Moai heads. The mystery of the mysterious sculptures of Easter Island. Natives of Easter Island
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Many people know about the mysterious stone faces located on the slopes of Easter Island. But for many it may be a discovery that at the huge ancient stone heads guarding the famous island, there are torsos.
Archaeologists Easter Island Statue Project unearthed two of the many statues to unravel the secret mysterious stones and the people who created them.
The reason many people think there are heads on Easter Island is because about 150 statues are buried up to their shoulders on the slope of the volcano. These are the most famous, most beautiful and most often photographed statues. Therefore, many of those who have not seen the excavated statues believe that they are only heads.
Statues called "moai" height up to 10 meters, with a weight of more than 80 tons, were carved from volcanic rock by the ancient Polynesians. Their meaning is still not clear, but it is assumed that they represent the ancestors of the indigenous peoples. Probably, when important tribal figures passed away, the representatives of the tribes carved a new statue each time.
It is believed that exposure to erosion over the centuries has resulted in the bodies of the moai being buried, leaving only the heads exposed.
On the bodies of the excavated statues were found many petroglyphs carved on the backs of monoliths. These were the symbols of the crescent, which represented the canoe.
In total on Easter Island, which is on local language called Rapa Nui about 887 moai statues, some of which once stood on massive stone platforms. Contrary to the opinion of many people, moai heads are not directed towards the ocean, but inland, as if they are carefully examining their territory.
About 250 of these platforms are located approximately 800 meters apart, creating an almost continuous line around the entire perimeter of the island. Another 600 moai in various stages of completion are distributed throughout the island. Almost all the statues were made from solid stone from the volcano Rano Raraku. Engineers, scientists and many other specialists have tried to understand how people moved these statues. It is believed that it took 50 to 150 people to move them.
Location: Chile, Easter Island
Made by: between 1250 - 1500 years
Coordinates: 27°07"33.7"S 109°16"37.2"W
Easter Island is lost in the Pacific at a distance of 4000 km from Chile. The nearest neighbors - the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island - live 2000 km from here.
Own unusual name Easter Island was not accidental: it was discovered Dutch navigator on Easter Sunday morning April 5, 1722. The landscapes of the island are extinct volcanoes, mountains, hills and meadows. There are no rivers here, the main source fresh water- rainwater that accumulates in the craters of volcanoes. The Paschalians call their island "The Navel of the Earth" (Te-Pito-te-henua). This secluded and isolated corner from the rest of the world attracts scientists, mystics, lovers of secrets and mysteries.
First of all, Easter Island is famous for its giant stone statues in the form of a human head, they are called "moai". Silent idols weighing up to 200 tons and up to 12 meters high stand with their backs to the ocean. A total of 997 statues have been discovered on Easter Island. All moai are monolithic. The craftsmen carved them from soft volcanic tuff (pumice) in a quarry on the slopes of the Rano Roraku volcano. Some of the statues have been moved to the ritual platform (“ahu”) and added with a red stone cap (pukau). According to scientists, moai once had eyes: squirrels were laid out from coral, and pupils from sparkling pieces of volcanic glass.
Obviously, the installation of statues required a huge amount of labor. According to legend, the idols walked by themselves. However, the hypotheses, confirmed by scientific experiments, prove that the inhabitants of the island and no one else moved the moai, but it has not yet been determined exactly how they did it. In 1956, the Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl experimented with moving a moai statue by hiring a team of Easter Island natives who successfully reproduced all the stages of making and installing a moai.
Armed with stone axes, the natives carved a 12-ton statue, and, grabbing onto the ropes, began to pull it along the ground. And in order not to damage the fragile giant, the islanders made a wooden sled to prevent it from rubbing against the ground. With the help of wooden levers and stones placed under the base of the statue, it was hoisted onto a platform-pedestal.
In 1986, the Czech explorer P. Pavel, together with Thor Heyerdahl, organized an additional test in which a group of 17 natives set the 20-ton statue upright fairly quickly using ropes.
"A petrified world with its petrified inhabitants"
The settlement of Easter Island began in 300-400 years by immigrants from East Polynesia. According to another version, proposed by Thor Heyerdahl, the first inhabitants of the island were settlers from Ancient Peru. Crossing the Pacific Ocean from the coast of South America to Polynesia on a wooden raft "Kon-Tiki", the Norwegian scientist proved that even in the conditions of an ancient civilization, the American Indians could overcome large expanses of water.
The indigenous population of Easter Island belonged to two tribes - "long-eared", which created the moai, and "short-eared". The "long-ears" got their name because they wore heavy jewelry in their ears, sometimes so large that the earlobes were pulled down to their shoulders. Paschalians believed that the supernatural power of their clan, called "mana", was contained in stone statues. In the beginning, the long-eared and short-eared lived in peace and harmony with each other, but their later history was marked by a series of brutal wars caused by food shortages.
