Map of Easter Island.
Easter Island (Spanish version - Isla de Pascua, the local name of the island - Rapa Nui or Rapa Nui) is an island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. The name of the island was given by its discoverer - the Dutch captain Jacob Roggeveen in honor of the Catholic Easter, on the day of which the island was discovered. In addition to the native name "Rapa-Nui" (translated as "Great Rapa"), the island has several other names: Hititeairagi (Hititeairagi), or Hiti-ai-rangi (Hiti-ai-rangi), which means " Central Manor Land", Tekaouhangoaru - in honor of the family of one of the leaders of the islanders, Mata-ki-te-Ragi (Mata-ki-te-Ragi) - translated from the Rapanui language means "Eyes Looking at the Sky"), Te Pito-o-te-henua (Te-Pito-o-te-henua) - translated as "Navel of the Earth"), San Carlos Island (Spanish version - Isla de San Carlos) - the island was so named by Gonzalez Don Felipe in honor of the then king of Spain, the island of Teapi (Teapi) - the name given by James Cook, Vaihu (Vaihu) or Vaihou (Vaihou) - the local native name of the island, which James Cook, La Perouse and Forster alternately used on their maps.
Geographical coordinates of Easter Island: 27°07′ S. sh. 109°21′ W d.
The total land area of Easter Island and adjacent small islands and rocks is over 163 square kilometers.
At the moment, Easter Island belongs to Chile and is an integral part of the territory of this state. Administratively, Easter Island is an area that is part of the province of Valparaiso.
A NASA satellite image of Easter Island from space.
Story.
Archaeologists estimate that Easter Island was settled around 300-400 AD by settlers from the islands in Eastern Polynesia (it is assumed that this was Mangareva Island). Some experts also date this event to the year 900, and some even to 1200. According to aboriginal legends, the settlers sailed to Easter Island on two huge pirogues, on which people, their household items and animals fit.
There is an assumption, which is confirmed by the local epic, that in the 80s of the XV century, South American Indians, led by their leaders, visited Easter Island.
At the beginning of 1687, the ship's doctor, Lionel Wafer, from the Batchelor's Delight, under the command of the famous British pirate Edward Davis, noticed a strip of land in the distance on the horizon. The ship did not moor to the island, and only a mark was put on the maps about the probable location of the island in these latitudes. It's hard to tell if it was Easter Island. Some experts doubt this, and some give the palm of the discoverers of Easter Island to Davis and Wafer.
On April 5, 1722, the sailors of the flagship "Afrikaanse Galley" from the flotilla of the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen noticed an island on the horizon, which the head of the expedition immediately named in honor of the Christian holiday of Easter, since April 5 was the Day of the Resurrection of Christ. At the time of the discovery of Easter Island by Jacob Roggeveen, from two to three thousand natives lived on it.
After the discovery, Easter Island was forgotten for a while. Only in 1770, the colonial administrator of Peru, Manuel de Amat y Junyent, sent the ship San Lorenzo under the command of Captain Felipe Gonzáles de Haedo to the island in order to protect the islands adjacent to South America. Easter for his annexation. After the Spanish annexation of the island, it was named after the then reigning Spanish king Charles III - San Carlos. In the future, Spain forgot about Easter Island, and he was left to himself.
On March 12, 1774, the British navigator James Cook landed on Easter Island, at the end of 1787 Jean Francois La Perouse visited the island, and from April 16 to 21, 1804, the Russian explorer Yuri Lisyansky on the Neva sloop.
Typical landscape of Easter Island.
In the middle of 1816, Easter Island tried to annex the Russian warship "Rurik" under the command of Otto Kotzebue, but the locals repelled the invaders' attempts to land on the island. In retaliation, the Russian ship opened artillery fire on the coastal villages of the natives, which caused significant casualties among the civilian population of the island.
On December 12, 1862, Peruvian slave traders captured over a thousand local residents and took them to work in Peru. The vast majority of the natives died, and those who returned, at the insistence of France, brought smallpox with them, which reduced the population of the island to less than 600 people.
After the victory of Chile over Bolivia and Peru in the Pacific War (1879-1883), on September 9, 1888, the Chilean captain Policarpo Toro Hurtado landed troops on the island, which announced the Chilean annexation of Easter Island.
Since the 1920s, Easter Island has been repeatedly visited by numerous research expeditions. So, in the period from March 1914 to August 1915, the island was studied by an expedition led by the English explorer C.S. ) and Henry Lavacherry.
In the 50s of the last century, the Norwegian explorer and traveler Thor Heyerdahl visited Easter Island several times, and his works made a real revolution in scientific ideas about the island.
In the middle of 1953, the Chilean authorities subordinated Easter Island to the command of the country's Navy, and since 1966, the first free elections were held on the island in local authorities self-government.
It is worth noting that during the entire period of his reign, the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet visited Easter Island three times.
In early 1995, the Rapa Nui National Park was created on Easter Island, which was later recognized as an object world heritage UNESCO.
Panorama of Easter Island in the picture taken from the aircraft.
Origin and geography of the island.
Easter Island is of volcanic origin. They are the beginning of the underwater volcanic ridge of Easter, stretching in the southeastern part of the Pacific Ocean from the island of the same name to. The formation of Easter Island falls on a period of volcanic activity in the area, which is about 3 million years distant from our time.
Easter Island is removed from the Chilean coast of South America to the west by more than three and a half thousand kilometers. The distance to the nearest inhabited land area is more than 2000 kilometers. The nearest uninhabited land - the islands of Sala y Gómez is located to the northeast about 1500 kilometers. The island has the shape of a rectangle with sides respectively 16, 18 and 24 kilometers. Currently, Easter Island has a hilly and mountainous terrain. There are several massive craters of extinct volcanoes. Volcanoes are located at the corners of the island: Rano Kao, 324 meters high, is located in the southwestern part of the island in the area with the village of Mataveri, Puakatike, 377 meters high, is located in the east and Terevaka, which is the highest point of the island at 539 meters above sea level, located in the north of Easter Island. The highest crater of the Terevaka volcano is Rano Aroi, which is, in fact, a lake that fills the crater of an extinct volcano. Another crater of the Terevaka volcano (more than 650 meters in diameter) is called Rano Raraku and is also a freshwater lake. The largest in area is the Rano Kao crater with a diameter of more than 1500 and a depth of about 800 meters. The shores of the island are partly gentle, and partly steep, there are many rocks and pitfalls near the coast, which make it difficult to moor to the shore. Although the coastline is quite winding, it still does not form bays and bays deeply protruding into the land. Among the more or less significant bays of the island, it is worth noting the bays of Aneken, Laperouse, Hotuity, Beneta and others. The southernmost point of Easter Island is South Cape, the western one is Pau Orongo Point, the northern one is North Cape, and the eastern one is Cumming Point. Natural sources of fresh water on the island are represented by small streams and lakes of volcanic origin.
Easter Island is surrounded by small islets and rocks: to the southwest of the island are the islands of Motu Nui, Motu Iti, Motu Kao Kao, to the east - Motu Tautira ( Motu Tautira) and to the west - Motu Marotiri.
The soil in almost all places on Easter Island was formed during the erosion of the slopes of volcanoes. The most fertile soils are located in the northern part of the island, where the locals try to grow yams and sweet potatoes. The most common rocks on the island are obsidian, basalt, rhyolite and trachyte. Coastal sheer cliffs in the area of La Perouse Bay (Hanga Hoonu) consist mainly of red volcanic lava.
Southwestern part of Easter Island and Rano Khao crater.
Climate.
