Rapa Iti Island: Heyerdahl, Aku Aku and giant Polynesian forts. Easter Island: Mysterious Deities of Rapa Nui

The island of Rapa Iti, which is the top of an ancient extinct volcano, is part of the Tubuai archipelago of French Polynesia. It's pretty small island, its area is about 40 sq. Km, and the height is 650 m.

Photographer Gerhard Bachmayer

Easter Island is an island in the South Pacific Ocean, a territory of Chile. The local name of the island is Rapa Nui (rap. Rapa Nui). Area - 163.6 km². Coordinates - 27°07′ S sh. 109°21′ W / 27.116667°S sh. 109.35°W d. (G) -27.116667, -109.35.

Easter Island. Rapa Nui National Park

Easter Island, along with the Tristan da Cunha archipelago, is the most remote inhabited island in the world. The distance to the continental coast of Chile is 3703 km, to Pitcairn Island, the nearest inhabited place, is 1819 km. The island was discovered by the Dutch traveler Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Sunday 1722.

The capital of the island and its only city is Hanga Roa. In total, 3.7 thousand live on the island (2005).

Rapa Nui is largely known for its moai, or stone statues made from compressed volcanic ash, which are believed to local residents, contains the supernatural power of the ancestors of the first king of Easter Island - Hotu-Matu'a. In 1888, annexed by Chile. In 1995, the Rapa Nui National Park became the object of world heritage UNESCO.

The island has the shape of a right triangle, the hypotenuse of which is the southeast coast. The sides of this "triangle" have lengths of 16, 18 and 24 km. Extinct volcanoes rise in the corners of the island: Rano Kao (rap. Rano Kao) (324 m) near the settlement of Mataveri; Pua Katiki (rap. Puakatike) (377 m) and Terevaka (rap. Terevaka) (539 m - the highest point of the island).

The highest crater of the Terevaka volcano is called Rano Aroi (rap. Rano Aroi) (about 200 m). Actually "Rano-Aroi" is the name of the lake that fills the extinct crater.

Another Terevaka crater - Rano Raraku (rap. Rano Raraku) (160 m) is also a lake with a large reserve fresh water surrounded by reed beds. The diameter of this crater is about 650 m.

The diameter of the Rano Kao crater is about 1500 m, the depth is 800 m. The volcano has a symmetrical shape and is surrounded hilly terrain. The southern slope breaks off at.

Vegetation is more abundant on the inner slopes of volcanoes. This is due to more fertile soil, lack of strong wind and the "greenhouse effect".

Easter Island is of volcanic origin. The soil was formed as a result of erosion of the slopes of volcanoes. The most fertile soil is located in the north of the island, where locals grow yam, or sweet potatoes, and yams. The most common rocks on the island - basalt, obsidian, rhyolite, trachyte. Sheer cliffs in La Perouse Bay (locally called Hanga Hoonu) are made up of red lava

The climate of Easter Island is warm, subtropical. The average annual temperature is 21.8 °C, the most cold month- August (19.2 ° C), the warmest - January (24.6 ° C). The island lies near the southern border of the zone of southeasterly winds blowing in summer. In winter, the northwest prevails, but there are also southwest and southeast winds. Despite the proximity to the tropics, the climate on the island is relatively temperate. Heat is rare. This is due to the proximity of the cold Humboldt Current and the absence of any land between the island and Antarctica. Winds from the Antarctic in July-August often reduce the daytime air temperature to 20° Celsius.

The main source of fresh water on the island is lakes formed in the craters of local volcanoes. There are no rivers on Rapa Nui, and rainwater easily seeps through the soil, resulting in The groundwater flowing towards the ocean. Since there is not much water on the island, local residents in the past built wells and small reservoirs everywhere.

Moai - stone statues on the coast of Easter Island in the form of a human head up to 20 meters high. Contrary to popular belief, they "look" not towards the ocean, but into the depths of the island. Some moai have "caps" made of red stone. Moai were made in quarries in the center of the island. How they were delivered to the coast is unknown. According to legend, they "walked" themselves. IN Lately volunteer enthusiasts have found several ways to transport stone blocks. But what exactly the ancient inhabitants used (or some of their own) has not yet been determined. Many unfinished idols are in the quarries. A detailed study of the island gives the impression of a sudden cessation of work on the statues.