Because of the drought, crops were declining, there were not enough trees to make boats from which it was possible to fish. Now moai were identified with the image of the enemy, and the statues were destroyed by rival tribes. There are many theories regarding the purpose of the moai. Perhaps these were island gods etched in stone, or portraits of the leaders who ruled the island. According to Thor Heyerdahl, the statues depict white Indians who arrived on the island from Latin America . In the era of cultural flourishing (XVI-XVII centuries), up to 20 thousand people lived on Easter Island.
After the arrival of Europeans, the population declined, many Easterlings were taken to Peru for hard labor. Today the island is inhabited by about 4,000 people. The living conditions of the islanders have improved significantly, an airport has been built, and tourists bring a small income. But Easter Island still seems deserted, as in the days of Thor Heyerdahl's research, when the Norwegian saw "some kind of petrified world with its petrified inhabitants."
The statues of Easter Island attract the attention of many tourists with their specific performance. Some of them can be seen in the largest museums in the world, but it is best to go to Chile and walk among the idols, admiring their scale and variety. It is believed that they were made in the interval from 1250 to 1500. However, the secret of creating sculptures is still passed from mouth to mouth.
Statues of Easter Island and their main characteristics
Many people wonder how many statues of this type exist and where these huge bodies came from. small island. At the moment, 887 sculptures of different sizes, made in the same style, have been discovered. They are also called moai. True, it is possible that excavations, carried out from time to time on Easter Island, will lead to the discovery of additional idols that the local tribes have not set in place. 
Material for making stone statues is tuffite - breed volcanic origin. 95% of moai are made from tuff, extracted from the Rano Raraku volcano, which is located on Easter Island. Only a few of the idols are made from other breeds:
- trachyta - 22 statues;
- pumice of the Ohio volcano - 17;
- basalt - 13;
- mujierite of Rano Kao volcano - 1.
Many sources provide unreliable information regarding the mass of moai, as they calculate it taking into account the fact that they are made of basalt, and no less dense basalt rock - tuffite. Nevertheless, the average weight of the statues reaches 5 tons, so contemporaries often speculate how such heavy figures were moved from the quarry to their current location. 
The size of the statues of Easter Island varies from 3 to 5 meters, and their base is 1.6 meters wide. Only a few statues reach a height of over 10 meters and a weight of about 10 tons. All of them belong to a later period. These statues are distinguished by elongated heads. In the photo it seems that they convey the facial features of the Caucasian race, but in fact the physiognomy repeats the features of the Polynesians. Such distortion was resorted to for the sole purpose of increasing the height of the statues.
Questions Asked When Seeing a Moai
Firstly, many are interested in why the statues are scattered throughout the island and what their purpose is. Most of the idols are set on ahu - burial platforms. The ancient tribes believed that moai absorb the power of outstanding ancestors and later help their descendants from the other world. 
There is a legend that the leader of the Hotu Matu’a clan became the founder of the tradition of erecting idols, who ordered, after his death, to install a statue on Easter Island, and to divide the part of the land itself among six sons. It is believed that mana is hidden in idols, which, with proper meditation, can increase crops, bring prosperity to the tribe, and give strength. 
Secondly, it seems that it is impossible to transfer such boulders from the volcano to quite remote places through the jungle. Many put forward various hypotheses, but the truth turned out to be much simpler. In the second half of the 20th century, a traveler from Norway, Thor Heyerdahl, turned to the leader of the "long-eared" tribe. He tried to find out what the statues were called, what they were for, and how they were made. As a result, the whole process was described in detail and even reproduced as an example for visiting researchers.
Heyerdahl wondered why the production technology had previously been hidden from everyone, but the leader only replied that before this period, no one asked about moai and did not ask to see how they were made. At the same time, according to tradition, the nuances of the technique for creating statues of Easter Island are passed on from the elders to the younger, so it has not been forgotten to this day. 
In order to knock moai out of volcanic rock, it is necessary to make special hammers with which the figures are beaten off. Upon impact, the hammer shatters, so hundreds of such tools had to be created. After the idol was ready, it was manually pulled out by a huge number of people with the help of ropes and pulled to the ahu. At the burial site, stones were placed under the statue and with the help of logs, using the lever method, they installed it in the required place.
On Easter Island there are mysterious giants called "moai" in the local language. They rise silently on the shore, lined up and looking towards the shore. These giants are like an army defending their possessions. Despite the simplification of the figures, moai are fascinating. These statues look especially powerful in the rays of the setting sun, when only huge silhouettes appear ...
