Easter Island: statues. Description and photo. Easter Island and moai stone statues

When did the statues on Easter Island appear and what are they called? Were they created by ordinary people or aliens from outer space? For what purposes were the stone sculptures installed? Many historians dream of giving accurate answers to these questions.

The legend says…

There is no consensus on how the idols appeared on the island either among historians or folklorists. One of the legends says that the leader of the Hotu Matu'a clan arrived on this island in search of a new land. After his death, a piece of land was divided among the children, and then other descendants of the discoverer. The inhabitants of the island are confident that the stone statues contain special energy that belonged to their ancestors. The statues are considered a kind of talisman of the island. They attract well-being and prosperity.

In the 50s of the last century, the Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl presented his version of the appearance of the statues. Their creators were named representatives of the “long-eared” tribe. These people received this nickname because they pulled back their ears with the help of heavy jewelry. The “Long Ears” kept the secrets of constructing and moving stone faces. The main population of the island - the “short-eared” - were not privy to these secrets, which forced people to come up with all sorts of myths.

Mysterious moai

Not everyone knows the names of the statues on Easter Island. Their name is moai (“idol”, “statue”). The stone sculptures did not appear at the same time:

• Early period. Idols from this period can be divided into 4 types. Among them there are specimens made in full growth, as well as those without bodies. Some moai depict people sitting on their knees.

• Middle period. The statues erected at this time are considered an improved version of earlier statues. The stone faces are unnaturally elongated. This elongation is due to the desire to create a taller figure. It was once believed that moai reproduced the faces of Europeans. However, if you look at the idols more closely, you will notice that before us are the faces of the inhabitants of Polynesia. This is evidenced by the wide Asian noses of the idols.

An educated person needs to know not only the names of the statues on Easter Island. It is also important to have information about the creators of this unique monument. A well-known proverb states that it is better to see once than to hear a hundred times. A trip to the island will help you get to know the stone idols better.

Easter Island, occupying 117 square meters. km. - one of the most secluded habitats (along with the Tristan da Cunha archipelago): it is located in the Pacific Ocean at a distance of more than 3,700 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 some time later he accidentally died under mysterious circumstances. Although whether what the Spaniard found was Easter Island is still unclear.

144 years later, in 1722, the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen stumbled upon Easter Island, and this event happened on the day of Christian Easter. So, quite by accident, the island of Te Pito o te Henua, which translated from the local dialect means the Center of the World, turned into Easter Island.

It is interesting that Admiral Roggeveen and 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 saw the newly discovered archipelago again.

However, modern study of the adjacent waters has shown that this is unlikely.

Easter Island is located 500 km from the ridge of seamounts known as the East Pacific Rise, on the Nazca lithospheric plate. The island sits on top of a huge mountain formed from volcanic lava. The last volcanic eruption on the island occurred 3 million years ago. Although some scientists suggest that it occurred 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 origins should have made it a paradise away from the problems that beset the rest of the world, but Roggeveen's first impression of the island was that of a devastated area, covered with dried grass and scorched vegetation. Neither trees nor bushes were visible.

Modern botanists have discovered on the island only 47 species of higher plants characteristic of this area; mostly grass, sedge and ferns. The list also includes two species of dwarf trees and two species of shrubs. With such vegetation, the inhabitants of the island had no fuel to keep warm during the cold, wet and windy winter. The only domestic animals were chickens; there were no 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

Now about three thousand people live on the island. Of these, only 150 people are purebred Rapanui, the rest are Chileans and mestizos. Although, again, it is not entirely clear who exactly can be considered purebred. After all, even the first Europeans who landed on the island were surprised to discover that the inhabitants of Rapa Nui - the Polynesian name of the island - were ethnically heterogeneous. Admiral Roggeveen, whom we knew, wrote that on the land he discovered there lived white, dark, brown and even reddish people. Their language was Polynesian, belonging to a dialect isolated from about 400 AD. e., and characteristic of the Marquesas and Hawaiian Islands.

Completely inexplicable were about 200 giant stone sculptures - “Moai”, located on massive pedestals along the coast of the island with pathetic vegetation, far from the quarries. Most of the statues were located on massive pedestals. 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 as if the sculptors suddenly abandoned their tools and stopped working...