Rano Raraku is one of the most interesting places for tourists. At the foot of this volcano there are about 300 moai, of various heights and at different stages of readiness. Not far from the bay is ahu Tongariki, the largest ritual site with 15 statues of various sizes installed on it.

On the shore of Anakena Bay is one of the most beautiful beaches islands with crystal white coral sand. Swimming is allowed in the bay. Picnics are organized for tourists in palm groves. Also, not far from the Anakena Bay, there are ahu Ature-Khuki and ahu Naunau. According to ancient Rapanui legend, it was in this bay that Hotu-Matu'a, the first king of Rapa Nui, landed with the first settlers of the island.

Te Pito-te-henua (rap. Navel of the Earth) - a ceremonial site on the island of round stones. Quite a controversial place on Rapa Nui. Anthropologist Christian Walter claims that Te Pito-te-henua was established in the 1960s to attract gullible tourists to the island.

Rano Kao volcano has Observation deck. Nearby is the Orongo ceremonial site.

Puna Pau is a small volcano near Rano Khao. In the distant past, a red stone was mined here, from which “headdresses” were made for local moai.

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 mahute, were made from silkworm cocoons, which were worn by women (similar to the Polynesian tapa). 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, 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. Kinds local fauna, who previously inhabited Rapa Nui, became 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.

The position of the island of Rapa-Iti on the world map (the figure was created using the Google Earth program)

Rapa Iti Island - an ancient mystery

The position of the island of Rapa Iti on the mainland of Lemuria

Quite unexpectedly, Thor Heyerdahl stumbled upon unusual colossal buildings in the mountains of this island. In Aku Aku's book, in a chapter called "Moronga Uta, the City of Undercloud Ruins", these structures are described as follows:

"The village was thoroughly fortified. From the south, the path to it was blocked by a wide moat with a wall. So that stormy downpours would not wash away the huts into the abyss, the builders patiently moved them from the valley up hundreds of thousands of fragments of solid basalt, which supported the terraces. Stones are extremely skillfully driven to each other without any binding solution.. Drainage channels ran through the masonry here and there: oblong stones protruded, forming ladders with their ledges that connected the cornices. In total, there were more than eighty terraces on Morongo Uta. Overall Height structures - fifty meters with a diameter of four hundred meters; in other words, it is the largest structure known to us in Polynesia."

View of coastal zone Rapa Iti islands from the height of the ruins near the village of Moronga Uta (photo from Thor Heyerdahl's book "Aku Aku")

Local residents of the island of Rapa Iti are sent to excavate the ruins near the village of Moronga Uta, led by members of the expedition of Thor Heyerdahl (photo from Thor Heyerdahl's book "Aku Aku")

Excavations of one of the gigantic structures located on the island of Rapa-Iti near the village of Morong Uta (photo from Thor Heyerdahl's book "Aku Aku")

Hundreds of thousands of huge fragments of solid basalt, raised from the valley to the tops of the mountains - are the Papuans capable of such work? And the laying of huge walls and fitting blocks to each other without any binder solution - does it not resemble the walls of Saxahuaman or Cuzco? And why would the natives climb the tops of the mountains and build huge structures there, if fertile valleys lie nearby? - The answer to all these questions can be given only if we assume that after the flood of Lemuria there were some islands on which the remaining Lemurians survived - they then built these gigantic structures.

Unfortunately, the ruins on the island of Rapa Iti have not been thoroughly excavated and explored to this day. There remains only one oral testimony of Thor Heyerdahl, cited by him in his book, excerpts from which we give in the appendix below. Unfortunately, the description of Thor Heyerdahl is tendentious, who, as is known, attributed all the gigantic structures to the work of the local Papuans.

Pictures of Rapa Island (not to be confused with Rapa Nui- Easter Island!) is extremely small. But thanks to a happy coincidence, the changed mountain peaks of this island ended up in Cousteau's film "Tahiti: land of fire", although Tahiti is already 1200 kilometers from here.

Stills from the film Cousteau:

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The tale says: in a faraway kingdom, in a faraway state, behind high mountains stands a golden castle on top. But who believes in fairy tales today? We believed when we crossed over high mountain and saw before them Morongo Uta.

The ocean stretched all around the world. The boundless ocean that we crossed with our boat from the other end the globe. Below us were deep green valleys, the mirror-like surface of the bay, and the same boat that brought us here from Easter Island. And on the next peak, within easy reach, is a magic castle. An enchanted castle, a sleeping kingdom, walls and towers woven with a green forest carpet from the very time the king and all his retinue left him. And it happened when the world still believed in fairy tales...

