Unsolved mysteries of Easter Island. Easter Island Mysteries Solved: Scientific Verification of Reality
The Chilean Easter Island, located in the Pacific Ocean, is full of strange stone sculptures, the so-called moai idols. There are exactly 887 of them here. The height of individual statues exceeds 10 meters, and by weight they are in the region of 80 tons. Drawings are carved on the bodies, from which one can understand how the natives lived. For example, a long Indian boat that sails on the sea. In fact, moai are the patrons of the island. They, as the locals believed, guard it, therefore they constantly watch the natives, being turned to face exactly the island, and not the ocean. Some moai have a semblance of red stone caps.
How they got there, given their weight and antiquity, remained a mystery for a very long time. Since 2012, excavations began, and it was unexpectedly revealed that under the sculptures there was not earth, but, in fact, a continuation of the statues. Researchers from the Easter Island Sculpture Project group found this out.
According to Anna Van Tilburg, the head of the excavations, the body of the idol is quite comparable with the head - it is about 7 meters long. In fact, according to the scientist, even without excavations there were statues with bodies, simply, given their number, a maximum of 150 fell into the frame, where half of the idols had only heads and parts of the forearms, no more.
According to experts, initially no one buried the idols intentionally at all. It was just that the climate was changing on the island, so it turned out that they gradually sank underground. It is also known that they were specially painted with something red - apparently, for better preservation. In addition, several human graves were found not far from the idols.
Found during excavations and a number of mechanisms that made it possible to install giant colossi. Scientists found out that the idols were stretched in a lying position, and then they were turned over, placing them in a pre-dug hole, like a pillar. In order to guide the statue correctly, several ropes and tree trunks were used. Moai have many inscriptions on their backs.
Archaeologists suggest that local sculptors or those to whom the sculptures, in fact, belonged, could sign this way. It is known for sure that all stone idols were made in a special quarry, which was located in the central part of Easter Island.
When did it become known at all about the island and its strange inhabitants, who erect such statues? In 1687, the sea robber Edward Davis, trying to escape from Spanish justice, noticed a hill somewhere on the horizon. He did not have time to swim up to him, but later he told about him, and everyone considered that he was accidentally discovered new mainland. It was given the code name "Davis Land". Mariners new continent so interested that many rushed to look for it, however, naturally, only the islands were discovered.
In 1722, the Dutch military Jacob Roggeveen discovered some land on the horizon, which was called Easter Island, because then the holiday was celebrated. The local name of the territory is Rapa Nui, "the center of the world". When the island was discovered, it was first thought that it was the same "Davis Land", a lost continent where there were once signs of a highly developed situation, but everything was lost, because the mainland sank, leaving only the most high mountains. The moai discovered in Rapa Nui were thought to fully confirm this. In fact, Easter Island was never a sunken continent. This is just the top of a huge underwater hill formed from lava long ago. extinct volcano.
Actually, as almost always during colonization, the appearance of the Dutch did not bring anything good for the locals. Literally shortly upon arrival, several natives were killed by sailors, despite the fact that there were not so many of them on the island at all. Jacob Roggeven described the inhabitants of Rapa Nui as strong and tall people With big amount tribal elders in blue patterns, in yellow and dark pink clothes. All natives had dazzling white teeth, easily cracking them even strong nuts. Distinctive feature- heavy earrings in the ears, in which the lobes were very stretched and hung down. A similar shape of the ears was also found in stone idols. The locals lit bonfires in front of them and prayed as to deities. Actually, the natives claimed that these were their powerful and ancient leaders, who, after death, gained that same divine power.
According to genetic analysis, Easter Island was inhabited as early as 1200 by Polynesians who managed to swim across the Pacific Ocean in tiny, dilapidated boats when it was a difficult task for Europeans. They also created these stone idols in the period somewhere before 1500. Interestingly, even though those same statues were dragged with the help of trees, in fact, at the time the Dutch appeared on Easter Island, there were no trees, and of all living creatures, there were only chickens. According to one of the popular versions, the rats are to blame here, a protracted struggle with which led to the complete “bareness” of Rapa Nui.
For a long time it was believed that the natives themselves could not create such statues: it is very hard physically. There were various semi-fantastic versions of the appearance of stone idols on Easter Island. For example, one of them said that this is some ancient stone race, which, under the influence of climate, in fact, was paralyzed for centuries. According to another version, the statues are the work of aliens, very much so, according to ufologists who love to interfere in everything that happens on our Earth.
