Large stone heads on the island. Moai in Chile are the silent idols of Easter Island. Questions Asked When Seeing a Moai

On Easter Island there are mysterious giants called on local language"moai". 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 the 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 Pacific Ocean along the entire coast, they are located on special sites, 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. All have very large 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.

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. And there are no other islands nearby, in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean. 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 statues on the island. They are classified by scholars chronologically and by style. The early period is characterized by stone heads without a body, 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.

Moai
Easter Island Mysteries

(from the cycle "On the backyard of the planet")

Moai(statue, idol, idol [from the Rapanui language]) - stone monolithic statues on a pacific island Easter owned by Chile. Made by the native Polynesian population between 1250 and 1500. Now 887 statues are known.

Earlier moai were mounted on ceremonial and funerary platforms. ahu around the perimeter of the island, or just in an open area. It is possible that the transportation of some statues was never completed. Such ahu now there are 255 pieces. With a length of several meters to 160 m, they could accommodate from one small statue to an impressive row of giants. On the biggest one, ahu Tongariki, installed 15 moai. Less than a fifth of all the statues were installed on the ahu. Unlike the statues Rano Raraku, whose gaze is directed down the slope, moai on ahu look deep into the island, or rather, at the village that once stood in front of them. Many broken and whole statues ended up inside the platforms during their rebuilding. Also, apparently, many are still buried in the ground.

Location of ahu burial grounds on the island

Now they are restoring the process of periodically dismantling the statues to transfer them to new pedestals, as well as their final burial under the rubble of stone. Almost half or 45% of all moai (394 or 397) remained in Rano Raraku. Some were not cut down completely, or they were originally supposed to remain in this position, while others were installed on stone-lined platforms on the outer and inner slopes of the crater. Moreover, 117 of them are on the inner slope. Previously, it was believed that all these moai were left unfinished or did not have time to send them to another place. Now it is assumed that they were intended for this place. Also, they were not going to make eyes. These statues were later buried deluvium (accumulation of loose weathering products rocks) from the slope of the volcano.

In the middle of the 19th century, all moai outside Rano Raraku and many in the quarry were overturned or fell due to natural causes (earthquakes, tsunami strikes). Now about 50 statues have been restored at ceremonial sites or in museums elsewhere. In addition, now one statue has eyes, since it was found that in the deep eye sockets of the moai there were once inserts of white coral and black obsidian, the latter could be replaced by black, but then reddened pumice.

Quarry and statues on the slope of Rano Raraku

Most of the moai (834 or 95%) are carved in large-block tachylite basalt tuff of the volcano quarry Rano Raraku. It is possible that some of the statues also come from the deposits of other volcanoes, in which there is a similar stone and they are closer to the installation sites. Several small statues are made of a different stone: 22 of trachyte; 17 - from the red basalt pumice of the volcano Ohio(in the bay Anakena) and from other deposits; 13 - from basalt; 1 - from volcano mujierite early kao. The latter is a particularly revered 2.42 m high statue from a cult site Orongo, known as Hoa-Haka-Nana-Ia . It has been in the British Museum since 1868. Round cylinders "pukao"(bundle of hair) on the heads of the statues are made of volcanic basalt pumice puna pao. Not all ahu-mounted moai were equipped with red (originally black) pukao cylinders. They were made only where there were pumice deposits on nearby volcanoes.

Hoa-Haka-Nana-Ia statue 2.42 m high. Front and back view

If we talk about the weight of the moai, then in so many publications it is greatly overestimated. This is due to the fact that basalt itself is taken for calculations (bulk mass is about 3-3.2 g / cc), and not those light basalt rocks that are indicated above and from which the statues are made (less than 1.4 g / cu. .cm, rarely 1.7 g/cc). Small trachyte, basalt and muggierite statues are indeed made of hard and heavy material.

The usual size of a moai is 3-5 m. The average width of the base is 1.6 m. The average weight of such statues is less than 5 tons (although the weight is indicated as 12.5-13.8 tons). Less often, the height of the statues is 10-12 m. No more than 30-40 statues have a weight of more than 10 tons.