Distant masters 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, over a distance of more than 10 km. The height of most idols ranges from five to seven meters, while later sculptures reached 10 and 12 meters. The tuff, or, as it is also called, pumice, from which they are made, has a sponge-like structure and easily crumbles even with a slight impact on it. so the average weight of a “moai” does not exceed 5 tons. Stone ahu - platform-pedestals: reached 150 m in length and 3 m in height, and consisted of pieces weighing up to 10 tons.

At one time, Admiral Roggeveen, recalling his trip to the island, claimed that the aborigines lit fires in front of the “moai” idols and squatted next to them, bowing their heads. After that, they folded their hands and swung them up and down. Of course, this observation is not able to explain who the idols really were for the islanders.

Roggeveen and his companions could not understand how, without using thick wooden rollers and strong ropes, it was possible to move and install such blocks. The islanders had no wheels, no draft animals, and no other source of energy other than their own muscles. Ancient legends say that the statues walked on their own. There is no point in asking how this actually happened, because there is no documentary evidence left anyway. There are many hypotheses about the movement of the “moai”, some are even confirmed by experiments, but all this proves only one thing - it was possible in principle. And the statues were moved by the inhabitants of the island and no one else. So why did they do this? This is where the differences begin.

It is also surprising that in 1770 the statues were still standing. James Cook, who visited the island in 1774, mentioned the lying statues; no one had noticed anything like this before him. The last time the standing idols were seen was in 1830. Then a French squadron entered the island. Since then, no one has seen the original statues, that is, installed by the inhabitants of the island themselves. Everything that exists on the island today was restored in the 20th century. The last restoration of fifteen “moai” located between the Rano Roraku volcano and the Poike Peninsula occurred relatively recently - from 1992 to 1995. Moreover, the Japanese were involved in the restoration work.

In the second half of the 19th century, the cult of the bird man also died. This strange, unique ritual for all of Polynesia was dedicated to Makemaka, the supreme deity of the islanders. The chosen one became his earthly incarnation. Moreover, interestingly, 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 owner, the head of the family clan, would become Tangata-manu, or a bird-man. It is to this ritual that the main cult center, the rock village of Orongo on the largest volcano Rano Kao in the western tip of the island, owes its origin. Although, perhaps, Orongo existed long before the emergence of the cult of Tangata-manu. Legends say that the heir to the legendary Hotu Matua, the first leader to arrive on the island, was born here. In turn, his descendants, hundreds of years later, themselves gave the signal for the start of the annual competition.

In the spring, messengers of the god Makemake - black sea swallows - flew to the small islands of Motu-Kao-Kao, Motu-Iti and Motu-Nui, located not far from the coast. The warrior who was the first to find the first egg of these birds and swim it 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 took the entire male population of the island into slavery, there was no one left to choose the bird-man.

Why did the Easter Island natives carve moai statues in a quarry? Why did they stop this activity? The society that created the statues must have been significantly different from the 2,000 people 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 traditions. This happens because no one still can understand what is written 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 those that survived could probably shed light on the history of this mysterious island. And although the scientific world has more than once been excited by reports that ancient writings have finally been deciphered, upon careful verification, all this turned out to be a not very accurate interpretation of oral facts and legends.

Several years ago, paleontologist David Steadman and several other researchers carried out the first systematic study of Easter Island in order to find out what its flora and fauna were once like. The result is evidence for a new, surprising and instructive interpretation of the history of its settlers.

According to one version, Easter Island was settled around 400 AD. e. (although radiocarbon dating data obtained by scientists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo from 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, and mulberries. In addition to chickens, there were also rats on the island, which arrived with the first settlers.

The period of production of the statues dates back to 1200-1500. The number of inhabitants by that time ranged from 7,000 to 20,000 people. To lift and move the statue, several hundred people were enough, who used ropes and rollers from trees, which were available in sufficient quantities at that time.

The painstaking work of archaeologists and paleontologists has shown that approximately 30,000 years before the arrival of people and in the first years of their stay, the island was not at all as deserted as it is now. A subtropical forest of trees and undergrowth rose above the shrubs, grasses, ferns and turf. The forest contained tree daisies, hauhau trees, which can be used to make ropes, and toromiro, which is useful as fuel. There were also varieties of palm trees that are not now on the island, but formerly there were so many of them that the base of the trees was densely covered with their pollen. They are related to the Chilean palm, which grows up to 32 m and has a diameter of up to 2 m. Tall, branchless trunks were ideal material for skating rinks and canoe construction. They also provided edible nuts and juice from which Chileans make sugar, syrup, honey and wine.