The natives who greeted the Dutch sailors on Easter Sunday 1722 seemed to have nothing in common with the gigantic statues of their island. Detailed geological analysis and new archaeological finds have allowed solve the riddle these sculptures and learn about tragic fate stonemasons.
The island has fallen into disrepair, his stone sentries fell, and many of them drowned in the ocean. Only the miserable remnants of the mysterious army managed to rise with outside help.
Briefly about Easter Island
Easter Island, or Rapanui in the local dialect, is a tiny (165.5 sq km) piece of land lost in the Pacific Ocean halfway between Tahiti and Chile. It is the most isolated inhabited (about 2000 people) place in the world - the nearest town (about 50 people) is 1900 km away, on Pitcairn Island, where in 1790 a rebel The Bounty Team.
The coastline of Rapanui is embellished hundreds of frowning native idols They call them "moai". Each one is carved out of whole piece volcanic rock; the height of some is almost 10 m. All the statues are made according to the same model: a long nose, drawn earlobes, a darkly compressed mouth and a protruding chin over a stocky torso with arms pressed to the sides and palms lying on the stomach.
Many "moai" are installed with astronomical precision. For example, in one group, all seven statues look at the point (photo on the left) where the sun sets on the evening of the equinox. More than a hundred idols lie in the quarry, not completely hewn or almost ready, and, apparently, waiting to be sent to their destination.
For more than 250 years, historians and archaeologists could not understand how and why, with a shortage of local resources, primitive islanders, completely cut off from the rest of the world, managed to process giant monoliths, drag them kilometers over rough terrain and put them vertically. Many more or less scientific theories, and many experts believed that Rapanui was once inhabited by a highly developed people, possibly a carrier of the American one, who died as a result of some kind of disaster.
Reveal the secret The island has allowed detailed analysis of its soil samples. The truth about what happened here can serve as a sobering lesson for the inhabitants of any corner of the planet.
Born sailors. Once upon a time, the Rapanui hunted dolphins from canoes hollowed out of palm trunks. However, the Dutch who discovered the island saw boats made of many fastened boards - there were no large trees left.
The history of the discovery of the island
April 5, on the first day of Easter 1722, three Dutch ships under the command of Captain Jacob Roggeveen stumbled in the Pacific Ocean on an island that was not marked on any map. When they anchored at his east coast, a few natives sailed up to them in their boats. Roggeven was disappointed, Islanders' boats, he wrote: "bad and fragile ... with a light frame, sheathed with many small planks". The boats were flowing so hard, the rowers had to bail out water every now and then. The landscape of the island also did not warm the soul of the captain: "His desolate appearance suggests extreme poverty and barrenness".
The conflict of civilizations. The idols from Easter Island now adorn museums in Paris and London, but it was not easy to get these exhibits. The islanders knew each "moai" by name and did not want to part with any of them. When the French removed one of these statues in 1875, the crowd of natives had to be held back with rifle shots.
Despite the friendly demeanor of the brightly colored natives, The Dutch went ashore, ready for the worst, and lined up in a battle square under the astonished eyes of the owners, who had never seen other people, not to mention firearms.
The visit soon turned dark tragedy. One of the sailors fired. Then he claimed that he allegedly saw how the islanders raise stones and make threatening gestures. "Guests" on the orders of Roggeven opened fire, killing 10-12 hosts on the spot and injuring the same number. The islanders fled in horror, but then returned to the shore with fruits, vegetables and poultry - to propitiate the ferocious newcomers. Roggeven noted in his diary an almost bare landscape with rare bushes no higher than 3 m. only unusual statues (heads) standing along the coast on massive stone platforms (“ahu”).
At first, these idols shocked us. We could not understand how the islanders, who did not have strong ropes and a crowd of construction wood for the manufacture of mechanisms, nevertheless managed to erect statues (idols) at least 9 m high, and quite voluminous at that.
Scientific approach. The French traveler Jean Francois La Perouse landed on Easter Island in 1786, accompanied by a chronicler, three naturalists, an astronomer and a physicist. As a result of 10 hours of research, he suggested that in the past the area was wooded.