The climate on Easter Island is quite warm and is classified as tropical. The average annual air temperature is approximately + 20-22 °C, the coldest month of the year is August, when the temperature, as a rule, does not rise above +20 °C, the warmest is January (during this period average temperature is about + 24-25 °C). Easter Island is located near the southern tip of the southeasterly wind zone, which blows intensely in summer. In winter, mainly northwest winds blow, but there are also southwest and southeast winds. Despite the relative proximity to the tropics, the climate of Easter Island is still more temperate than in similar geographical areas. There is practically no heat here. The cold Humboldt current, which is quite close to these latitudes, and the absence of any significant land between the island and Antarctica, bring freshness here. It sometimes happens that the Antarctic winds during the period from July to August reduce the air temperature in the daytime to + 20 ° C. The average annual amount of precipitation falling on Easter Island mainly in the form of heavy, but short-term rains is approximately 1200-1500 millimeters. Most of them fall in winter from early May to mid-August.
The crater of the Rano Roratka volcano and the volcanic lake of the same name.
Population.
Easter Island, along with the islands, Pitcairn and, is the most distant island from the continent on which people live.
Currently, according to the 2012 census, approximately 5-6 thousand people live on Easter Island. Ethnically, about half of them are the aboriginal race of the island, which is called Rapanuans, about 50% of total number the inhabitants of the island are descendants of immigrants from the continental provinces of Chile. The official language on the island is Spanish, and the official and most common language is Rapanuan.
The entire population of Easter Island is concentrated mainly in coastal villages, the largest locality here is the city of Hanga Roa, located on the western coast of the island and inhabited by about three and a half thousand inhabitants. Hanga Roa (Rapa Nui) is also the administrative center of the Easter region in the province of Valparaiso.
Administratively, the Easter region (which territorially also includes the uninhabited) is administered by the governor appointed by the President of Chile exclusively from among the local residents.
The monetary unit in circulation on the territory of Easter Island, as well as on the territory of Chile, is the Chilean peso (CLP, code 152), consisting of 100 centavos.
The administrative center of Easter Island is the city of Hanga Roa.
Flora and fauna.
The flora of Easter Island, given the remoteness from the continent and the poverty of volcanic soils, is rather poor. Here, botanists count only about 30 species of plants. Moreover, most of them are imported from other islands in Oceania, as well as from Europe and America. It is also worth noting that most of the island's endemic and native plants, which previously dominated here, were exterminated during its colonization by humans. Between the 9th and 17th centuries, trees were actively cut down, which led to the complete disappearance of forests on the island. According to paleontologists, before colonization, palm trees of the species Paschalococos disperta grew in large quantities here. The extinct emdemic plants also include Sophora toromiro (aboriginal name - toromiro), as well as the mulberry tree, called mahute by the Rapanuans. Nevertheless, despite the influence of the human factor on the nature of Easter Island, the endemic woody plant Scirpus californicus, common in the area of the Rano Raraku and Rano Kao craters, has survived here. Eucalyptus, brought from Australia in the 19th century, quickly took root on the island, besides it, bananas, grapes, sugar cane and some types of gourds have taken root well here.
In the pre-European period, the fauna on Easter Island was mainly represented by marine animals: turtles, crabs and seals. Around the middle of the 19th century, chickens brought by people appeared on the island. All the endemic aboriginal representatives of the fauna of Easter Island either died out or were exterminated by man. Spread for some time on the island and brought here, most likely by the first Polynesian settlers, rats Rattus exulans, which the locals used in the past for food. With the arrival of Europeans on the island, this species of rat was replaced by mainland species Rattus norvegicus and Rattus rattus, which became the spreaders of diseases and infections among the local population. It is worth noting that now about 25 species of sea and 6 species of land birds nest on Easter Island.
Moai.
Tourism.
Tourism is now the main source of income for the local population of Easter Island. There is a regular air service to Easter Island, which is carried out by the Chilean airline LAN Airlines, whose planes fly from Santiago to the island of Tahiti, making an intermediate landing for refueling on Easter Island at Mataveri Airport near the city of Hanga Roa. In November 2010, planes began flying to Easter Island from the capital of Peru, the city of Lima, which made Mataveri Airport international. In addition, the island has one pier for small passenger ships and private yachts.
There are several hotels and hotels on the island that correspond to a four- and three-star level of tourist service. Prices for food and services on Easter Island are very high, and this is due to the fact that most of the goods on the island are imported from the continent.
You can look at Easter Island at the famous stone statues of moai, installed on the coast of the island in the form of human heads with a torso and truncated approximately to the waist. In addition, Rano Raraku with 300 moai of various heights at the foot of the volcano, and the beaches of Anakena Bay with coral white sand, and Te Pito-te-henua (the navel of the Earth), which was once a ceremonial site of aborigines from round stones, and an observation deck on the top of the Rano Khao volcano near the Orongo ceremonial platform, and a small Puna Pau volcano near Rano Khao.
Since the end of 1975, the Tapati Rapa Nui festival has been held annually on Easter Island at the end of January, which is accompanied by chanting, dancing and various national Rapa Nui competitions.
Easter Island- one of the most isolated islands in the world. Approximately 1200 years ago, sea travelers first came ashore here. Centuries later, a mysterious society arose on this isolated and remote island. For reasons still unknown, they began carving giant statues from the volcanic rock. These monuments, known as "moai" are some of the most incredible ancient relics on Earth. Where did they come from and why did they disappear? Science has allowed much to be learned about the island's mystery and to discard some of the more bizarre theories, but questions and disagreements still remain.
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History of Easter Island
Easter Island is a tiny piece of land in the South Pacific. The natives call it Rapa Nui. Formed by a series of large volcanic eruptions, it has been home to seabirds and dragonflies for millions of years. Its steep slopes marked the navigation path for the ships of the brave Polynesian sailors. How long their voyage lasted and the reasons that led to the migration from their historical homeland remains a mystery to which we will never have an answer, but we can imagine their joy at the sight of this island after perhaps many months of wandering in the open ocean.
Located in the South Pacific between Chile and Tahiti, Easter Island is one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the world. Triangular in shape, with a total area of 102 km2, it was formed when molten lava flows rose deep from the bowels of the Earth, broke through the shell of the earth's crust and broke out onto the surface of the ocean.
Today, volcanic cones are found at every point on the island. The largest of them, Rano Kanu, is clearly visible even from space. The highest, Terevaka, rises to a height of 507 meters above sea level. In total, there are over 70 eruptive centers on the island. Lava tubes and rolling waves have created hundreds of underwater caverns and a changeable coastline.
Legends say that it was on the sandy island of Anakena that King Hoto Manua descended and began to colonize the island. Excavations in this area show that this area boasts one of the best collections of moai monuments. Travelers began to build villages and houses of an unusual elliptical shape. It is believed that this method of construction began when the newly arrived settlers turned their boats upside down, thus adapting them for their temporary housing. There were hundreds of remnants of these structures on the island in the 1800s, but most were destroyed by missionaries who used them to build fences.
The first settlers of the island found lush vegetation here, replete with large palm trees, from which they adapted to make boats and dwellings. The plants they brought with them adapted well to the soil enriched with volcanic ash, and by 1500 the population of the island was between 7,000 and 9,000 inhabitants.
As the population increased, separate clans began to form, concentrated in different areas of Easter Island. All of them were connected by one thing in common - the construction of statues and the cult that formed around them.
It is not clear why the inhabitants of Easter Island resorted to the mass construction of monuments on such a large scale. Their obsession eventually led to disastrous results for them as they cut down the timber that was required to transport the huge moai. exhaustion forest resources had truly disastrous consequences.
The first sculptures were made from basalt, and their height did not exceed the height of a person. Then the technology of their manufacture completely changed. Statues began to be carved in the quarry of the extinct volcano Rano Raraku from volcanic tuff (tuff - pressed volcanic ash, compacted after a volcanic eruption). Their height began to reach 10 meters or more, and their weight was about 20 tons.
Soft volcanic tuff served as an ideal material for carving statues. Using tools from hard volcanic rocks, the creators of the monuments first marked the contours of the moai, carved the face and torso in the front, then the back of the figure, and then gradually carved the statue from the rock until it was connected only by a thin bridge. Craftsmen making moai statues, were skilled sculptors who went through all the stages of mastering the skill of their profession in a kind of "guild of carvers". The manufacture of the statue, most likely, took place during the performance of numerous ceremonies and rituals. If by chance a defect occurred during manufacture, it was abandoned and the carvers took up its creation in another place. Such an error during work was considered a sign of the devil and was bad omen. In a word, they were skilled craftsmen.
The famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl organized an archaeological expedition on the island in 1955-1956, which focused on experiments in the manufacture and transportation of moai sculptures. Two teams of sculptors worked in shifts on the manufacture of the future sculpture. It took them no less than a whole year. So their production was a very painstaking business.
Finally, when the statue was carved, the bridge connecting it with the rock of the volcanic crater was torn off, and it slowly rolled down the slope. At the base of the crater, the statues were placed in a vertical position, and here the final polishing and refinement of the back and torso took place. After that, preparatory work was carried out for the transportation and installation of moai in various places on the island. As proof, the statues were not easy to move, many of them can be seen along the ancient roads, where they fell into disrepair and were abandoned.
They believe that easter island statues embodied commemorative images of representatives of noble families. However, moai were not portraits of specific individuals, although it is possible that some of them had some kind of inscriptions or other signs that associated them with certain overlords. Why they chose a stylized design with an angular face, a prominent chin and no legs at all remains one of Rapa Nui's greatest mysteries.
There are other stone statues made by Polynesians outside of Easter Island. Sculptures have been found in parts of South America that resemble the kneeling statue at Rano Raraku, but nothing in the world can compare to the typical design of moai statues.
When the work on the carving of the statues came to an end, they had to be transported around the island. In some cases, they were transported over distances of more than 20 km. How were these massive sculptures transported to their locations? Easter legends say that moai walked to their places on their own. Some researchers claim that they were dragged. Later, this theory was refuted and it was concluded that they were moved in an upright position. How in reality it all looked, to this day, no one can say in the affirmative. This is another, until the end, unsolved mystery of the civilization of the island of Rapa Nui.
In 1868, the British made an attempt to take one such statue back to their homeland, but this task turned out to be clearly beyond their strength. In the end, they abandoned this idea and limited themselves to a small bust two and a half meters high, which was installed in the British Museum in London. The entire crew of the ship and several hundred natives took part in the process of its transportation.
At the end of the transportation, the statues were installed on ahu (ahu) - stone platforms slightly tilted towards the sea. They were made from large stones of various sizes and shapes. The stones were ground and adjusted to each other in such a way that they fit perfectly on top of each other. Installed on the coast, the ahu required the same engineering expertise and large labor force as the statues themselves. It is here, on Easter Island, that one can truly appreciate the high mastery of the masonry of the inhabitants of the island.
After the installation of the statue on the ahu, the final stage of the manufacture of the figure took place - the installation of eyes made of coral or volcanic glass. According to legend, only having gained eyes, the moai could see the place where it was installed.
Soon, moai statues began to appear in all parts of the island, and over time their number reached 1000. Over the decades, the desire to create the largest and largest moai, each of which belonged to a specific clan, has increased, which has made it possible to form an almost continuous line of sculptures along the coast of Easter Island. In the quarry of Rano Raraku, an unfinished statue was left over 20 meters high and weighing 270 tons! Culture has reached its dawn. And then something terrible happened.
A chilling story about the predatory use of resources and the devastation of Easter Island was revealed. Europeans who first arrived on the island wondered how people could survive in such a deserted place. In fact, it was a mystery for a long time until recent research showed that the island was covered in thick forests dominated by the now-extinct giant palm.
Having set foot on the island for the first time, future residents saw here a rich tropical paradise. The resources of the rainforest seemed inexhaustible. The trees were used to build dwellings, canoes, firewood, and, apparently, to transport and erect moai statues.
The erection of statues eventually turned into an obsession, accompanied by massive deforestation. They began to reach such huge sizes that it was practically impossible to transport them over remote distances. Trees were cut down. With deforestation, soil erosion began, which led to its depletion. Low harvests led to armed conflicts between different clans for control over scarce resources. The symbols of power and success of the inhabitants of the island, the moai, were overthrown.
Armed struggle only intensified with time. It is said that the victors ate their defeated enemies to gain strength. Bones found in various places on the island serve as evidence of cannibalism. In conditions of insufficient resources, this may have been the result of famine, or ritual actions. In the southwestern part of Easter Island is the Ana Kai Tangata cave, which translates as “a cave in which people were devoured.” The society and culture of Rapa Nui, which has developed over the past 300 years, has collapsed. All that remains after them is moai ...
The inhabitants of Easter Island found themselves even more cut off from the outside world than before. Any hope of escaping from the devastated island was shattered by the lack of forest. The only things they could build were small reed rafts and canoes, so even fishing proved difficult in this corner of the globe. The island became a deserted piece of land, the eroded soils barely producing enough food for the meager population to survive. It was under these conditions that the cult of the bird-man arose among the survivors of the conflict (perhaps there were 750 inhabitants).
It is quite possible that the cult of the bird-man began at the time of the erection of the moai statues. Over time, it took the status of the dominant religion on the island and was practiced until 1866-1867. With no trees to build boats and no way to sail away from the ravaged island, all Easter Islanders could do was watch with envy the birds that soared high in the sky.
High on the rim of the Rano Kau crater, the ceremonial village of Orongo arose. Founded to worship the god of fertility, Makemake, it was the birthplace of intense competition between the various clans of the island.
Every year, in the spring, each clan chose the most physically prepared warriors who took part in the competition. The participants had to descend from the steep slopes to the sea, swim to one of three small islands in the shark-infested water, and be the first to bring back a whole and intact egg of the dark tern bird. The warrior who first managed to deliver the egg to Easter Island was considered the bird-man of the year and was awarded a special award and privileges, and his tribe began to rule the island for a year until the next competition. The ritual, unique for all the inhabitants of Polynesia, was dedicated to the supreme deity Makemake. The winner became the earthly incarnation of this deity.
One of the most interesting sights in Orongo are hundreds of petroglyphs carved by birdmen. Engraved in solid basalt rock, they have survived time and harsh weather. Opinions are expressed that the petroglyphs depict the winners of the competition to determine the bird-man. About 480 such petroglyphs have been found on the island, mostly around Orongo.
It seemed that the culture of the inhabitants of the island began to revive along with a new cult of the bird-man. We will never know if the inhabitants of Rapa Nui would have been able to once again reach the peak of their culture, because in December 1862, ships of Peruvian slave traders moored to the island and took away the entire able-bodied population of the island into slavery. The Peruvian economy was booming at the time and needed additional labor. Due to harsh working conditions, illness and malnutrition about a hundred inhabitants of Easter Island survived. Thanks to the emergency intervention of France, an agreement was reached with the government of Peru, thanks to which the surviving residents were returned back to the island. With them, they brought diseases that further reduced the population of Easter Island. At the time of the annexation of the island by Chile in 1888, less than 200 indigenous people lived here.
The missionaries arrived on the island when the population was in a particularly deplorable state. They found a declining society here, and it did not take long for them to convert its inhabitants to Christianity. First of all, the manner of dressing of the indigenous population was changed, or rather, the complete absence of it. Tattooing and any use of body paint was forbidden. The destruction of Rapanui art, buildings and other shrines, including the rongo-rongo tablets - the key to understanding their history - was swift and complete. The inhabitants of the island were forced to give up their ancestral lands, and they were forced to live in a small part of the island, while the rest of the land was used for agriculture by the arriving farmers.
In fact, the missionaries did more harm to the island than the activities of the Peruvian slave traders, who took away most of the island's population. Those who managed to escape and hid in the caves of the island were rescued by those missionaries who continued to destroy all the wooden sculptures of the island, religious artifacts, and, most importantly, Rongo-Rongo wooden tablets with the writing of Rapani (inhabitants of Easter Island). Easter Island is the only island in the Pacific Ocean whose inhabitants developed rongo-rongo, their own writing system. Only a few of these tablets have survived to this day, so no one is able to decipher them.