I was breathless with excitement when we stepped on the last ridge and began to approach the foot fairytale castle. Mighty and majestic, it towered before us against a fantastic background of floating clouds, blue peaks and spiers ... And although the castle was elevated high into the air, to the very sky, there was something from a dungeon ancient building with a dense green fleece of virgin thickets over turf-covered walls.

A beautiful blue bird rushed into the abyss with a cry. And when we approached the castle, three white wild goats suddenly emerged from the bushes on the wall, jumped into the moat and disappeared from sight. Considering that Easter Island is the most secluded in the world, it is not so strange to call Rapaiti one of its closest neighbors, although they are separated by the same distance as Spain from Canada. In these green mountains, we were somehow especially far from worldly fuss. That's right, this is the most forgotten corner of the Pacific Ocean,

Who heard about Rapaiti? A small island, almost torn into two parts by the mighty fangs of the surrounding ocean ... To the right and left of us are steep, steep slopes and two bays, which alternately, depending on the wind, served as a mirror magic castle. And if you turn around, you can count twelve equally outlandish castles on other peaks overgrown with greenery. And just as lifeless. Only on the shore of the bay, where our boat was moored, was smoke visible over the village: a handful of white huts and bamboo huts with reed roofs. The entire population of Rapaiti lived here - two hundred and seventy-eight Polynesians.

But who erected the magic castle in front of us - and the rest, on other peaks? And what were these structures really intended for? Nobody knew this. When Captain Vancouver accidentally discovered this secluded island in 1791, it seemed to him that people were swarming on one of the peaks. On the slope, he seemed to make out a blockhouse and palisades in several rows and concluded that this was an artificial fortification. True, he did not climb the mountain and check. And the famous missionary Ellis, who arrived there a few years later, said that Vancouver was mistaken, he mistook purely natural formations for a fort. After Ellis, I visited Rapaiti famous traveler Murenhut. He admired the peculiar nature of the island, whose mountains resemble towers, castles and fortified Indian villages. But even he did not climb the peaks to take a closer look at the amazing phenomenon of nature.

In the early thirties, a book was published by Caio, who climbed mountains and made sure that masonry walls were visible between the bushes. Others climbed after him; most decided that there were ancient fortifications, but some interpreted the ruins as the remains of agricultural terraces. Of the ethnologists, only Stoke visited the island. He studied the locals, but his manuscript remained unpublished and was kept in the Bishop Museum.

We breathed a sigh of relief, dropping anchor in a mirrored bay near a picturesque village, from which tiny pirogues immediately came out to us.

... And here we are on the ridge itself; behind is a difficult ascent through steep gorges and ridges.

Morongo Uta, our guide said.

Who built it?

He shrugged.

Maybe some kind of king, who knows.

Parting the dense thickets, we saw here and there pieces of carefully laid out walls. I heard Ed exclaim. In one place, a ledge above a steep slope crumbled, and the earth was exposed, mixed with shells and fish bones. And a bell-shaped basalt mortar stuck out of the garbage, so elegant, so skillfully hewn and polished, that I have not seen better work in all Polynesia.

At this time, and Bill got out on the ridge.

Wow, - he said, looking as if spellbound at the mighty structure. - You have to dig here!

We put men and women at different ends of the huge structure, and a tournament unfolded - who will do their job better and faster. Each brigade sought to defend the honor of its sex, and it is unlikely that excavations have ever worked with such zeal. From the deck of our ship, it looked like locusts had attacked the mountain. The green veil of Morongo Uta was receding before our eyes; more brown every day. Terraces, walls appeared, and now the whole top is like a chocolate temple against a blue sky background.

And all around the green shaggy pyramids still rose - sort of castles of mountain trolls. In fact, Morongo Uta was not a castle. From the neighboring ridges, it was immediately clear that this was not a single building. We unearthed the abandoned ruins of an entire village. Calling it a fort is a misnomer. And agricultural terraces are not the right definition. Because the entire population of the island once lived here, on the tops of the mountains.

Those who first sailed to the island could well have settled in the valleys, out of the blue. Nevertheless, they climbed the steep cliffs to the tops of the mountains. Hooked on them and, so to speak, twisted their eagle's nests. Or rather, they began to chisel the mountain with stone axes and turned its top into an impregnable tower. Below the tower were large terraces, on which residential buildings huddled together. Hearths full of ashes and charcoal have survived to our time - stone stoves of a kind of masonry, which until now was known throughout Polynesia only on Easter Island.