Who were the Rapanui?
Humans settled Easter Island only around 400 AD. It is believed that they sailed on huge boats from East Polynesia. Their language is close to the dialects of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian and Marquesas Islands. The ancient fishhooks and stone adzes of the Rapanui found during excavations are similar to the tools used by the Marquesas.
At first, European sailors met naked islanders, but to XIX century they wove their own clothes. However, family heirlooms were more valued than ancient crafts. Men sometimes wore headdresses made from the feathers of birds long extinct on the island. The women wove straw hats. Both of them pierced their ears and wore bone and wooden jewelry in them. As a result, the earlobes were pulled back and hung down almost to the shoulders.
Lost generations - found answers
In March 1774 an English captain James Cook found about 700 on Easter Island emaciated from malnutrition of the natives. He suggested that the local economy was badly damaged by the recent volcanic eruption: this was evidenced by many stone idols that collapsed from their platforms. Cook was convinced that they were carved out and placed along the coast by the distant ancestors of the current Rapanui.
“This time-consuming work clearly demonstrates the ingenuity and perseverance of those who lived here during the statue-making era. The current islanders are almost certainly not up to it, for they do not even repair the foundations of those that are about to collapse.
Scientists only just found answers to some moai riddles. Analysis of pollen from sediments accumulated in the swamps of the island shows that it was once covered with dense forests, thickets of ferns and shrubs. All this was teeming with a variety of game.
Exploring the stratigraphic (and chronological) distribution of the finds, scientists found in the lower, most ancient layers the pollen of an endemic tree close to the wine palm, up to 26 m high and up to 1.8 m in diameter. Its long, straight, unbranched trunks could serve as excellent rollers for transportation of blocks weighing tens of tons. Also found was the pollen of the plant "hauhau" (triumfetta semi-three-lobed), from the bast of which in Polynesia (and not only) make ropes.
The fact that the ancient Rapanui people had enough food follows from DNA analysis of food remains on excavated dishes. The islanders grew bananas, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, taro, and yams.
The same botanical data show a slow but steady destruction of this idyll. Judging by the content of swamp sediments, by the year 800, the area of forests was declining. Wood pollen and fern spores are displaced from later layers by charcoal - evidence of forest fires. At the same time, lumberjacks were working more and more actively.
The scarcity of wood began to seriously affect the way of life of the islanders, especially their menu. The study of fossil garbage heaps shows that at one time the Rapanui people regularly ate dolphin meat. Obviously, they caught these animals floating in the open sea from large boats, hollowed out from thick palm trunks.
When there was no ship timber left, the Rapanui people lost their "ocean fleet", and with it dolphin meat and ocean fish. In 1786, the chronicler of the French expedition, La Perouse, recorded that in the sea the islanders mined only shellfish and crabs living in shallow water.
The end of the "moai"
Stone statues began to appear around the 10th century. They probably personify Polynesian gods or deified local leaders. According to the Rapanui legends, the supernatural power of "mana" raised the hewn idols, led them to the allotted place and allowed them to roam at night, guarding the peace of the makers. Perhaps the clans competed with each other, trying to carve out the "moai" larger and more beautiful, and also put it on a more massive platform than the competitors.
After 1500, statues were practically not made. Apparently, there were no trees left on the devastated island, which were necessary for their transportation and lifting. Since about the same time, palm pollen has not been found in swamp sediments, and dolphin bones are no longer thrown into garbage dumps. Changes and local fauna. Disappear all native land birds and half of sea birds.
Food is getting worse, and the population, which once numbered about 7,000 people, is decreasing. Since 1805, the island has been suffering from raids by South American slave traders: they take away some of the natives, many of the remaining ones are ill with smallpox picked up from strangers. Only a few hundred Rapanui survive.
Easter Islanders erected "moai", hoping for the protection of the spirits embodied in the stone. Ironically, it was this monumental program that brought their land to ecological disaster. And the idols rise as eerie monuments to thoughtless management and human recklessness.