The relatively cold coastal waters provided fishing in only a few places. The main marine prey were dolphins and seals. To hunt them, they went out into 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, gannets, frigate birds, fulmars, parrots and other birds nested here - 25 species in total. It was probably the richest nesting site in the entire Pacific Ocean.

Around the 800s, forest destruction began. Layers of charcoal from forest fires began to appear more and more often, tree pollen became less and less, and pollen from grasses that replaced the forest appeared more and more. No later than 1400, the palm trees disappeared completely, 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 showed signs of being chewed by rats. Such nuts could not germinate. The hauhau trees did not disappear completely, but there were no longer enough of them to make ropes.

In the 15th century, not only the palm trees disappeared, but the entire forest disappeared. It was destroyed by people who cleared areas for gardens, cut down trees to build canoes, to make skating rinks for sculptures, and for heating. The rats ate the seeds. It is likely that the birds died out due to polluted flowers and a decrease in fruit yield. The same thing happened that happens everywhere in the world where forests are destroyed: most of the forest inhabitants disappear. All species of local birds and animals have disappeared on the island. All coastal fish were also caught. Small snails were used as food. From the diet of people by the 15th century. the dolphins disappeared: there was nothing to go out to sea on, and there was nothing to make harpoons from. It came down to cannibalism.

The paradise that opened to the first settlers became almost lifeless 1600 years later. Fertile soils, an abundance of food, plenty of building materials, sufficient living space, and all opportunities for a comfortable existence were destroyed. At the time of Heyerdahl's visit to the island, there was only a toromiro tree on the island; now he is no longer there.

It all started with the fact that several centuries after arriving on the island, people began, like their Polynesian ancestors, to install stone idols on platforms. Over time, the statues became larger; their heads began to be decorated with red 10-ton crowns; the spiral of competition was unwinding; Rival clans tried to outdo each other with displays of health and strength like the Egyptians building their giant pyramids. The island, like modern America, had a complex political system for distributing available resources and integrating 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.”

The ever-growing population depleted the forests faster than they could regenerate; vegetable gardens took up more and more space; the soil, devoid of forests, springs and streams dried up; the trees that were spent on transporting and lifting the statues, as well as on building canoes and dwellings, were not enough even for cooking. As birds and animals were destroyed, famine set in. The fertility of arable lands decreased due to wind and rain erosion. Droughts have begun. Intensive chicken breeding and cannibalism did not solve the food problem. The statues, prepared for moving, with sunken cheeks and visible ribs, are evidence of the onset of hunger.

With food scarce, the islanders could no longer support the chiefs, bureaucracy, and shamans who administered the society. The surviving islanders told the first Europeans to visit them how the centralized system had been replaced by chaos and the warlike class had defeated the hereditary leaders. The stones appeared to depict 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 into caves to hide from their enemies. Around 1770, rival clans began knocking over each other's statues and cutting off their heads. The last statue was toppled and desecrated in 1864.

As the picture of the decline of the civilization of Easter Island appeared before the researchers, they asked themselves: - Why didn’t they look back, didn’t realize what was happening, didn’t stop until it was too late? What were they thinking when they cut down the last palm tree?

Most likely, the disaster did not occur suddenly, but stretched out over several decades. The changes occurring in nature were not noticeable for one generation. Only old people, looking back on their childhood years, could realize what was happening and understand the threat posed by the destruction of forests, but the ruling class and stonemasons, afraid of losing their privileges and jobs, treated the warnings in the same way as today's loggers in the northwestern United States: “Work is more important than forest!”

The trees gradually became smaller, thinner and less significant. Once upon a time, the last fruit-bearing palm was cut off, and the young shoots were destroyed along with the remains of bushes 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, and Europe. Many plants that were previously widespread on Rapa Nui have been exterminated. Between the 9th and 17th centuries there was active cutting down of trees, which led to the disappearance of forests on the island (probably before that, palm trees of the species Paschalococos disperta grew on it). Another reason was rats eating tree seeds. Due to irrational human economic activities and other factors, the resulting accelerated soil erosion caused enormous damage to agriculture, as a result of which the population of Rapa Nui decreased significantly.

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 Rapa Nui people: “talking tablets” with local pictograms were made from it.

The trunk of the 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 shoots were destroyed by sheep brought to the island).

