What is the mystery behind Easter Island?

What is the mystery behind Easter Island?

What purpose do the statues of Easter island Have? Archaeologists suggest that the statues were a representation of the Polynesian people’s ancestors. The Moai statues face away from the sea and towards the villages, by way of watching over the people. So here at Ahu Tongariki these Moai look over a flat village site.

Is Easter Island a lost civilization?

Archaeologists have long assumed that the ancient society that erected the colossal Moai figures on Chile’s Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island, collapsed many centuries ago. Now, a new study indicates that the islanders’ civilization was still going strong when Europeans arrived in 1722.

What are theories about Easter Island?

One of the most popular theories is that the Easter Island statues were tied up with rope and then moved by a group of people working together. Another theory claims that they were moved by laying them down on top of a wooden platform, which was then used to push them around.

What destroyed Easter Island?

In December 1862, Peruvian slave raiders struck Easter Island. Violent abductions continued for several months, eventually capturing or killing around 1500 men and women, about half of the island’s population.

Who built Easter Island?

The island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called moai, which were created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park.

Who colonized Easter Island?

Known as Rapa Nui to its earliest inhabitants, the island was christened Paaseiland, or Easter Island, by Dutch explorers in honor of the day of their arrival in 1722. It was annexed by Chile in the late 19th century and now maintains an economy based largely on tourism.

Do Easter Island heads have bodies?

As a part of the Easter Island Statue Project, the team excavated two moai and discovered that each one had a body, proving, as the team excitedly explained in a letter, “that the ‘heads’ on the slope here are, in fact, full but incomplete statues.”

What do the Easter Island heads represent?

What do the Moai represent? It’s thought that the Moai were symbols of religious and political power and leadership. Carvings and sculptures in the Polynesian world often have strong spiritual meanings, and followers often believe a carving had magical or spiritual powers of the person or deity depicted.

Who was the first person to see Easter Island?

Named Easter Island by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who first spied it on Easter Day 1722, this tiny spit of volcanic rock in the vast South Seas is, even today, the most remote inhabited place on earth.

Why did the seven explorers come to Easter Island?

One of the most characteristic legends of the island is the one of the seven explorers. According to this legend, before the journey of King Hotu Matua and following the instructions of a clairvoyant, seven sailors came to the island in search of an appropriate place to settle and plant yam, a tuber that is key for the nutrition of the immigrants.

How big is the island of Easter Island?

But the art of Easter Island still looms on the horizon of the human imagination. Just 14 miles long and 7 miles wide, the island is more than 2,000 miles off the coast of South America and 1,100 miles from its nearest Polynesian neighbor, Pitcairn Island, where mutineers from the HMS Bounty hid in the 19th century.

Are there any statues left on Easter Island?

By Cook’s time, the islanders had toppled many of their statues and were neglecting those left standing. But the art of Easter Island still looms on the horizon of the human imagination.

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