The tallest newly erected is the moai Paro on ahu Te Pito Te Cura, 9.8 m high. And the heaviest of the same category is moai on ahu Tongariki. Their weight, as is customary, is greatly overestimated (82 and 86 tons, respectively). Although all such statues are now quietly installed by a 15-ton crane. Most tall statues the islands are on the outer slope of the volcano Rano Raraku. Of these, the largest Piropiro, 11.4 m.

Ahu Tongariki

In general, the largest statue - El Gigante, measuring about 21 m (according to various sources - 20.9 m, 21.6 m, 21.8 m, 69 feet). They call the approximate weight - and 145-165 tons, and 270 tons. It is located in a quarry and is not separated from the base.

The weight of stone cylinders is not more than 500-800 kg, less often 1.5-2 tons. Although, for example, a cylinder 2.4 m high moai Paro, overestimating, is determined by a weight of 11.5 tons.

The largest statue is El Gigante, about 21 m in size in Rano Raraku

The well-known style of statues of the middle period of the history of Easter Island did not appear immediately. It was preceded by the styles of the early period monuments, which are divided into four types.
Type 1 - tetrahedral, sometimes metatarsal stone heads rectangular section. There is no trunk. Material - yellowish gray tuff Rano Raraku.
Type 2 - long pillars of rectangular cross-section depicting an unrealistic full-length figure and disproportionately short legs. Only one completed specimen found on ahu Vinapa, originally two-headed. Two other unfinished - in quarries Tuu-Tapu. Material - red pumice.
Type 3 - the only copy of a realistic kneeling figure made of tufa Rano Raraku. Found in the same place, in the dumps of ancient quarries.
Type 4 - introduced big amount torsos, prototypes of statues of the Middle period. Made of hard, dense black or gray basalt, reddish pumice, tuff Rano Raraku and mujierita. They differ in convex and even pointed base. That is, they were not intended to be installed on pedestals. They were dug into the ground. They did not have a separate pukao and elongated earlobes. Three fine specimens of solid basalt and mujierite were taken out and are now in British Museum in London , V Otago Museum in Dunedin and in Brussels 50th Anniversary Museum .

On the right is one of the early moai examples. Left - An early period basalt statue, the Hawa moai, from the British Museum on display in Liverpool

The statues of the Middle Period are an improvement on less large statues the previous period. Contrary to popular belief, the faces reproduced on them are not European, but purely Polynesian. Overly elongated heads appeared due to the disproportionate stretching of later monuments in the pursuit of everything greater height. At the same time, the ratio of the length to the width of the nose (from below) remained "Asian" anyway. Beginning with Hoa-Haka-Nana-Ia, also some statues of the Middle period were covered with carvings. It includes maro - an image on the back, reminiscent of a loincloth, complemented by a circle and an m-shaped figure. Paschal people interpret this drawing as "sun, rainbow and rain." These are standard elements for statues. Other drawings are more varied. There may be something like a collar on the front, although of course the figures are naked. Hoa-Haka-Nana-Ia on the back it also has images of oars "ao", vulvas, a bird and two bird-men. It is believed that images related to the cult of the bird-man appeared already in the Middle Period. One statue from the slope Rano Raraku has on the back and chest images of a three-masted reed ship or, according to another version, a European ship. However, many statues may not have retained their images due to severe erosion of the soft stone. Images were also on some cylinders pukao . Hoa-Haka-Nana-Ia, in addition, had a coloring of maroon and white paint, which was washed off when the statue was moved to the museum.

Middle period statue with reconstructed eyes

Late Middle Period statues at Rano Raraku

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

The legends of the island speak of a clan leader Hotu Matu'a 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. The inhabitants of the island believe that the supernatural power of the ancestors of this clan is contained in the statues ( mana ). The concentration of mana will lead to good harvests, rain and prosperity. These legends are constantly changing and transmitted in fragments, which is why accurate history difficult to recover.

Among the researchers, the most widely spread theory was that the moai were erected by settlers from the islands of Polynesia in the 11th century. Moai could represent deceased ancestors or give strength to living leaders, and could also be symbols of clans.