Another plant on the island is the mulberry tree, whose local name is mahute. In the past, this plant also played a significant role in the life of the islanders: white clothing called tapa was made from the bast of the mulberry tree. After the arrival 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, or Dracaena terminalis, were used to make sugar. This plant was also used to make dark blue and green powder, which was then applied to the body as tattoos.

Makoi (rap. makoi) (Thespesia populnea) was used for carving.

One of the island's surviving plants, 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, small growths of eucalyptus have begun to appear on the island. In the 18th-19th centuries, grapes, bananas, melons, and sugar cane were brought to the island.

Before the arrival of Europeans on the island, the fauna of Easter Island was mainly represented by marine animals: seals, turtles, crabs. Until the 19th century, chickens were bred on the island. Species of the local fauna that previously inhabited Rapa Nui have become extinct. For example, the rat species Rattus exulans, which was used as food by local residents in the past. 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 people.

Currently, the island is home to 25 species of seabirds and 6 species of land birds.

The statistics for moai are as follows. The total number of moai is 887. The number of moai that are mounted on Ahu pedestals is 288 (32 percent of the total). The number of moai that stand on the slopes of the Rano Raraku volcano, where the moai 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 the Rano Raraku volcano.

They are neck-deep in sediment that has accumulated on the island over the long history of this piece of land. Some moai stood on stone pedestals called ahu by the natives. The number of ahu exceeds three hundred. The size of ahu also varies - from several tens of meters to two hundred meters. The largest moai, nicknamed "El Gigante", is 21.6 meters high. It is located in the Rano Raraku quarry and weighs approximately 145-165 tons. The largest moai standing on a pedestal is located on ahu Te Pito Kura. He has the nickname Paro, his height is about 10 meters, and his weight is about 80 tons.

Mysteries of Easter Island

Easter Island is full of mysteries. Everywhere on the island you can see entrances to caves, stone platforms, grooved alleys leading directly to the ocean, huge statues, and signs on stones.

One of the main mysteries of the island, which has haunted several generations of travelers and researchers, remains 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 hewed them out, dragged them to the shore, placed them on specially made pedestals and crowned them with weighty headdresses?

The statues have an extremely strange appearance - they have very large heads with heavy protruding chins, long ears and no legs at all. Some have red stone “caps” on their heads. To which human tribe did those whose portraits remained on the island in the form of moai belong? A pointed, raised nose, thin lips, slightly protruded as if in a grimace of mockery and contempt. Deep grooves under the brow ridges, a large forehead - who are they?

Some statues have necklaces carved in stone, or tattoos made with a chisel. The face of one of the stone giants is riddled with holes. Perhaps in ancient times, the sages who lived on the island, studying the movement of the heavenly bodies, tattooed their faces with a map of the starry sky?

The eyes of the statues look into the sky. Into the sky - the same as when centuries ago, a new homeland opened up for those who sailed over the horizon?

In former times, the islanders were convinced that the moai protected their land and themselves from evil spirits. All standing moai face the island. Incomprehensible as time, they are immersed in silence. These are mysterious symbols of a bygone civilization.

It is known that the sculptures were carved out of volcanic lava at one end of the island, and then the finished figures were carried along three main roads to the sites of ceremonial plinths - ahu - scattered along the coastline. The largest ahu, now destroyed, was 160 m long, 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 working? Everything was left in place - stone axes, unfinished statues, and stone giants, as if frozen on the path in their movement, as if people simply left their work for a minute and were never able to return to it.

Some statues, previously installed on stone platforms, have been toppled and broken. The same applies to stone platforms - ahoo.

The construction of ahu required no less effort and skill than the creation of the statues themselves. It was necessary to make blocks and form them into an even pedestal. The density with which the bricks fit together is amazing. Why the first axy were built (their age is about 700-800 years) is still unclear. Subsequently, they were often used as burial places and perpetuating the memory of leaders.

Excavations carried out on several sections of ancient roads, along which the islanders supposedly carried multi-ton statues (sometimes over a distance of more than 20 kilometers), showed that all the roads clearly bypassed 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 curbstones. In some places, pillars dug outside the curbs are clearly visible - perhaps they served as a support for some kind of device like a lever. Scientists have not yet established the exact date of construction of these roads, however, according to researchers, the process of moving the statues was completed on Easter Island around 1500 BC.