Easter Island is the most remote inhabited piece of land in the world. Its area is only 165.6 square kilometers. Belongs to the island of Chile. But to the nearest mainland city of this country, Valparaiso, 3703 kilometers. Yes, and other islands nearby, in the eastern part Pacific Ocean, No. The nearest inhabited land is located at 1819 kilometers. This is Pitcairn Island. It is known for the fact that the rebellious crew of the Bounty ship wished to stay on it. Lost in the vastness of Easter keeps many secrets. First, it is not clear where the first people came from. They could not explain anything to the Europeans about this. But the most mysterious riddles Easter Islands are its stone idols. They are installed along the entire coastline. The natives called them moai, but they could not clearly explain who they were. In this article, we have tried to summarize the results of all recent scientific discoveries in order to unravel the mysteries that have enveloped the most remote land area from civilization.
History of Easter Island
On April 5, 1722, the sailors of a squadron of three ships under the command of the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen saw land on the horizon that had not yet been marked on the map. When they approached east coast islands, they saw that it was inhabited. Natives sailed to them, and their ethnic composition hit the Dutch. Among them were Caucasians, Negroids and representatives of the Polynesian race. The Dutch were immediately struck by the primitive technical equipment of the islanders. Their boats were riveted from bits of wood and so let the water through that half of the people in the canoe bailed it out, while the rest rowed. The landscape of the island was more than bleak. Not a single tree towered on it - only rare bushes. Roggeven wrote in his diary: "The desolated appearance of the island and the exhaustion of the natives suggest the barrenness of the land and extreme poverty." But most of all, the captain was shocked by the stone idols. How, with such a primitive civilization and scarce resources, did the natives have the strength to carve out of stone and deliver so many heavy statues to the shore? The captain had no answer to that question. Since the island was discovered on the day of the Resurrection of Christ, it received the name Easter. But the natives themselves called it Rapa Nui.
Where did the first inhabitants of Easter Island come from?
This is the first riddle. Now more than five thousand people live on the island with a length of 24 kilometers. But when the first Europeans landed on the shore, there were much fewer natives. And in 1774, the navigator Cook counted only seven hundred islanders on the island, emaciated from hunger. But at the same time, among the natives there were representatives of all three human races. Many theories have been put forward about the origin of the population of Rapa Nui: Egyptian, Mesoamerican and even completely mythical, that the islanders are survivors of the collapse of Atlantis. But modern DNA analysis shows that the first Rapanui landed around the year 400 and most likely came from East Polynesia. This is evidenced by their language, which is close to the dialects of the inhabitants of the Marquesas and Hawaiian Islands.
The rise and fall of civilization
The first thing that caught the eye of the discoverers were the stone idols of Easter Island. But the earliest sculpture dates back to 1250, and the latest (unfinished, left in the quarry) - to 1500. It is unclear how the civilization of the natives developed from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries. Perhaps, at a certain stage, the islanders moved from a tribal society to clan military unions. Legends (very contradictory and fragmentary) tell of the leader Hotu Matu'a, who was the first to set foot on Rapa Nui and brought all the inhabitants with him. He had six sons who divided the island after his death. Thus, the clans began to have their ancestor, whose statue they tried to make larger, more massive and more representative than that of the neighboring tribe. But what caused the Rapa Nui people to stop carving and erecting their monuments in the early sixteenth century? This has only been discovered by modern research. And this story can be instructive for all mankind.
Ecological catastrophe on a small scale
Let's leave aside the idols of Easter Island for now. They were carved by the distant ancestors of those wild natives who were caught by the expeditions of Roggeven and Cook. But what influenced the decline of the once rich civilization? After all, the ancient Rapa Nuans even had a written language. By the way, the texts of the found tablets have not yet been deciphered. Scientists have only recently given an answer to what happened to this civilization. Her death was not quick due to a volcanic eruption, as Cook assumed. She agonized for centuries. Modern research layers of soil showed that the island was once covered with lush vegetation. The forests abounded with game. The ancient Rapa Nui were engaged in agriculture, growing yams, taro, sugarcane, sweet potatoes and bananas. They went out to sea in good boats made from the hollowed out trunk of a palm tree and hunted dolphins. The fact that the ancient islanders ate well is indicated by DNA analysis of food found on pottery shards. And this idyll was destroyed by the people themselves. Forests were gradually cut down. The islanders were left without their fleet, and consequently, without the meat of ocean fish and dolphins. They have already eaten all the animals and birds. The only food of the Rapa Nui people was crabs and shellfish, which they collected in shallow water.