In 1955-1956. famous norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl organized the Norwegian archaeological expedition to Easter Island. One of the main projects in the project was the carving, dragging and installation of moai statues. As a result, the secret of creating, moving and installing statues was revealed. The creators of the moai turned out to be an endangered native tribe " long-eared ", which got its name because they had a custom to lengthen their earlobes with heavy jewelry, which for centuries kept the secret of creating statues a secret from the main population of the island - the tribe" short-eared ". As a result of this secrecy, the short-eared people surrounded the statues with mystical superstitions, which for a long time misled Europeans. Heyerdahl saw in the style of statues and some other works of the islanders a resemblance to South American motifs. He attributed this to the influence of the culture of the Peruvian Indians, or even the origin of the "long-eared" from the Peruvians.

Photo illustration from Thor Heyerdahl's book "The Secret of Easter Island" 1959

At the request of Thor Heyerdahl, a group of the last "long-ears" living on the island, led by Pedro Atana , the leader of the clan, reproduced all the stages of making statues in a quarry (hewing them with stone hammers), moved the finished 12-ton statue to the installation site (in a prone position, dragged, using a large crowd of helpers) and installed it on its feet with the help of an ingenious device made of stones, placed under the base, and three logs used as levers. When asked why they had not told the European explorers about this earlier, their leader replied that "no one had asked me about this before." The natives - participants in the experiment - reported that for several generations no one had made or installed statues, but from early childhood they were taught by their elders, 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.

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

It remained a mystery why the “short-eared” tell in their legends that the statues “came” to the places of installation in an upright position. Czech explorer Pavel Pavel put forward the hypothesis that the moai “walked” by turning over, and in 1986, together with Thor Heyerdahl, he set up an additional experiment in which a group of 17 people with ropes quickly moved a 10-ton statue in an upright position. Anthropologists repeated the experiment in 2012 on video.

In 2012, American researchers successfully repeated the experiment with a 5-ton "walking" statue.

Trips

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 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 in the local language is 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.

Address: Easter Island, Chile;
Made by: 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, moai statues, are located in the central Pacific Ocean. The island belongs to, it got its name because it was discovered Dutch navigator on Easter Sunday. In addition to statues, tourists come to see unique landscape, volcanic craters, beaches with clear blue water.

Moai - description and interesting facts

Everyone has seen statues on Easter Island at least once in absentia - there are plenty of photos of monuments, but they will not be able to create full impression, therefore, at the first opportunity, you should visit the island and see them live.

How many statues are on Easter Island? Thanks to constant archaeological excavations already managed to find about 887 statues. These stone giants with large heads and a shapeless body are scattered throughout the island.

What are the names of the statues on Easter Island? The locals call them moai, attributing special powers to them and believing that the spiritual power of the island is contained in the blocks. It is only thanks to her that good weather, success in love and war is possible, harvesting a rich harvest. Quite often you can hear that the stone statues of Easter Island themselves choose the place of installation. Mana, the so-called supernatural power, animates the statues, 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 work with, and only a small part is made of trachyte or basalt. There is also a statue especially revered by the local population - Hoa-Haka-Nan-Ia, which is made of mujierite from the Rano Khao 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 come to light, it happened when the famous Norwegian archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl visited - the statues, the origin of which occupied the minds of all scientists, were erected by the endangered tribe of "long-ears". Such strange name appeared because of the long earlobes, which were decorated with heavy earrings. Since the secret of creating 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, the representatives of the tribe carved the statue with stone hammers, dragged it to a certain place, and lifted it, placing stones under the base, three logs acted as levers. This technology has been passed down orally from generation to generation. early years The children listened to the adults' stories and repeated what they remembered. This continued until the children learned the process completely.

Rumors of evil stone idols

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

Amazing discoveries

At first stone moai were perceived as mysterious faces installed on the slopes of Easter Island. Since archaeologists did not stop trying to understand the purpose of the idols, excavations began to be carried out. As a result, when the statues on Easter Island were unearthed, they found that the heads have torsos, the total length of the bodies reaches about 7 m. 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 the locals are very happy about, because tourism is the main source of income for the island.