Another mystery: simple calculations show that over hundreds of years a small population could not carve, transport and install even half of the existing statues. Ancient wooden tablets with carved writings were found on the island. Most of them were lost during the conquest of the island by Europeans. But some signs have survived. The letters went from left to right, and then in the reverse order - from right to left. It took a long time to decipher the signs written on them. And only at the beginning of 1996 in Moscow it was announced that all 4 surviving text tablets had been deciphered. It is curious that in the language of the islanders there is a word denoting slow movement without the help of legs. Levitation? Was this fantastic method used when transporting and installing the moai?

And one more mystery. Old maps around Easter Island show other areas. Oral traditions tell of the land slowly sinking under water. Other legends tell of catastrophes: about the fiery staff of the god Uvok, which split the earth. Couldn’t larger islands or even an entire continent with a highly developed culture and technology have existed here in ancient times? They even came up with the beautiful name Pasifida for it.

Some scientists suggest that there is still a certain clan (order) of Easter people that preserves the secrets of their ancestors and hides them from the uninitiated in ancient knowledge.

Easter Island has many names:

• Hititeairagi (rap. Hititeairagi), or Hiti-ai-rangi (rap. Hiti-ai-rangi);
• Tekaouhangoaru (rap. Tekaouhangoaru);
• Mata-Kiterage (rap. Mata-Kiterage - translated from Rapanui “eyes looking into the sky”);
• Te-Pito-te-henua (rap. Te-Pito-te-henua - “navel of the earth”);
• Rapa Nui (Rapa Nui - "Great Rapa"), a name mainly used by whalers;
• San Carlos Island, named by Gonzalez Don Felipe in honor of the King of Spain;
• Teapi (rap. Teapi) - that’s what James Cook called the island;
• Vaihu (rap. Vaihu), or Vaihou (rap. Vaihou), - this name was also used by James Cook, and later by Forster Johann Georg Adam and La Perouse Jean Francois de Galo (a bay in the northeast of the island was named in his honor);
• 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. The island received this name thanks to 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, the word “Rapa Nui” (2 words) is used to name the island, the word “Rapanui” (1 word) when talking about the people or local culture.

• Address: Easter Island, Chile;
• Manufactured: between 1250 and 1500;
• Approximate quantity: 887 statues;
• Average weight: less than 5 tons;
• Average height: 3-5 m.

One of the wonders of the world, the moai statues, are located on, located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean. The island belongs to the island; it got its name because it was discovered by a Dutch navigator on Easter Sunday. In addition to the statues, tourists come to see the unique landscape, volcanic craters, and beaches with clear blue water.

Everyone has at least once seen the statues on Easter Island in absentia - there are plenty of photographs of the monuments, but they cannot create a complete impression, so at the first opportunity you should visit the island and inspect them in person.

How many statues are there on Easter Island? Thanks to constant archaeological excavations, about 887 statues have already been found. These stone giants with large heads and shapeless bodies are scattered throughout the island.

What are the names of the statues on Easter Island? Local residents call them moai, attributing special powers to them and believing that the blocks contain the spiritual power of the island. Only thanks to it is good weather established, success in love and war, and a rich harvest possible. Quite often you can hear that the stone statues of Easter Island choose their own installation location. Mana, the so-called supernatural force, brings the statues to life, after which they themselves find their place.

What are the statues on Easter Island made of? Their appearance dates back to the XIII-XVI centuries. Most moai are made of volcanic tuff, which is easy to process, and only a small part are made of trachyte or basalt. There is also a statue especially revered by the local population - Hoa Haka Nan Ia, which is made from mujerite from the Rano Kao volcano.

Where did the statues on Easter Island come from? Obviously, their construction took a lot of time and effort. At first there were legends about the leader of the Hotu Matu'a clan, who was the first to find the island and settled on it. Only in 1955-1956 did the truth become clear, this happened when the famous Norwegian archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl visited - the statues, the origin of which occupied the minds of all scientists, were erected by an endangered tribe of “long-ears”. This strange name appeared because of the long earlobes, which were decorated with heavy earrings. Since the secret of creating the moai was carefully hidden from the indigenous population, the inhabitants attributed miraculous properties to them.

As the surviving representatives of the “long-eared” tribe explained to the traveler, the moai monuments were created by their ancestors. They themselves knew the manufacturing process only in theory. But yielding to the requests of Thor Heyerdahl, representatives of the tribe carved the statue with stone hammers, dragged it to a certain place, and raised it, placing stones under the base, with three logs acting as levers. This technology was passed down orally from generation to generation; from an early age, children listened to adults' stories and repeated what they remembered. This continued until the children learned the process completely.

