more oval than the narrow-faced statues of the first type.

The erection of statues on Easter Island is a stumbling block among “rationalists” and “otherworlders.” The first claim that all the statues could have been installed on the island by ordinary people using ordinary earthly means. Whereas the “otherworlders” cite anything from magic-mana to aliens as the forces behind installing statues.

The Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl in his book “Aku-Aku” gives a description of one of these methods, which was tested in action by local residents. According to the book, information about this method was obtained from one of the few remaining direct descendants of the Moai builders. Thus, one of the Moai, overturned from the pedestal, was put back by using logs slipped under the statue as levers, by swinging which it was possible to achieve small movements of the statue along the vertical axis. The movements were recorded by placing stones of various sizes under the top of the statue and alternating them. The actual transportation of the statues could be carried out using wooden sleds.

Whoever is right, one thing is true: all the statues were made on this very island, in quarries. And from there they were transported to the installation site. How did you find out? It’s very simple: many unfinished idols are in quarries. When you look at them, you get the impression of a sudden cessation of work on the statues.

The photo shows one of the unfinished stone statues:

And here are a few more unfinished statues on the slope of the volcano:

Let’s dwell on another yet unexplained phenomenon, which, of course, is inferior in scale, but is neck and neck in mystery.

This is the mysterious script of Easter Island. We can say that this is the most mysterious writing in the world. The latter is a fact all the more significant because until now writing has not been discovered on the Polynesian islands.

On Easter Island, writing was discovered on relatively well-preserved wooden tablets, called kohau rongo-rongo in the local dialect. The fact that the wooden planks have survived the darkness of centuries is explained by many scientists by the complete absence of insects on the island. Yet most of them were eventually destroyed. But the culprit for this turned out to be not tree bugs, accidentally introduced by a white man, but the religious fervor of a certain missionary. The story goes that the missionary Eugene Eyraud, who converted the inhabitants of the island to Christianity, forced these writings to be burned as pagan.

Nevertheless, a certain number of tablets have survived. Today, there are no more than two dozen kohau rongorongo in museums and private collections around the world. Many attempts have been made to decipher the contents of the ideogram tablets, but they all ended in failure. By the way, research in recent years has once again confirmed that on the Kohau Rongorongo tablets, each sign conveys only one word, and not the entire text is written on them, but only keywords, the rest were read by the Rapanui people from memory.

There is another one on the island fun fact. So, the first picture in the article shows the heads of statues with underground torsos. So, this image is not far from the truth. So, if you take a good dig around some of the statues, you can dig up some very interesting things:

That is, some of the statues are much larger than they seem. Moreover, it is unknown how they ended up underground: either by themselves, or they were initially buried.

Another mystery of the island is the purpose of the paved roads, the creation of which is lost in the mists of time. On the Island of Silence - another name for the island - there are three of them. And all three end up in the ocean. Based on this, some researchers conclude that the island was once much larger than it is now.

And finally, a trump card that destroys the arguments of the “rationalists”. So, next to Rapanui there is a tiny island of Motunui. This is several hundred meters of steep cliff, dotted with numerous grottoes. Island on the map:

So, a stone platform has been preserved on it, on which statues were once installed, which were later thrown into the sea for some reason. And the question arises - how? How rationally can stone statues be delivered there? No way. Only with the help of unknown forces.

Which, by the way, begs the question: why? If rationalists justify the construction of stone statues in at least an acceptable way - for protection from flooding, or for protection from something else, or as objects of worship, etc., then supporters of the “otherworldly” hypothesis of installing statues simply have nothing to say. Think for yourself: why would people who have supernatural abilities and can carry multi-ton boulders over vast distances do this? After all, they did not worship them: real power and superstition do not go hand in hand...

So the “otherworldly” hypothesis also goes in vain. What remains? The facts remain:

• Easter Island, remote from populated lands for many hundreds of kilometers
• huge multi-ton statues (some are more than half buried in the ground)
• undeciphered script
• roads of unknown purpose
• lack of clear theories of how it was all done.

And it turns out that Easter Island is a mystery that has not yet been solved.

And it won’t be possible if the world ends tomorrow :)

Based on materials from http://agniart.ru/rus/showfile.fcgi?fsmode=articles&filename=16-3/16-3.html and http://www.ufo.obninsk.ru/pashi.htm