Easter Island: moai statues
The natives could not really say anything about how they were made and, most importantly, how stone idols weighing several tons were brought to the shore. They called them "moai" and believed that they contained "mana" - the spirit of the ancestors of a certain clan. The more idols, the stronger the concentration of supernatural power. And this leads to the prosperity of the clan. So when the French removed one of Easter Island's moai statues in 1875 to take it to a Paris museum, the Rapa Nui had to be held back with guns. But, as studies have shown, about 55% of all idols were not transported to special platforms - "ahu", but remained standing (many in the primary processing stage) in a quarry on the slope of the Rano Raraku volcano.
Art style
In total, there are more than 900 sculptures on the island. They are classified by scholars chronologically and by style. The early period is characterized stone heads without a torso, with a face turned upwards, as well as pillars, where the torso is made in a very stylized way. But there are exceptions. So, a very realistic figure of a kneeling moai was found. But she remained standing in the ancient quarry. In the Middle Age, the idols of Easter Island became giants. Most likely, the clans competed with each other, trying to show that their mana is more powerful. Artistic decoration in the Middle period is more sophisticated. The bodies of the idols are covered with carvings depicting clothes and wings, and huge cylindrical hats of red tuff are often hoisted on the head of the moai.
Transportation
No less a mystery than the idols of Easter Island remained the secret of their transfer to the "ahu" platforms. The natives claimed that the moai themselves came there. The truth turned out to be more prosaic. In the lowest (more ancient) soil layers, scientists have found the remains of an endemic tree that is related to the wine palm. It grew up to 26 meters, and its smooth trunks without branches reached a diameter of 1.8 m. The tree served as an excellent material for rolling sculptures from the quarries to the shore, where they were installed on platforms. To erect idols, ropes were used, which were woven from the bast of the hauha tree. The environmental catastrophe also explains the fact why more than half of the sculptures are “stuck” in quarries.
Short-eared and long-eared
Modern residents of Rapa Nui no longer have religious reverence for moai, but consider them theirs. cultural heritage. In the mid-50s of the last century, the researcher uncovered the secret of who created the idols of Easter Island. He noticed that Rapa Nui is inhabited by two types of tribes. In one, the earlobes were lengthened from childhood by wearing heavy jewelry. The leader of this clan, Pedro Atana, told Thor Heirdal that in their family, the ancestors passed on to their descendants the art of creating the status of moai and transporting them by drag to the installation site. This craft was kept secret from the "short-eared" and was passed down orally. At the request of Heyerdahl, Athan, with numerous assistants from his clan, carved a 12-ton statue into a quarry and delivered it upright to the platform.
by Notes of the Wild MistressEaster Island is a small piece of land in the middle of endless expanses Pacific Ocean. It belongs to Chile, its area is slightly more than 165 square kilometers, and the shape of the island resembles a triangle. The population, numbering about two thousand people, is engaged in sheep breeding and fishing.
IN Lately tourism began to bring income to local residents. More and more people want to visit the island. What attracts tourists is that Easter Island is shrouded in unsolved mysteries.
Mysterious Island
This piece of land was discovered back in 1772, when Dutch sailors, led by Captain Roggevan, first set foot on it. It happened on Easter Sunday, so the island became known as Easter Island.
The locals greeted the seafarers very friendly. And immediately the Dutch had questions. First, how did these friendly islanders get here in the first place. Secondly, why are they so different: some are black, others are red, and, among them, white people. Thirdly, how and why the locals disfigure their ears in such a way, the lobes of which are cut and greatly stretched. But the most amazing sight awaited travelers ahead.
Giant stone statues
Roggevan and his sailors were shocked to find giant stone statues, which the locals called moai. Most of these statues are 4 to 10 meters tall. But some giants reach a height of more than 20 meters. At the statues big heads with a protruding chin and long ears. There are no legs at all. Some of them are wearing redstone caps, others are without caps. Some stand on pedestals, others are buried up to their heads.
Now 887 of these statues have been preserved. They are still located all over the island and continue to amaze tourists. The question whether the small, helpless inhabitants of the island could erect such giants as they did in the seventeenth century remains unanswered.
According to the stories of Dutch sailors, the aborigines found on the island worshiped the deity Mak-Mak. Wooden writing tablets called rongo-rongo were found on the island. Letters were applied from left to right, then vice versa. Nobody could decipher the inscriptions. It's a pity, because it is they who could help uncover the mystery of the statues and the origin of the inhabitants of Easter Island themselves.