Moai statues on Easter Island were blamed for the extinction of the local population. According to one group of scientists, the construction of the monuments led to the destruction of the forest, because they were transported on wooden rollers. Because of this, food sources decreased, and famine soon followed. This led to the almost complete extinction of the local population. Another group of scientists claims that Polynesian rats were the cause of the disappearance of trees. Modern statues were restored in the 20th century, as earthquakes and tsunamis damaged them considerably. Only a few monuments erected by the ancient Rapanui people have survived.

At first, stone moai were perceived as mysterious faces installed on the slopes of Easter Island. Since archaeologists did not give up trying to understand the purpose of the idols, excavations began. As a result, when the statues on Easter Island were excavated, they discovered that the heads had torsos; the total length of the bodies reached about 7 m. At least 150 of the most easily recognizable moai were buried up to the shoulders, which misled the people that only heads. Now that the whole world has discovered what was found under the statues on Easter Island, the flow of tourists has only increased, which local residents are very happy about, because tourism is the main source of income for the island.

In 1722, a Dutch ship led by Jacob Roggeveen arrived on an island located three thousand kilometers west of the coast of South America. Easter was celebrated on this day, so it was decided to name the island Easter Island. Now this island is known throughout the world. Its main asset is the moai, statues scattered throughout the island and unique in all human culture.

According to Roggeveen’s description, local residents lit fires in front of the statues in the evenings and sat in a circle, praying. At the same time, the lifestyle of the inhabitants corresponded to the primitive one. They lived in small huts made of reeds, slept on mats, and used stones instead of pillows. They cooked food on hot stones. Seeing their way of life, the Dutch could not believe that these people could build stone giants. They even made a proposal that the moai were made not of stone, but of clay sprinkled with stones. Roggeveen spent only a day on the island, so no qualitative research was carried out.

The next time Europeans came here was in 1770. The Spanish expedition of Felipe Gonzalez immediately assigned the island to Spain. The expedition saw that the statues were made of stone. They even expressed doubts that the moai were made on this island and not brought from the mainland.

This was followed by the expeditions of Cook and La Perouse. Cook noted the high level of skill of ancient engineers. Cook was surprised how ancient people without serious technology were able to install such giants on stone pedestals. He also noticed that some of the statues were overturned face down, and it was noticeable that the cause of this was not natural destruction.

Together with Cook, a Polynesian who understood the language of the Easter Islanders landed on the island. They found out that these statues were erected not in honor of the gods, but for representatives of local authorities of distant times. Modern researchers also come to the same opinion.

Research of our era

European discoveries did not pass without a trace for the inhabitants of the island. The removal of Aboriginal objects and valuables to museums around the world began. Much of this heritage was destroyed. Therefore, researchers of the 20th century faced many questions, and only grains of history were given to resolve them. The task was not easy.

The first serious study of the moai on Easter Island was carried out in 1914-1915 by an Englishwoman, Katherine Rutledge. She compiled a map of the island with the Rano Raraku volcano, where most of the colossi were carved, paths from the volcano to platforms with installed statues, about 400 statues.

The next development of events is associated with the name of Thor Heyerdahl. The scientific community was faced with the breadth of the problem. There were many problems and questions, some of which have not been answered to this day.

Secrets and numbers

The moai of Easter Island were erected from the 10th to the 16th centuries. The creation of huge megalithic statues was common throughout the world in the early stages of the development of civilizations, so it is not surprising that the idea of ​​​​creating the moai could have originated here.

In total, about 1000 remains of statues made in the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano were discovered. Most of them remained lying here. The largest of them, a 19-meter giant, also lies here. Several statues were produced at the same time, so among the abandoned works one can trace all the stages of making the moai.

The work began with the face. Next, the treatment spread to the sides, ears, hands on the stomach. The figures were made without legs, like a long bust. When the back was freed from the rock, the workers began delivering the idol to the base. Along this path, many destroyed statues were found that did not survive the road.

At the foot of the statues were installed in a vertical position, and they were refined and decorated. After this stage, another transportation awaited them.

383 statues managed to escape beyond the volcano. Here they were installed on platforms from two to 15 at a time. The height of the statues here reaches 8 meters. In the old days, the heads of idols were covered with pukao, imitating red hair. The first visitors from Europe found them standing in pukao. The last giant was toppled in 1840.

