Easter Island – All You Ever Desired To Find Out About Easter Island.


November 11th, 2009

The desolate Easter Island suddenly became a landing spot, 1200 years ago, for a group of people in a canoe. This small group, isolated on the Island, grew into an incredible society in the hundreds of years that followed. 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 Easter Island civilization named themselves Rapa Nui. From where did they hail and what accounted for their sudden disappearance? Questions remain even though much research has been done which has settled, or at least ruled out, some of the weirder theories.Click through here for extra information relating to forearm tattoo.

One of the Easter Island stories, as strange as it may be, is supported by science. A Spanish ship called the San Lesmems disappeared without a trace near Tahiti in the mid 1500’s. Polynesians in the area, it is said, intermarried with some of the Basque survivors. Some of the offspring of these people endeavored to travel to Spain in 1600, but never arrived and never returned home. It’s interesting to note that genetic testing of some pure blooded Rapa Nui revealed Basque genetic material.

Easter Island is most known for 288 moai that once stood on ahu, giant stone platforms also found there. There are approximately 250 ahu platforms about one half mile apart in a nearly unbroken perimeter line all around the island. 600 incomplete moai statues can be found near the rocks where they were carved, or laying on roads apparently having been on their way to the coast to be placed on an ahu.

Volcanic stone from the Rano Raraku Volcano is the source of almost every one of the moai. The average height of the moai is 14 feet, 6 inches with a weight of 14 tons. 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. They were dragged to shore by 50-150 men, depending on the size of the statue, with logs used as rollers.
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Why the statues were created on Easter Island is still a mystery. Local practices may have evolved the idea of statue use seen on other Polynesian islands to the unique needs of the people of Easter Island.


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