Easter Island hypotheses
In the meantime, there are only hypotheses and assumptions. No other records were kept of the island, and oral accounts of the culture of the islanders became increasingly obscure and vague over time. There is evidence that the natives told Captain Cook that twenty-two generations had changed since the leader Hotu Matua brought people to the island, but from where, they could not say anything.
According to one of the hypotheses of scientists, the inhabitants of the island sailed to it in canoes and started making statues, using the leaves of giant trees for their transportation, and the statues were supported by the trunks of these trees. When Europeans arrived on the island, the entire forest had already been exterminated, and an ecological catastrophe led to the extinction of the population. Evidence that the people of the island could come from across the sea can be found on one of the stones ancient image boats.
The famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl was sure that the inhabitants of Peru moved to the island, having reached it on their balsa wood rafts. In order to prove his point, he even made an amazing journey, sailing across the ocean with his crew on a makeshift raft called the Kon-Tiki. But even if, at the beginning of our millennium, the inhabitants of present-day Peru really sailed to the island, could they erect giant statues? Something hard to believe.
What is more reliable - aliens or Atlantis?
Maybe those who claim that there were aliens here are right. Often it is the unbelievable that suddenly becomes apparent.
There is one more interesting hypothesis. The statues were erected by the people of Atlanta. They were up to 10 meters tall, and their ancient civilization flourished on the vast continent of Atlantis, of which only a piece remained - Easter Island. The rest sank into the ocean. And the inhabitants, who were caught by the Dutch expedition, appeared on the island after the Atlanteans, perhaps they sailed from Peru.
The mystery of Easter Island will be revealed when the letters on the wooden tablets are deciphered. Or, suddenly, the legendary Atlantis will be found at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Why are there so many mysteries associated with Easter Island? With a small island that is lost in the Pacific Ocean, to which to swim is not to swim. With an island once inhabited by aboriginal savages, not alien to cannibalism in a certain historical period? Perhaps due to its name, which it received in 1722, on Easter Sunday, when it was opened to Europeans Dutch navigator Roggeven? Or is this the fault of the giant statues, looking deep into the island with a stone look? Who knows ... But its riddles are being solved to this day, and many of them are still left, there is something to puzzle over ....
The real name of the island is Rapa Nui. Now it is part of the Republic of Chile and its area is 165 sq. km. It is located in the Southeast Pacific Ocean and is far from the nearest shore. South America at 3590 km. The island has only one locality, which is its capital, is Anga Roa. There is a small port and an airfield where airliners from Chile arrive. There is also a strip specially prepared by NASA for a possible emergency landing shuttles. The population today is about 6,000 people. Easter Island is included in the list of objects world heritage UNESCO.
Rapa Nui has volcanic origin and the shape of a right triangle with its hypotenuse facing the Southwest. At each corner of this triangle rises a crater from an extinct volcano, filled with water. The Terevak crater is the highest of them. There are no trees on the island. But once they were and formed entire forests. Possible reasons forest disappearances are different - this is, as it is now customary to say, "inefficient economic activity", and a long drought. The trees disappeared and, as a result, the soil became poor, which led to a significant decrease in the population. More fertile soils are found in the inner part of the craters, where reed grows, and in the north of the island, where sweet potatoes and yams are grown. Rainwater quickly goes underground, forming underground rivers carrying her into the ocean. source fresh water are lakes in the craters of volcanoes, reservoirs and wells.
Basalt, rhyolite, obsidian, trachyte are the main rocks, and the sheer cliffs in Hanga Hoonu Bay are made up of red lava.
The warmest month of the year is January, the coldest is August. The climate is tropical, warm but not hot. This is due to the proximity of the cold Humboldt Current and the lack of land between Easter Island and Antarctica.Presumably, the island was first discovered by Europeans in 1687, when, on the coast " mysterious land"observed from the ship of the English privateer Edward Davis. This event was described by the doctor Lionel Wafer, who was on board. But the coordinates were not recorded accurately, the team did not land on the shore, the ship passed by due to the fact that the Spaniards were pursuing it. Therefore, officially it is believed that the island was discovered by the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen in 1722. Since this happened on Easter Sunday, April 5, the name came from here - Easter Island. Roggeven described in detail the inhabitants of the island, he was strongly impressed huge statues found on the coast. Local residents reacted extremely belligerently to the arrival of strangers, there was a skirmish during which nine Rapanui were killed.