The issue regarding the delivery method was also resolved. Thus, towing of megaliths in other nations was carried out by human power using ropes and sleighs with rotating rollers. Such videos were also found on Easter Island, which once again confirmed this assumption.

At the moment, most of the monuments have been reinstalled on platforms and continue to look out over the ocean. Moai are truly a unique structure in the whole world and continue to delight and surprise visitors to the island.

Easter Island is an amazing place where thousands of tourists from all over the world strive to get to. We have already discussed a lot about Easter Island. They analyzed and searched, and I even showed it to you.

But in all these discussions, I somehow paid little attention to where and how these huge heads and statues appeared. This place is located on the lower slopes of Terevak - the largest and youngest of the three extinct volcanoes that actually form Rapa Nui (better known as Easter Island).

Let's take a closer look at this...

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Among the huge number of attractions, there is a special place on this island - the Rano Raraku volcanic crater made of compressed volcanic ash or tuff. This crater is fraught with interesting mysteries.

Rano Raraku is an extinct volcano about 150 meters high, located in the eastern part of the island in the middle of a grassy plain, 20 kilometers from the city of Hanga Roa and 1 kilometer from the coast. The southeastern slope of the volcano partially collapsed and exposed the rock - yellow-brown tuff with numerous inclusions. It is to this rock that the volcano owes its popularity - it became the birthplace of the famous Moai stone idols.

In an oval crater measuring 350 by 280 meters lies a freshwater lake, the banks of which are densely overgrown with totora reeds. Until recently, this lake served the local population as a source of fresh water.

The volcano was formed during the Holocene period. It is a secondary volcano of Maunga Terewaka, the island's largest elevation. When its last eruption occurred is unknown.

Rano Raraku is shaped like a pyroclastic cone. The height of its peak is five hundred eleven meters. The slopes of the volcano are covered with a soft grass carpet, reminiscent of alpine meadows; the southeastern slope is partially collapsed.

For almost five centuries, Rano Raraku was used for quarrying. It was here that the stone for most of Easter Island's famous monolithic sculptures, known as moai, was quarried. Today you can see the remains of as many as 387 moai of varying degrees of completion literally encircling the crater. Rano Raraku is today part of the Rapa Nui National Park World Heritage Site.

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Almost all of the statues on Easter Island (95%) were carved from the crater's quarries and then somehow transported many kilometers to various locations around the island. Nobody knows how they did it. Moai are visible on the slope, which for some reason were either not completed or were not moved to the right place

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There are many interesting things in this place. For example, such unique plants as the “totora” reed, which overgrown the shores of the lake in the crater, are considered by some people to be the first evidence of contact with the South American continent. Totora have been growing in this area for at least 30,000 years, long before people settled on Rapa Nui. The southern slope of Rano Raraku on Easter Island is literally littered with large numbers of moai.

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Some of them are half buried in the ground, while others are unfinished. But the most fascinating sight at Rano Raraku is the moai in the quarry. Some of them are unfinished, and others cannot be reached today because they are located very high on the outside of the crater. Here you can see one of the largest examples of moai, which is 21.6 meters high. It is almost twice the size of its “brothers” for which the coast of Easter Island has become famous.

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The moai's weight is estimated at 270 tons and is many times the weight of any moai found elsewhere on the island. Scientists believe that some of the unfinished moai were abandoned after their creators eventually encountered very hard rock while quarrying. And other sculptures allegedly were not even going to be separated from the rock in which they were carved. In addition, some of the moai outside the quarry are partially buried up to their shoulders in the ground. Interestingly, these particular moai do not have hollowed out eyes.

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In addition, they do not have a "pukao" on top, a hat-shaped structure carved from a light red volcanic rock that was quarried elsewhere, Puna Pau. Nevertheless, it was these moai that became the real “calling card” of the island.

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In the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano there is a large freshwater lake with clear water. In this lake, once a year, the inhabitants of the island nowadays hold a swimming competition. One of the slopes is studded with idols. The average size of the statues is slightly smaller than those on the outside of the crater and they are much more crudely made. It is still unknown why it was necessary to make statues inside the crater, because removing a multi-ton monolithic sculpture from there without damage, even in our time with the use of technology, is a very difficult task. There is a hypothesis - this is nothing more than a training site for the ancient vocational school No. 1 of the island of Rapa Nui for the training of qualified stonemasons and the statues were not intended for export.

