The desolate Easter Island suddenly became a landing spot, 1200 years ago, for a group of people in a canoe. In the next few hundred years an amazing civilization grew all alone there. For a yet unknown reason they used volcanic rock out of which to carve gargantuan statues. People are amazed when they see or hear about these monuments called moai. The people there went by the name Rapa Nui. Who were they originally and where did they go? Science has studied a lot about the Easter Island mystery and as a result has solved or debunked some of the stranger ideas, but the mystery continues.Click through here for extra info on tribal cross tattoo.
There is scientific proof for one of the more bazaar stories of the origin of the people of Easter Island. In the 16th century a Spanish vessel named San Lesmems disappeared in the vicinity of Tahiti. Stories describe Basque survivors marrying and breeding with native Polynesians. Either the survivors themselves or their children set off to return home to Spain in 1600, but were never again seen. Basque genes were found in some Rapa Nui people.
Easter Island is most renowned for inhabitants that are its huge stone statues, moai, at least 288 once standing on gigantic stone platforms named ahu. These 250 ahu form a line all around the island, each one placed about mile from the next. 600 more moai statues, most in one way or another incomplete, are laying around the island, either still amongst the rocks from which they were cut or on the side of ancient roads that connect quarries with the coast where the completed statues are found.
Almost every moai is chiseled from volcanic stone from Rano Raraku. These statues average 14 tons in weight and nearly 14 feet tall. Some of the larger ones top 33 feet high and weigh 80 tons, but one was found that was 65 feet high, still not fully carved from the rock, and would have weighed nearly 300 tons when completely finished. Trees were cut and used as rollers so up to 150 men could bring the various sized statues to their final resting places.
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Easter Island has been studied, but it’s still not known why the moai were constructed. It could be that the Easter Island moai were similar to statues found around Polynesia, but with their construction and purpose changed by local customs.
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