The next mention of Rapanui dates back to 1774. This year, a Spanish ship arrived on the island under the command of Captain Felipe Gonzalez de Aedo. The Spanish colonial administration, located in Peru, intended to include these lands in the South American colonies. Apparently not having found anything remarkable on the island, especially gold so dearly loved by the conquistadors, the Spaniards soon forgot about Rapa Nui and never again claimed rights to it. But travelers and sailors did not forget about him. IN different time visited the island:
James Cook (March 12, 1774)Jean Francois Lapérouse (1787)Yuri Fedorovich Lisyansky on the sloop "Neva" (1804),Otto Evstafievich Kotzebue on the brig "Rurik" (1816).1862 is one of the most tragic years in the history of the island. Slave traders from Peru landed in the bay of Anga Roa. About 1500 Rapanui were captured and sold into slavery, including all those who could read kohau rongorongo. Kohau rongorongo are wooden tablets with inscriptions in the language local residents. Only the intervention of the French government and the Bishop of Tahiti, Florenty Etienne Jossan, who turned to the government of Peru, allowed the 15 surviving islanders to return home. They introduced smallpox, and as a result of the epidemic, by 1877 the population was reduced to 111 people. Not a single person remained who owned a letter and knew how to read rongorongo. The writing of the inhabitants of Easter Island has not yet been solved. There is no consensus among linguists even in determining its type, not to mention reading the tablets.
Serious scientific research on the island began to be carried out only in the 20th century. A special mark in the study of the culture and history of Rapa Nui was left by the Norwegian scientist Tour Heyerdahl. First of all, it was about when and where the population appeared. To answer these questions
in 1955-1956 an expedition was organized. A number of archaeological sites, as well as with the help of local residents, a full-scale experiment was carried out on carving a moai statue from a rock and moving it to the coast. After the work of the expedition was published a large number of scientific materials that gave answers to some questions related to the island. Based on excavation data and radiocarbon analysis, Heyerdahl hypothesized that the first inhabitants arrived in Rapa Nui in the 6th century from ancient Peru, and settlers from the Polynesian islands appeared much later. This theory is also supported by the fact that the stone statues on the island are very similar to the statuettes found in the Andes, as well as some external similarity between the writing of the Rapanui and the writing of the Kuna Indians. There are other theories of the settlement of the island, in particular Melanesian and Polynesian. Each theory is based on certain historical and scientific facts and has in scientific environment both followers and opponents. In general, this is another the mystery of easter island which is yet to be unraveled.Of course, not only Thor Heyerdahl was engaged in research. Scientists from Russia, Britain, France, Belgium, the USA - Routledge, Lavasheri, Metro, Englert, Shapiro, Butinov - studied not only history, life, culture, but also tried to unravel main riddle- Moai statues.
What are these statues? This is the head and part of the torso up to the waist, carved from a single piece of rock. They all look inland. Some remained unfinished and have been in quarries since time immemorial. What easter island statues this is part of some kind of cult, an object for worship - there is no doubt. But how did they get to the coast, because they were made in the depths of the island, in quarries. There is a legend that they moved independently. The people of Rapa Nui even have a word for it, which literally translates to "move slowly", defining the movement of the Moai. Moai- huge. Their height is from 4 to 20 meters, weight - from 20 to 90 tons. The non-fasts have a red cap on their heads. There are several versions of how they were delivered to the coast. According to the first version, they used wooden sleds, according to the second - round stones that were placed under the statues.|
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What is modern island Easter? This is a completely civilized island with satellite communications and the Internet, where adults work and children study. Teaching in schools is conducted in two languages: Rapa Nui and Spanish. There are hospitals, clinics, shops and hotels. There is a large library and an anthropological museum. There is also the Church.
Now Easter Island is also a center of tourism. Tourists do not bypass it. It is a pity that it is impossible to get a higher education on the island. For this, young people go to the mainland.
Every year on Easter Island, the Tapati festival is held, quite spectacular, somewhat peculiar, where traditional Rapanui competitions are necessarily held.