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A herd of wild horses lives in the crater. There are a huge number of horses, wild and domestic, on the island; they are not afraid of people and can be found in the most unexpected places. If the ancient Rapanui had horses, they would have planed this entire mountain to the ground.

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Moai are stone statues made from compressed volcanic ash on Easter Island. All moai are monolithic, meaning they are carved from a single piece of stone rather than glued or fastened together. The weight sometimes reaches more than 20 tons, and the height is more than 6 meters. An unfinished sculpture was found, about 20 meters tall and weighing 270 tons. There are a total of 997 moai on Easter Island. All moai, contrary to popular belief, “look” deep into the island, and not towards the ocean.

A little less than a fifth of the moai were moved to ceremony areas (ahu) and installed with a red stone cylinder on the head (pukau). About 95% were carved from compressed volcanic ash from Rano Raraku, where 394 moai now remain standing. Work in the quarry at the foot of the Rano Raraku volcano was unexpectedly interrupted, and many unfinished moai remained there. Almost all of the completed moai were moved from Rano Raraku to ceremonial platforms.

Recently, it has been proven that the deep eye holes were once filled with corals, some of which have now been reconstructed.

In the mid-19th century, all the moai outside Rano Raraku and many in the quarry were toppled over. Now about 50 moai have been restored to ceremonial sites.

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It was obvious that the manufacture and installation of moai required enormous expenditures of money and labor, and Europeans for a long time could not understand who made the statues, with what tools and how they moved.

Island legends speak of the dominant Hotu Matu'a clan, who left home in search of a new one and found Easter Island. When he died, the island was divided among his six sons, and then between his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Residents of the island believe that the statues contain the supernatural power of the ancestors of this clan (mana). The concentration of mana will lead to good harvests, rain and prosperity. These legends are constantly changing and are passed down in fragments, making it difficult to reconstruct the exact history.

The most widely accepted theory among researchers was that the moai were erected by settlers from the Polynesian islands in the 11th century. Moai could represent deceased ancestors or give strength to living leaders, as well as symbols of clans.

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The mystery of the creation, movement and installation of the statues was revealed in 1956 by the famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heirdal. The creators of the moai turned out to be an endangered indigenous tribe of the "long-ears", which for centuries kept the secret of creating the statues a secret from the main population of the island - the tribe of "short-ears". As a result of this secrecy, the Short Ears surrounded the statues with mystical superstitions, which led Europeans astray for a long time.

At the request of Thor Heirdal, a group of the last “long-eared” living on the island reproduced all the stages of making statues in the quarry (hewing them out with stone hammers), moved the finished 12-ton statue to the installation site (in a prone position, dragged, using a large crowd of assistants) and installed on its feet using an ingenious device of stones placed under the base and three logs used as levers. When asked why they didn’t tell European researchers about this earlier, their leader replied that “nobody asked ME about this before.” The natives who participated in the experiment reported that for several generations no one had made or installed statues, but from early childhood their elders taught them, telling them orally how to do it and forcing them to repeat what was told until they were convinced that the children remembered everything exactly.

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One of the key issues was the tool. It turned out that while the statues were being made, a supply of stone hammers was being made at the same time. The statue is literally knocked out of the rock by frequent blows, while the stone hammers are destroyed simultaneously with the rock and are continuously replaced with new ones.

The mystery remained why the “short-eared” people say in their legends that the statues “arrived” at their installation sites in a vertical position. Czech researcher Pavel Pavel hypothesized that the moai “walked” by turning over and, in 1986, together with Thor Heirdal, conducted an additional experiment in which a group of 17 people with ropes quickly moved a 20-ton statue in a vertical position.

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Of all the archaeological wonders at Rano Raraku, there is one that quite a few tourists know about, and which is perhaps the most unusual of all.

This is a bearded Tukuturi, which is a one-of-a-kind moai - he kneels. The Tucuturi position was subsequently used by women and men who participated in the choir during festivals known as "Rio". In particular, singers kneel, tilt their torso slightly back and raise their heads. Also, the performers, as a rule, wear beards (it’s easy to notice that Tukuturi is bearded).

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Tucuturi is made from red volcanic scoria, which can only be found, as mentioned earlier, in Puna Pau. However, it sits on Rano Raraku, which is a tuff quarry. Some surviving records suggest that this figure may be associated with the cult of "tangata manu" - a special competition ritual in which settlers competed annually.

Indirect hints suggest that this was the last moai, which was made after they stopped making classic moai statues.

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