The annexation of the island of Chile brought new vibes, and today there are only a small handful of people who are related by blood to the island's native population.
What conclusions can be drawn from all this. An island-pearl, located in the endless sea far from the centers of civilization. Seemingly endless material resources. Technological progress. Population growth. Resource depletion. Wars. decline. Sounds familiar? The history of Easter Island is the history of our time. We are also like an island floating in an endless sea. Of course, there are differences. We can say that Easter Island is too small, so it was only a matter of time before the resources of such a closed area would be fully used. But parallels arise between the attitude of the islanders to their nature and our own, and this is the scariest part of the story.
On such a tiny piece of land as Easter Island, one can easily trace the consequences of deforestation, exactly how it happened. Despite the reduction of forest areas, the inhabitants continued their destructive actions. They probably prayed to their gods to repair the damage done to their lands so they could continue their abuse of her, but the gods did not answer their prayers. And all the trees were cut down. Whoever did what to change this ecosystem, the result was quite predictable. The man who cut down the last tree knew that it was the last tree. However, he or she did it. This is the saddest moment. Almost everyone today has access to television, thanks to which we learn about the massive deforestation in the world, which poses a serious threat today. And all our governments and most ordinary citizens are watching this with indifference. It seems that they are ready to destroy the last tree in order to build the moai of our time - enterprises that represent high technology and progress. Will the meaning of our life be to bring the way of life of man into line with the well-being of the environment, or are all people the same as that islander who cut down the last tree on Easter Island?
Easter Island Attractions
Despite its tiny size, Easter Island has many attractions, both natural and man-made. So much so that the United Nations has listed it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The historical monuments of the island are easily accessible. There are still no fences or signs warning about where you can and where not. Perhaps their absence is explained by the fact that the entire territory of Rapa Nui is a continuous archaeological reserve. One big open air museum.
The main tourist attraction of the island is, of course, the moai. Please note that the moai of Easter Island are rather fragile historical monuments than they look in reality. Therefore, they must be handled very carefully.
All places available for visiting are located mainly along the coast of the island. First-time visitors to Easter Island are amazed at the large number of archaeological sites scattered throughout its territory. Each settlement had its own ahu and moai statues, so when traveling along the southern part of the island, you can see historical monuments almost everywhere.
The most popular sights are the craters of Rano Kau and Rano Raraku volcanoes. Located a little inland, the Rano Raraku quarry is where the famous statues are made. Hundreds of inhabitants of the island worked on their production from morning to evening. The remains of the volcano served as material for their creation. Here, tourists can see with their own eyes all the stages of painstaking work, and the remains of unfinished moai statues are scattered here. Climbing to the top of the left side of the crater and descending into the pit of an extinct volcano is worth it. The opposite side of the crater, where most of the moai statues are located, is the most impressive place on the island.
Rano Kau Crater, like Rano Raraku, is filled with rainwater and has a mottled, ethereal appearance which is breathtaking.
Easter Island has two sandy beaches. Anakena on the north side of the island is a great spot for surfing. The second beach is a real gem named Ovahe. Situated along the south coast of the island, this beautiful deserted beach is much larger than Anakena and is surrounded by beautiful cliffs.
Diving and snorkelling are popular around Motu Nui and Motu Iti
Often overlooked, but a particularly fascinating and supernatural aspect of Easter Island is its extensive cave system. While there are a few "official" caves of great interest in their own right, there are a large number of other interesting caves to explore, most of which are in the vicinity of Ana Kakenga. Although the entry holes of most of them are small (some barely large enough to crawl through) and hidden, many of them are accessible for self-exploration.
Due to the extreme geographic remoteness of Easter, many believe that only the most desperate travelers can reach the island. In fact, regular flights are operated by airlines, and tourism is the main industry of the island's economy. Chile's LAN Airlines is the only operator with scheduled flights to Easter Island, with the local airport serving as a stopover between Santiago and Tahiti. Being a monopoly carrier of passengers, the cost of an air ticket of this company is very expensive.
If you are a brave traveler, the Soren Larsen sailboat once a year makes a trip to the island from the coast of New Zealand. Time travel takes 35 days. The island is located on the route between South America and Polynesia. Cruise ocean liners plying on this route also make a stop on Easter Island.
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: it is located in the Pacific Ocean at a distance of more than 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 discovery, 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.
After 144 years, in 1722, the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen stumbled on Easter Island, and this event took place on the day of Christian Easter. So, quite by accident, the island of Te Pito o te Henua, which in the local dialect means the Center of the World, turned into Easter Island.
It is interesting that Admiral Roggeven with his squadron not only sailed in this area, he tried in vain to find the elusive land of Davis, an English pirate, which, according to his descriptions, was discovered 35 years before the Dutch expedition. True, no one, except Davis and his team, has ever seen the newly discovered archipelago.
In 1687, the pirate Edward Davis, whose ship was carried far to the west from Copiapo, the administrative center of the Atacama region (Chile), by sea winds and the Pacific current, noticed land on the horizon, where 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 Europeans, Davis turned the ship around and headed towards the Peruvian Current.
This "Davis Land", which much later became identified with Easter Island, reinforced the belief of cosmographers of that time that there was a continent in this region, which was, as it were, a counterweight to Asia and Europe. This led to the fact that brave sailors began to search for the lost continent. However, it was not possible to find it: instead, hundreds of Pacific islands were discovered.
With the discovery of Easter Island, it became widely believed that this is the continent eluding man, on which a highly developed civilization existed for thousands of years, 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 reinforced this opinion.
However, modern study of adjacent waters has shown this to be unlikely.
Easter Island is located 500 km from a seamount range known as the East Pacific Rise on the Nazca Plate. The island is located 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 studies, Easter Island was never part of a sunken continent.
Easter Island's mild climate and volcanic origin should have made it a piece of paradise, far from the troubles that beset the rest of the world, but Roggeven's first impression of the island was that of a devastated 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; it is 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 them warm during the cold, wet and windy winter. The only domestic animals were chickens; did not have bats, birds, snakes or lizards. Only insects were found. In total, about 2,000 people lived on the island.
Residents of Easter Island. Engraving from 1860
About 3,000 people live on the island now. 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. After all, 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. Admiral Roggeven, familiar to us, 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.
Approximately 200 giant stone statues - "Moai", located on massive pedestals along the coast of the island with miserable vegetation, far from the quarries, seemed completely inexplicable. Most of the statues were placed 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. It seemed that the sculptors suddenly left 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 idols is from five to seven meters, while later statues reached up to 10 and up to 12 meters. Tuff, or, as it is also called, pumice, from which they are made, resembles a sponge in structure and crumbles easily even with a light impact on it. so average weight"moai" does not exceed 5 tons. Stone ahu - platforms-pedestals: 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, claimed that the natives made fires in front of the moai idols and squatted next to them, bowing their heads. After that, 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 the use of 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 than their own muscles. Ancient legends say that the statues walked by themselves. There is no point in asking how this actually happened, because there is still no documentary evidence left. 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 inhabitants of the island moved the statues and no one else. That's what they did it for? This is where the divergences 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. AT last time standing idols were seen in 1830. Then a French squadron entered the island. Since then, no one has seen the original statues, that is, those erected 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 restoration work.
In the second half of the 19th century, the cult of the bird-man also died. This strange ritual, unique for all Polynesia, was dedicated to Makemake, the supreme deity of the islanders. The Chosen One became his earthly incarnation. Moreover, interestingly, the elections were held regularly, once a year. At the same time, servants or warriors took the most active part in them. It depended on them whether their master, the head of the family clan, Tangata-manu, or a bird-man would become. It is this rite that owes its origin to the main cult center - the rocky village of Orongo on the largest volcano Rano Kao in the western tip of the island. Although, perhaps, Orongo existed long before the emergence of the Tangata-manu cult. Traditions say that the heir to the legendary Hotu Matua, the first leader who arrived on the island, was born here. In turn, hundreds of years later, his descendants themselves gave the signal for the start of the annual competition.