Bill carefully packed the precious firebrands into bags: radioactive analysis would help determine the age of the amazing mountain village.

Around lay a lot of stone axes different kind, whole and broken. But even more often there was an indispensable tool for a housewife - stone pestles, with which women turned taro into drinking cups. Some of the pestles were so intricately made, the graceful lines and smooth polishing spoke of such perfection that our mechanics could not believe how such a thing could be made without a modern lathe. At one point, Bill carefully dug the blackened remains of an old fishing net out of the ground.

The village was heavily fortified. From the south, the path to it was blocked by a wide moat with a wall. To prevent the stormy downpours from washing the huts into the abyss, the builders patiently carried hundreds of thousands of fragments of hard basalt up from the valley, with which they propped up the terraces. The stones were extremely skilfully fitted together without any binding solution. Drainage channels ran through the masonry here and there: oblong stones protruded, forming ladders with their ledges that connected the cornices. In total, there were more than eighty terraces on Morongo Uta. The total height of the structure is fifty meters with a diameter of four hundred meters; in other words, it is the largest structure known to us in Polynesia. Bill figured that only in Morongo Uta lived more people than today lives on the whole island.

Thor Heyerdahl, his wife Yvonne, Bill, who led the excavations (photo from Thor Heyerdahl's book "Aku Aku")

Hearths, wells and cellars for storing taro - that's all that remains of the dwellings, except for tools and garbage. And before that there were (another feature reminiscent of Easter Island) oval huts made of branches stuck into the ground, which were tied together at the top and covered with reeds and dry grass. For big places of worship- the main element of building art on other islands - there was not enough space. And the inhabitants of Morongo Uta solved this problem in their own way, unknown in other parts of Polynesia: they cut down domed niches on the mountain behind the terraces and arranged miniature temples in them. On the smooth floor, like chess pieces, stood, forming rows and cages, small stones. And those rituals for which it was too crowded in front of the dwarf temple were performed on the upper platform of the pyramid, where the sky was the ceiling.

While Bill and his assistants led the excavation of Morongo Uta, Ed and Carl, along with members of the ship's crew, explored other parts of the island. All pyramid-like peaks turned out to be the ruins of the same fortified villages. The Rapaitians called them a couple. Along the sharp watershed ridge that connected the peaks, the foundations of former dwellings stretched in a continuous line. And in the valleys, the walls of ancient agricultural terraces have been preserved. Often they climbed steps on the slopes. And everywhere traces of an artificial irrigation network were visible - long channels took water from streams and carried it along the terraces. So, in the past, the people of this peculiar island community lived on the tops of the mountains and every day went down the paths carved into the cliffs to tend the taro crops in the valleys and catch fish and crayfish in the sea. The children of the mountain people lived higher than the eaglets in their nests.

I have never been to the islands in the Pacific Ocean. So far, such a trip remains only my dream. But the spirit of the explorer that lives in each of us made me pay close attention to the problem of how outlying islands in the Pacific Ocean, including Easter Island (everyone knows), were discovered.
Researchers, scientists, amateurs have proposed numerous options for how ancient sailors navigated among the gigantic water surface. "By the stars!" usually the most common answer. However, the answer to the question, is it? leads to amazing results.
For example, I took 2 islands in the Pacific Ocean: this is Rapa Nui (or Easter Island) and Rapa Iti, many hundreds of kilometers away from the first. famous explorer Thor Heirdal in his book "Aku, aku" almost entirely devoted to the exploration of Easter Island, asked about the same question "how was Easter Island discovered"? He approached the study of the problem more than professionally. He studied the Pacific currents and found out that from the coast of Chile and Peru to South America a powerful Pacific current departs, along which ancient sailors at first could easily get to the island of Rapa Nui, and then to Rapa Iti.
After exploring Easter Island, Thor Heyerdahl arrived on the island of Rapa Iti, where he found powerful fortifications on the mountain of the island that had not yet been explored by anyone, which clearly could not be built. local population. Moreover, now a little more than 400 people live on the island.
I think that there could have been several waves of settlement of the islands in the Pacific Ocean. However, in my opinion, the main wave still came from Australia and New Zealand, which is confirmed by numerous archaeological finds.
So what connects the island of Rapa Nui and Rapa Iti? It turned out that the names of their names are translated as Big and small island, given to them by sailors from the island of Tahiti. Both islands are of volcanic origin, the shape of Easter Island looks like a triangle, and the shape of Rapa Iti looks like a Russian letter C. But I managed to find the most interesting thing when I drew a line along the 27th parallel from one island to another. Both islands lie almost on the same latitude!
The legends about Hotu Matua (the leader and discoverer of Easter Island) say that he dreamed of Easter Island in a dream and he sent scouts to an unknown area Pacific Ocean. Anakena Bay, where Hotu Matua landed, is located on the western part of the island, which can be considered another confirmation that he arrived from the West ...
Easter Island cannot be found in the Pacific Ocean; it is not for nothing that the islanders called it the Navel of the Earth. Apparently, they were familiar with the maps of the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean, because there is not a single habitable island within 3000 km around the island. It is also undetectable if the islanders knew of the existence of the Tropic of Capricorn (whether they knew or not, I do not know), a latitude at which no shadows are cast by objects at noon.
The island of Rapa Iti, meanwhile, is included in French Polynesia and can be easily discovered when exploring the islands of the archipelago.
The point is also that I discovered several more similar "strange" coincidences, when ancient navigators discovered new islands and entire continents. But more on that in another story.