Location of the Easter Island statues:
The giants stand on one of the most unusual islands of our planet - Easter. It has the shape of a triangle with sides of 16, 24, and 18 kilometers. Being in pacific ocean, it is thousands of miles away from the nearest civilized country (the nearest neighbor is 3,000 km away). Local residents belong to three different races - blacks, redskins and, finally, completely white people.
The island is now a small piece of land - only 165 square meters, but at the time of the erection of the statues, Easter Island was 3 or even 4 times larger. Some part of it, like Atlantis, went under water. On a good day, some areas of flooded land are visible at depth. There is an absolutely incredible version: the progenitor of all mankind - the mainland of Lemuria - sank 4 million years ago, and Easter Island is its tiny surviving part.
Stone statues stand near the Pacific Ocean along the entire coast, they are located on special platforms, these pedestals locals called "ahoo".
Not all statues have survived to this day, others are completely destroyed, others are toppled. Many statues have been preserved - there are more than a thousand figures. They are not the same size and differ in thickness. The smallest are 3 meters long. Large ones weigh 80 tons and reach 17 meters in height. Everyone is very big heads with a heavy protruding chin, short necks, long ears and no legs at all. Some have "caps" made of stone on their heads. The facial features of all are the same - a somewhat gloomy expression, with low foreheads and tightly compressed lips.
Today we will travel to famous Island Easter, which is famous for its stone statues Moai. The island is shrouded in many secrets and mysteries that are unlikely to ever be solved. We will try to consider the most common theories of the origin of stone statues created ancient civilization Rapa Nui
This is one of the most isolated islands in the world, since 1200 years ago, ancient sailors in canoes sailed here and chose these shores. Over the centuries, a unique community developed in the isolation of the island, for unknown reasons, began to carve giant statues from volcanic rock. These statues, known as Moai, are some of the most amazing ancient relics ever found. The people of the island called themselves Rapa Nui, but where they came from and where they disappeared is unknown. Science puts forward many theories about the mystery of Easter Island, but all these theories contradict each other, the truth is unknown as always 
Modern archaeologists believe that the first and only people of the island are a separate group of Polynesians who once got here, then had no contact with their homeland. Before fateful day in 1722, when, on Easter Day, the Dutchman Jacob Roggeveen became the first European to discover the island. What witnessed his team and caused heated debate regarding the origin of Rapa Nui. The researchers reported a mixed population of the island, there were both dark-skinned and fair-skinned people. Some even had red hair and tanned faces. This doesn't quite tie in with the Polynesian version of origin. local population, despite longstanding evidence supporting migration from another island in the Pacific. Therefore, archaeologists are still discussing the theory of the famous archaeologist and explorer Thor Heyerdahl 
In his notes, Heyerdahl speaks of the islanders, who were divided into several classes. The fair-skinned islanders wore large discs in their earlobes. Their bodies were heavily tattooed and they worshipped giant statues performing ceremonies before them. How could fair-skinned people live among Polynesians on such remote island? The researcher believes that Easter Island was inhabited in several stages by two different cultures. One culture was from Polynesia, the other from South America, possibly from Peru, where mummies of people with red hair have also been found 
Heyerdahl also points to common features Moai statues with similar monuments in Bolivia. According to his theory, thousands of years ago, people had already mastered the ocean, and sailed in large canoes over great distances. Heyerdahl himself traveled from the coast of Peru to Easter Island on a makeshift raft in 1947, proving that such a movement is possible 
Modern archaeologists strongly disagree with Heyerdahl. They point to long history habitats of Polynesians in the South Pacific region. In addition, according to linguistic studies, the most likely origin of the local population is the Marquis Islands or Pitcairn. Researchers are turning to the legends of Easter Island, which speak of an origin from the west. In addition, botanical and anthropometric studies confirm that the island was colonized only once - from the west
There is a third theory, quite young. Around 1536, the Spanish ship San Lesmems disappeared off the coast of Tahiti. Legends speak of Basque survivors who married Polynesian women. Interestingly, genetic testing showed the presence of Basque genes in the blood of Rapa Nui 
But there is a third origin story that is as far fetched as it seems to have scientific evidence behind it. Around 1536 the Spanish ship, San Lesmems was lost near Tahiti. Legends speak of Basque survivors marrying Polynesians. Either they or their descendants set off from Tahiti to try and return home in the 1600s and are never seen again. Interestingly, genetic testing of pure Rapa Nui blood showed the presence of Basque genes. 
Perhaps Easter Island was inhabited by a lost crew of Spanish and Polynesian sailors? 
Of course, over time, science will give us the answer to who the Rapa Nui were. They built a highly organized society on small island, and in the short time of their existence they created a riddle that puzzled the whole world and has not been solved so far 