In 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 first found the first egg of these birds and delivered 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 19th century. After the disastrous pirate raid of the Peruvians in 1862, when the pirates enslaved the entire male population of the island, there was no one and no one to choose a bird-man.
Why did the natives of Easter Island carve "moai" statues in a quarry? Why did they stop doing this? The society that created the statues must have been significantly different from the 2,000 people that Roggeveen saw. It had to be well organized. What happened to him?
For more than two and a half centuries, the mystery of Easter Island remained unsolved. Most theories about the history and development of Easter Island are based on oral tradition. This happens because no one still can understand what is inscribed in written sources - the famous tablets "ko hau motu mo rongorongo", which roughly means - a manuscript for recitation. Most of them were destroyed by Christian missionaries, but even those that survived could probably shed light on the history of this mysterious island. And although the scientific world has been agitated more than once by reports that ancient writings have finally been deciphered, when carefully checked, all this turned out to be not a very accurate interpretation of oral facts and legends.
A few years ago, palaeontologist 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 had been like before. animal world. As a result, data appeared for a new, surprising and instructive interpretation of the history of its settlers.
According to one version, Easter Island was inhabited around 400 AD. e. (although radiocarbon data obtained by scientists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo of the University of California (USA) during the study of eight samples of charcoal from Anakena indicate that the island of Rapa Nui was inhabited around 1200 AD, ) The islanders grew bananas, taro, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, mulberries. In addition to chickens, there were also rats on the island, who arrived with the first settlers.
The period of manufacture of statues refers to 1200-1500 years. 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 that were available at that time in sufficient numbers.
The painstaking work of archaeologists and paleontologists has shown that about 30,000 years before the arrival of people and in the early years of their stay, the island was not at all as deserted as it is now. A subtropical forest of trees and undergrowth rose above shrubs, grasses, ferns and turf. Tree daisies grew in the forest, hauhau trees that can be used to make ropes, and toromiro, which is useful as fuel. There were also varieties of palm trees, which are not now on the island, but there were so many of them before that the foot of the trees was densely covered with their pollen. They are related to the Chilean palm, which grows up to 32 m and a diameter of up to 2 m. Tall, without branches, trunks were ideal material for skating rinks and canoes. They also provided edible nuts and juice, from which the Chileans make sugar, syrup, honey and wine.
The relatively cold coastal waters supported fishing in only a few places. The main marine prey were dolphins and seals. To hunt them, they went out to the open sea and used harpoons. Before the arrival of people, the island was an ideal place for birds, because they did not have any enemies here. Albatrosses, boobies, frigatebirds, fulmars, parrots and other birds nested here - a total of 25 species. It was probably the richest breeding ground in the entire Pacific.
Around the 800s, the destruction of forests began. Increasingly, layers of charcoal from forest fires, 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 completely disappeared, not only as a result of cutting down, but also because of the ubiquitous rats, which did not give them the opportunity to recover: a dozen surviving remains of nuts preserved in the caves had traces of gnawed by rats. Such nuts could not germinate. The hauhau trees did not completely disappear, but there were not enough of them to make 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 for the construction of canoes, for making skating rinks for statues, for heating. The rats ate the seeds. It is likely that the birds died out due to polluted flowers and reduced fruit yields. The same thing has happened that happens everywhere in the world where the forest is being destroyed: most of the inhabitants of the forest are disappearing. All kinds of local birds and animals have disappeared on the island. All coastal fish were also 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 turned into cannibalism.
Paradise, opened to the first settlers, 1600 years later became almost lifeless. Fertile soils, abundance of food, plenty of building materials, sufficient living space, all the possibilities for a comfortable existence were destroyed. By the time Heyerdahl visited the island, there was a single toromiro tree on the island; now it is no more.
And it all started with the fact that a few centuries after arriving on the island, people began, like their Polynesian ancestors, to install stone idols on platforms. Over time, the statues became larger and larger; their heads began to adorn red 10-ton crowns; a spiral of competition unfolded; rival clans tried to outdo each other by displaying health and power like the Egyptians building their gigantic pyramids. On the island, as in modern America, there was a complex political system for the distribution of available resources and the integration of the economy in various areas.
An 1873 engraving from the English newspaper Harper Weekly. The engraving is signed: "Easter Island Stone Idols Festival Dancing Tatoos" (Festival of tattooed dancers at the stone idols of Easter Island).
The ever-increasing population harassed the forests faster than they could regenerate; vegetable gardens occupied more and more space; the soil devoid of forest, springs and streams dried up; the trees that were spent on transporting and raising the statues, as well as on the construction of canoes and dwellings, turned out to be insufficient even for cooking. As birds and animals were destroyed, famine set in. The fertility of arable lands decreased due to wind and rain erosion. Droughts have begun. Intensive breeding of chickens and cannibalism did not solve the food problem. Statues with sunken cheeks and visible ribs, prepared for moving, are evidence of the onset of famine.
With food scarce, the islanders could no longer support the chieftains, bureaucracy, and shamans who ran society. The surviving islanders told the first Europeans who visited them how the centralized system was replaced by chaos, and the warlike class defeated the hereditary chiefs. On the stones appeared images of spears and daggers made by the warring parties in the 1600s and 1700s; they are still scattered throughout Easter Island. By 1700 the population was between a quarter and a tenth of its former size. People moved to caves to hide from their enemies. Around 1770, opposing clans began to overturn each other's statues and cut off their heads. The last statue was overturned and desecrated in 1864.
As the picture of the decline of the Easter Island civilization emerged before the researchers, they asked themselves: - Why did not they look back, did not realize what was happening, did not stop before it was too late? What were they thinking as they cut down the last palm tree?
Most likely, the catastrophe did not happen suddenly, but stretched out over several decades. The changes taking place in nature were not noticeable for one generation. Only old people, looking back at their childhood years, could grasp what was happening and understand the threat posed by deforestation, yet the ruling class and stonemasons, fearful of losing their privileges and jobs, treated the warnings in exactly the same way as today's loggers in the US Northwest: "Work is more important than the forest!"
The trees gradually became smaller, thinner and less significant. Once the last fruiting palm tree was cut, and the 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 species of plants 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, there was an active felling of trees, 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 the eating of tree seeds by rats. Due to the irrational economic activity human and other factors, the resulting accelerated soil erosion caused great damage to agriculture, as a result of which the population of Rapa Nui was significantly reduced.
One of the extinct plants is Sophora toromiro, whose local name is toromiro (rap. toromiro). This plant on the island in the past played an important role in the culture of the Rapanui people: it was used to make "talking tablets" with local pictograms.
The trunk of a toromiro, with a diameter of a human thigh and thinner, was often used in the construction of houses; spears were also made from it. In the 19th-20th centuries, this tree was exterminated (one of the reasons was that the young growth was destroyed by sheep brought to the island).
Another plant on the island is the mulberry tree, whose local name is mahute (rap. 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 the mulberry tree. After the appearance of the first Europeans on the island - whalers and missionaries - the importance of mahute in the life of the Rapanui people decreased.
The roots of the ti plant (rap. ti), or Dracaena terminalis, were used to make sugar. Also, this plant was used to make a powder of dark blue and Green colour, which was then applied to the body as tattoos.
Makoi (rap. makoi) (Thespesia populnea) was used for carving.
One of the surviving plants of the island, which grows on the slopes of the Rano Kao and Rano Raraku craters, is Scirpus californicus, used in the construction of houses.
In recent decades, a small growth of eucalyptus has begun to appear on the island. In the XVIII-XIX centuries, grapes, banana, melon, sugar cane were brought to the island.
Before the Europeans arrived on the island, the fauna of Easter Island was mainly represented by marine animals: seals, turtles, crabs. Until the 19th century, chickens were bred on the island. The species of local fauna that previously inhabited Rapa Nui have become extinct. For example, the species of rat Rattus exulans, which in the past was used by the locals for food. Instead, rats of the species Rattus norvegicus and Rattus rattus were brought to the island by European ships, which became carriers of various diseases previously unknown to the Rapanui.