In November, it never drops below 23 ° (the table with the weather on Rapa-Iti in the article is from some other place), in reality, there is an unreal dubak around and we put on all the jackets and windbreakers prepared for returning to November Moscow. It's about 13° or 15° outside (the same temperature inside - we slept in clothes last night).

Aronga means "Welcome":

More toohitu banned the sale of alcohol on Rape (but you can bring it with you, so beer caps are lying around):


Pas de Credit "merci"

Aurei

Almost the entire population of the island lives in main village Aurei (450). The bay is also called Aurei:

License plates as in all French Polynesia:

The main micro-genre of this trip is a photo of Patrice with the mayor:

Morongo Uta

On the school project - a map of the island of Rapa - 12 prehistoric gigantic Polynesian forts are clearly visible pa (couple), needed to fight for the scarce resources of the island among themselves. Morongo Uta- apparently the oldest and thanks to the excavations and Thor Heyerdahl the most famous:

Now let's go to Morongo Uta!

These days, Morongo Utu has a steep but decent dirt road, and now you can easily spawn in a jeep as a boss where Turu needed a few hours to cross:

The road is surrounded by giant tree ferns:

When this red flower blooms, whales come and lobsters begin to breed:

Local raspberries, which, of course, are not raspberries:

From the end of the dirt road to Morongo Uta - a simple track for 20 minutes along the sharp edge of the volcano's mouth, in which Rapa fits entirely. Under the prominent, fang-like peak, visible at the top right couple(fort) Tevaitau - similar to Lenin's mausoleum, covered with slightly more yellow grass than the surrounding natural hills:

Here it is closer if you fly up on a quadrocopter:


Fort Tewaitau

The trail, without any help from people, tells about internecine wars between 12 fortresses, about formidable kings and warriors thrown into the abyss:

Million dollar views around:

A day by plane from Moscow, 6 days by sea, 15 minutes by jeep, 20 minutes on foot and here we have Morongo Uta:

Morongo-Uta gives a mixed impression: it is not very big. Against the background of the surrounding sharp natural mountains, partially overgrown - the trees are cut down and thrown down, but the bushes are in place and well mask the artificial relief - at first it seems like just another top of Rapa. So familiar to us from Cousteau's film are numerous platforms descending in steps from main tower forts on the ground, in fact, are indistinguishable.

There is very little artificial masonry, and the excavation work during the construction of the fortress consisted, with all obviousness, in cutting off everything superfluous from the volcanic peak that used to stand here and forming regular defensive platforms and ditches (in the background you can again find Fort Tevaitau):

There are very few clutches:

A typical wall of Morongo-Uta looks more like this (in the background - Aurea Bay with motu(island) Tapui; Tapui - a new volcanic cone inside the large volcano Rapa):

I raise the drone up to 500 meters, as far as the non-hacked firmware allows, point the sensors exactly down and take a picture of Morongo-Uta, in order to once again be convinced of the hypothesis, the confirmation of which our permanent expedition has been finding for many years in a row - of course, this is the point not in Race III, ancient giants, Lemuria or ancient Lemurians. Morongo-Uta was built by the ancient Rus and it has the shape of a balalaika in plan:

END TO BE

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