Now 25 species of sea birds nest on the island and 6 species of land birds live.
Moai statistics are as follows. The total number of moai is 887. The number of moai that are installed on the pedestals ahu (Ahu) is 288 (32 percent of the total). The number of moai that stand on the slopes of the Rano Raraku volcano, where the moai carving quarry was located, is 397 (45 percent of the total). The number of moai that lie scattered throughout the island is 92 (10 percent of the total). Moai have different heights - from 4 to 20 meters. The largest of them stand alone on the slope of Rano Raraku volcano.
They are up to their necks immersed in sedimentary rocks that have accumulated on the island over the long history of this piece of land. Some moai stood on stone plinths 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 (Paro), his height is about 10 meters, and his weight is about 80 tons.
Mysteries of Easter Island.
Easter Island is full of mysteries. Everywhere on the island you can see the entrances to the caves, stone platforms, grooved alleys leading directly to the ocean, huge statues, signs on the stones.
One of the main mysteries of the island, which has haunted several generations of travelers and researchers, 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 colossi weighing from 40 to 90 tons.
The glory of the island began with these stone statues. It was completely incomprehensible how they could appear on an island lost in the ocean with sparse vegetation and a “wild” population. Who carved them, 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 "caps" of red stone on their heads. What human tribe belonged to those whose portraits remained on the island in the form of moai? A pointed, raised nose, thin lips, slightly protruding, as if in a grimace of mockery and contempt. Deep notches under the superciliary arches, a large forehead - who are they?
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Some statues have necklaces carved in stone, or a tattoo made 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 to the sky. Into the sky - the same as when centuries ago, a new homeland was opened for those who sailed from beyond the horizon?
In earlier times, the islanders were convinced that the moai protected their land and themselves from evil spirits. All standing moai are turned to face 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 excavated from the volcanic lava at one of the extremities of the island, and then the finished figures were transferred along three main roads to the places of ceremonial plinths - ahu - scattered along 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 statues lie unfinished in quarries or along ancient roads. Some of them are frozen in the depths of the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano, some go beyond the crest of the volcano and seem to be heading towards the ocean. Everything seemed to stop at one moment, engulfed in a whirlwind of an unknown cataclysm. Why did the sculptors suddenly stop their work? Everything is left in place - stone axes, and 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 set on stone platforms, are knocked down and split. The same applies to stone platforms - ahu.
The construction of ahu required no less effort and art than the creation of the statues themselves. It was required to make blocks and lay down an even pedestal from them. The density with which the bricks are adjacent to each other is amazing. Why the first axy were built (their age is about 700-800 years) is still unclear. Subsequently, they were often used as places of burial and perpetuation of the memory of leaders.
Excavations carried out on several sections of ancient roads, along which, presumably, the islanders carried multi-ton statues (sometimes over a distance of more than 20 kilometers), showed that all roads clearly bypass flat areas. The roads themselves are V or U-shaped hollows about 3.5 meters wide. In some areas there are long connecting fragments, shaped like a curbstone. In some places, pillars are clearly visible, dug in outside the curbs - perhaps they served as a support for some kind of device like a lever. Scientists have not yet established the exact date of the construction of these roads, however, according to the researchers, the process of moving the statues was completed on Easter Island by about 1500 BC.
Another mystery: simple calculations show that for hundreds of years a small population could not have been able to carve out, transport and install even half of the existing statues. Ancient wooden tablets with carved letters were found on the island. Most of them were lost during the conquest of the island by Europeans. But some of the plaques have survived. The letters went from left to right, and then in reverse order - from right to left. For a long time it was not possible to decipher the signs inscribed on them. And only at the beginning of 1996 in Moscow it was announced that all 4 surviving text boards 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 near Easter Island. Oral traditions 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 larger islands or even a whole continent with a highly developed culture and technology have existed here in ancient times? They even came up with the beautiful name Pasifida for him.
Some scholars suggest that there is still a certain clan (order) of Paschals that keeps 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 at the sky");
Te-Pito-te-henua (rap. Te-Pito-te-henua - "navel of the earth");
Rapa Nui (rap. Rapa Nui - "Great Rapa"), a name mainly used by whalers;
San Carlos Island, so named by Gonzalez Don Felipe in honor of the King of Spain;
Teapi (rap. Teapi) - so called the island of James Cook;
Waihu (rap. Vaihu), or Waihou (rap. Vaihou), - this name was also used by James Cook, and later Forster Johann Georg Adam and La Perouse Jean Francois de Galo (the bay in the northeast of the island is named after him);
Easter Island, so named by the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen because he discovered it on Easter Day 1722. Very often, Easter Island is called Rapa Nui (translated as "Big Rapa"), although it is not of Rapanui, but of Polynesian origin. Such
The name of the island was due to the Tahitian navigators who used it to distinguish between Easter Island and Rapa Island, which lies 650 km south of Tahiti. The very name "Rapa Nui" has caused a lot of controversy among linguists about the correct spelling of this word. Among
English-speaking specialists use the word "Rapa Nui" (2 words) for the name of the island, the word "Rapanui" (1 word) - when it comes to the people or local culture.
Easter Island is a province within the Valparaiso region of Chile, 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 uninhabited islands Sala y Gomez. Since 1966, the settlement of Hanga Roa has elected a 6-member local council every four years, headed by a mayor.
About two dozen police officers operate on the island, mainly responsible for security at the local airport.
There are also armed forces Chile (mainly the Navy). The current currency on the island is the Chilean peso (US dollars are also in circulation on the island). Easter Island is a duty-free zone, so tax revenues to the island's budget are relatively small. To a large extent, it consists of subsidies from the government.
colossus (height 6 m) after the excavation of Easter Island (after: Heyerdahl, 1982
By the way, this prop was thrown into the sea during the filming of the next movie on the island. So there were no underwater statues.
Here's another theory of how things should look like.
Or like this
And I also suggest that you find out about all sorts of mysterious structures, let me remind you, or, for example, what it was like
Easter Island(Spanish Isla de Pascua) - an island of volcanic origin, belonging, lying in the South Pacific Ocean, between Chile and the island of Tahiti (fr. Tahiti). Together with a small uninhabited about. Sala y Gomez (Spanish Isla Sala y Gómez) forms the commune and province of Isla de Pascua (Spanish Provincia de Isla de Pascua) within the region (Spanish Region de Valparaíso). The local name given to the island by Polynesian whalers is: Rapa Nui(Rapa Nui).
The only city of Hanga Roa (Spanish: Hanga Roa) is the capital of the island.
About 6 thousand people live on the island, about 40% of them are Polynesians or Rapanui, indigenous people, the rest are mostly Chileans. Rapanui people speak the Rapanui language, believers profess Catholicism. On the territory of the island with an area of about 165 km² there are 70 extinct volcanoes. They have not erupted even once in 1300 years from the date of its colonization. The island has the shape of a right-angled triangle with sides of 24.18 and 16 km., At the corners of which rise the cones of extinct volcanoes: Rano Kao (rap. Rano Kao; 324 m), Pua Katiki (rap. Puakatike; 377 m) and Terevaka ( rap Terevaka; 539 m - the highest point of the island). Between them lies a hilly plain formed by volcanic tuffs and basalts. Many underwater caves and a bizarre, steep coastline are formed by lava tubes and influxes.
There are no rivers on Rapa Nui, the main sources of fresh water here are lakes that arose in the craters of volcanoes.
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The climate is subtropical, average monthly temperature from +18°С to +23°С. Mostly herbs grow here, as well as a few eucalyptus and banana plants.
Along with the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, Rapa Nui is considered the most remote inhabited island in the world: the distance to the mainland Chilean coast is almost 3514 km, and to the nearest inhabited place, the Pitcairn Islands (Eng. Pitcairn Islands belonging to the UK) - 2075 km .
Basically, Rapa Nui became famous for its stone giants, in which, according to the beliefs of the local population, the mystical power of the ancestors of Hotu Matu'a (Hotu Mato-a), the first king of the island, is contained.
Easter Island is undoubtedly the most Mysterious Island on the globe. With its curiosities and inexplicable mysteries, it attracts the attention of historians, geologists and culturologists like a magnet.
Story
In 1722, a squadron of 3 ships under the command of the Dutch traveler, Admiral Jacob Roggeveen (Dutch. Jacob Roggeveen; 1659-1729), on his way from South America in search of the wealth of the Unknown Southern Land (lat.Terra Australis Incognita), On Sunday, April 7, the day of Christian Easter, she discovered a small island in the South Pacific Ocean. At the council, gathered by the admiral, the captains of the ships signed a resolution proclaiming the opening of a new island. Surprised travelers discovered that on Easter Island (as sailors immediately dubbed it) three different races coexist peacefully: redskins, blacks and whites. Local residents greeted the travelers differently: some waved their hands in a friendly manner, and some threw stones at uninvited guests.
The Polynesians, the inhabitants of Oceania, call the island "Rapa Nui" (rap. Rapa Nui - Big Rapa), however, the islanders themselves call their homeland "Te Pito-o-te-Khenua" (rap. Te-Pito-o -te-henua, which means " the center of the world»).
Formed by a series of large volcanic eruptions, the secluded island has served as a habitat for seabird colonies for millions of years. And its steep, steep banks marked the navigation path for the ships of the Polynesian navigators.
Legends say that about 1200 years ago on the sandy beach of Anakena (rap. Anakena) King Hotu Mato-a descended and set about colonizing the island. Then, for many centuries, a mysterious society existed on this island lost in the ocean. For unknown reasons, the islanders carved giant statues known as "moai". These idols are today considered one of the most inexplicable ancient artifacts on Earth. The islanders built villages from houses of an unusual, elliptical shape. Presumably, the newly arrived settlers adapted their boats for temporary housing by turning them upside down. Then houses began to be built in a similar way, most of the hundreds of such buildings were destroyed by missionaries.
By the time the island was discovered, its population was 3-4 thousand people. The first settlers found lush vegetation on the island. Giant palm trees (up to 25 m high) grew here in abundance, which were cut down for the construction of dwellings and boats. People brought various plants here, which perfectly took root in the soil enriched with volcanic ash. By 1500, the population of the island already amounted to 7 - 9 thousand people.
As the population grew, separate clans formed, concentrated in different parts of Easter Island, connected by the common construction of statues and the cult that arose around them.
In 1862, Peruvian slave traders took out most of the inhabitants of the island and destroyed their original culture. In 1888, Rapa Nui was annexed to Chile. Today, the islanders are engaged in fishing, farming - growing sugar cane, taro, sweet potatoes, bananas, and also work on cattle farms and make souvenirs for tourists.
Sights and mysteries of Rapa Nui
Despite its small size, Easter Island has many attractions, both natural and man-made. In 1995 national park Rapa Nui (Spanish: el Parque Nacional de Rapa Nui National) was included in the UNESCO World Heritage Register.
The entire territory of the island is an archaeological reserve, a single amazing open-air museum.
There are 2 sandy beaches on Easter Island: located in the northern part of the island, Anakena Beach (Spanish: Playa Anakena), one of the few beaches where swimming is officially allowed, is a great place for surfers. The second beautiful deserted beach located along south coast islands, this is a real gem called Ovahe (Spanish: Playa Ovahe). Ovahe is surrounded by picturesque cliffs, it is much larger than Anaken.
The main attraction of the island and an unresolved mystery that has haunted the minds of scientists for centuries, of course, are the Moai sculptures. Huge ancient statues rise almost everywhere along the southern part of the island.
It is not known why the islanders began to massively create gigantic sculptures. Their incomprehensible obsession subsequently led to a catastrophic depletion of forest resources. The forest needed to transport the giant moai was mercilessly cut down. The first monolithic human-height sculptures were made from basalt. Then the islanders began to make huge statues (more than 10 meters high, weighing up to 20 tons) from soft volcanic tuff (compressed volcanic ash), an ideal material for sculpture. Located a little inland of the island, the Rano Raraku crater (Spanish: Rano Raraku; a small extinct volcano up to 150 m high) is the place where the famous giants are carved. Hundreds of islanders worked on their creation from morning to evening. Today, here you can see all the stages of painstaking work, unfinished figures are scattered right there. Probably, the production of statues by skillful sculptors took place with the observance of numerous ceremonies and rituals. If a defect occurred during the manufacture of the statue, which was considered a sign of the devil, the carvers abandoned their work and took on another.
When the statue was carved and the bridge connecting it to the rock of the crater was cut off, the figure rolled down the slope. At the base of the crater, the statues were placed in a vertical position, and their final refinement was carried out here. How then were the massive moai transported to various places on the island? Statues weighed up to 82 tons at a height of up to 10 m. Sometimes they were moved and installed at distances of over 20 km!
As the Easter legends say, moai … went to their places on their own. Some researchers believed that they were dragged. Later they came to the conclusion that the figures moved in an upright position. What it really looked like remains another unsolved mystery of the civilization of Easter Island.
In 1868, the British tried to take one of the statues home. However, they abandoned this idea, limiting themselves to a small bust (2.5 m high). It was installed in London's British Museum. Hundreds of natives and the entire crew of the ship took part in the process of transporting and loading the "baby".
At the location of the statue, they were installed on ahu (rap. Ahu) - polished stone platforms of various sizes, slightly inclined towards the sea. Then the final stage of the creation of cult figures took place - the installation of eyes made of volcanic glass or corals. The heads of many stone idols were decorated with “hats” (rap. Pukao) made of reddish rock.
Moai pedestals have a height of more than 3 m, a length of up to 150 m, and the weight of their stone slabs is up to 10 tons. About 200 unfinished figures were found near the crater of the volcano, among which there are giants over 20 meters in length.
Over time, the number of moai reached 1000, which made it possible to build an almost continuous line of monuments along the coast of Rapa Nui. The reason why the inhabitants of the tiny island spent time and energy on the creation of numerous giants remains a mystery today.
It is believed that the statues of Easter Island were images of noble representatives of the clans. The typical design of the statue - without legs, with an angular grim face, a protruding chin, tight lips and a low forehead - remains one of Easter Island's greatest mysteries. All statues (except seven moai, located in the middle of the island) stand on the coast and "look" at the sky towards the island. Some experts consider them to be the guardians of the dead, who protected the deceased from natural elements with their powerful backs. Mysterious giants, silently lined up on the coast, their backs turned to Pacific Ocean- like a powerful army guarding the peace of their possessions.
Despite some primitive moai, the statues are fascinating. The giants look especially impressive in the evening, in the rays of the setting sun, when only huge, chilling silhouettes loom against the sky ...
So the Rapa Nui civilization reached its peak, then something terrible happened.
An ominous story about the merciless use of natural resources and the ruin of the island. Europeans who first set foot on Easter Island were amazed at how people could survive in such a deserted place. It ceased to be a mystery when recent research showed that in ancient times the island was covered with dense forest, there was an abundant tropical paradise here.
Apparently, the resources of the island seemed inexhaustible, trees were cut down for the construction of dwellings and canoes, and giant palm trees were used to transport moai.
The destruction of the forest has led to soil erosion and depletion. Meager harvests, lack of food led to armed conflicts between the island clans, moai - symbols of power and success were overthrown. The fight intensified over time, according to legend, the winners ate their enemies to gain strength. In the southwestern part of Rapa Nui there is a cave "Ana Kai Tangata", the name of which is ambiguous: it can mean "a cave where people eat", or it can mean "a cave where people ate". The culture of Rapa Nui, which had been formed over the past 300 years, collapsed.
Due to the lack of a forest, the islanders found themselves cut off from the outside world even more than before. Even fishing was difficult for them. Easter Island turned into a devastated desolate piece of land with depleted soils, with about 750 inhabitants surviving. Under these conditions, the cult of the bird-man was born here. Over time, it acquired the status of the dominant religion on the island, which was practiced until 1866-1867.
Due to the lack of material for the construction of canoes and the possibility of sailing away from the island, the Rapanui people watched with envy the birds soaring in the sky.
On the edge of the Rano-Kao crater, the ritual village of Orongo (rap. Orongo) was founded, where the god of fertility Makemake (rap. MakeMake) was worshiped and peculiar competitions were held between men of different clans.
In the spring, each clan selected the most physically fit warriors who needed to descend from the steep slopes to the shark-infested sea, swim to one of the islets and bring back an unharmed egg of a sea bird, a dark mallard (lat. Onychoprion fuscatus). The warrior who managed to deliver the egg first was proclaimed the Bird-Man (the earthly incarnation of the deity Makemake). He was awarded an award and special privileges, and his tribe received the right to rule the island for a year, until the next competition.
Also unique to Orongo are the hundreds of centuries-old petroglyphs carved into the hard basalt rock by the Birdmen. There is an opinion that the petroglyphs depict the winners of the annual competitions. About 480 such petroglyphs have been found around Orongo.
The culture of the Rapanui began to revive, perhaps the inhabitants of the island would again be able to flourish, but in December 1862 ships of Peruvian slave traders moored to the island and took away all the able-bodied inhabitants of the island. At that time, the economy was booming and needed labor. Due to poor nutrition, unbearable working conditions and disease, no more than a hundred islanders survived. And only thanks to the intervention of France, the surviving residents of Rapa Nui were returned to the island. At the time of the annexation of the island to Chile in 1888, about 200 indigenous people lived here.
Missionaries who arrived on the island discovered a declining society here, and it did not take long for its inhabitants to convert to Christianity. Changes were immediately made to the clothing of the indigenous population, or rather, its complete absence. The inhabitants of the island were deprived of their original lands, they lived in a small part of the island, while the arrived farmers used the rest of the land for agriculture.
Tattoos were banned, houses and ritual shrines were destroyed, works of art of the Rapanui were destroyed. All wooden sculptures of the island, religious artifacts, and, most importantly, "" (rap. Rongo Rongo) were destroyed - wooden planks of the "talking tree", dotted with unique writing. Easter Island is the only island in Polynesia whose inhabitants developed their own writing system. Ancient legends, legends, religious chants were carved with a shark's tooth on planks of dark toromiro wood, only a few of which have survived to this day. Kohau tablets with images of a winged bird-man, frogs, turtles, lizards, stars, crosses and spirals inscribed on them are another mystery of the outlandish island that scientists have not been able to decipher for more than 130 years. Now only 25 left rongo-rongo scattered throughout the museums of the world.
In 1988, Rapa Nui gave scientists another surprise. During excavations in a small swamp in the depths of the island, Australian scientists found the remains of a medieval knight in full gear, sitting on a war horse. In peat, which has preservative properties, the knight and horse are well preserved. Judging by his armor, the knight was a member of the German Catholic Livonian Order (1237-1562). In a belt purse, gold Hungarian ducats minted in 1326 were found; these coins were in circulation in Poland and Lithuania. Scientists could not explain how the rider ended up thousands of kilometers away on a remote Pacific island. Before the discovery of America (1492), more than 150 years remained from 1326! Thoughts about the existence of the phenomenon of teleportation involuntarily arise. No more, more or less convincing arguments explaining the appearance of a medieval crusader knight on Easter Island have been found to this day.
A little sad digression
The phenomenal Easter Island, which is a small piece of land (only 165 m²), at the time of the construction of the mysterious giants, was 3-4 times larger than before. Some part of it, like Atlantis, disappeared under water. In calm, sunny weather, areas of flooded land are visible through the water column. There is even such an incredible version: the mysterious Easter Island is a tiny surviving part of the progenitor of mankind, the mythical mainland of Lemuria, which sank about 4 million years ago.
And the pearl island, located in Oceania far from civilization, suggests certain thoughts and conclusions. The history of Easter Island is a miniature copy of the history of our time. She is able to teach an object lesson to us, the inhabitants of planet Earth. All of us, in essence, are the inhabitants of the island, floating in the endless ocean.
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This question is of interest to many. This place is exotic and shrouded in a whole heap of legends and beliefs. However, getting there will be very difficult.
Where is Easter Island located: coordinates
A small piece of land, annexed by Chile at the beginning of the twentieth century, is located 3600 km from the South American continent. The nearest island group is 2075 km to the east. It is not difficult to guess that of all the inhabited places on Earth, Easter Island is one of the most remote. The area of this unique monument of Rapani culture is 163.6 km2. It is the small size and very distant location from the mainland that causes questions about where the Easter Islands are located. By the way, this combination is absolutely incorrect, since there is only one island in that region, and it is hardly correct to consider small patches of rocky shoals as islands. It is all the more surprising that such a lost one far in the waters sheltered on his small lands the amazing nation of Rapa Nui, which, presumably, erected amazing stone sculptures.
History reference
Of course, it is not enough to know where Easter Island is located. Its history is no less interesting than the location.
The island arose as standard for numerous archipelagos and atolls of the planet's largest ocean: thanks to a volcanic eruption. Constant eruptions and violent winds have made the coast difficult for ships to moor: there are only two places where you can set foot on the coast from the liner without first breaking into the rocks.
The first colonists reached this lost piece of land 1300 years ago. They spotted large palm groves, which were immediately put to use for the construction of dwellings and boats. Later, a small civilization had a hard time: the constant attacks of Peruvian pirates decreased every year. In addition, Catholic preachers destroyed the artifacts of the people from Easter Island, which caused irreparable damage to the unique culture of Rapa Nui. Currently, the remains of ancient structures are under the protection of UNESCO.
Moai stone statues
How Rapa Nui created the famous stone statues is still not known. They are blocks, the weight of which is up to 14 tons, and the height can reach 4 meters. It is curious that idols can be found everywhere: in places where Easter Island meets the ocean, or in the depths, near mountains and volcanoes. In other words, the cult of Moai was of great importance for the population of the era of the construction of stone idols. Presumably, they were built in order to mark the death of a tribesman: the larger the statue, the more honor to the deceased. However, the question arises: "How did the stone blocks move from one point of the island to another?"
The answer to it will most likely be impossible to find. However, the unfinished prototypes of future statues found suggest that the idols were first hollowed out of stone, and then transported on logs or cables from one part of the island to another.
How to get there?
It would seem that knowing where Easter Island is located, it would not be a problem to reach its shores. Unfortunately, it is not. You can try your luck and board one of the liners that set off from the shores of Australia or South America, heading to conquer the expanses of Oceania, especially since the first inhabitants reached the island on dilapidated boats. However, the most adequate option is to fly by plane.
But not everything is so simple with a flying unit: you can fly to a coveted place only from Chile and Tahiti. For the inhabitants of Russia, even Australia is very far away, but this is only a transit point on the way. In total, the flight to the shores of the famous island will take several days, and will also eat up a fair portion of finances. It is also worth remembering that there is only one city on the island, so visiting UNESCO monuments is the only joy accessible to the tourist.
When to visit?
Despite the remoteness of the place where Easter Island is located, this is a fairly popular tourist region, which has its own periods of influx and decline in the activity of visitors. Given the fact that this piece of land is located near the equator, it is impossible to meet snowdrifts here at any time of the year. However, the high season starts in summer: from January to March. This is followed by a decrease in the tourist flow, although the temperature conditions are still not very severe: about 17 degrees in the coldest months. Thus, if you want to enjoy the beauty of Easter Island without the noisy crowds, it is better to come between April and November.
Easter Island is a unique place. Here you can admire the volcano, visible even from space, unique stone statues. In addition, the population of the island can tell travelers a lot, as local legends have been passed down from generation to generation. So now we know where the Easter Islands are, and what they, or rather he, are.
