Easter Island is a tiny piece of lava, its outline reminiscent of a Napoleonic cocked hat, surrounded by ocean, expanse of heaven and silence for thousands of miles around. Unless, of course, you take into account the cries of seagulls and the monotonous rhythm of the ocean surf. As the tireless explorer of the island, Catherine Roopledge, wrote, “whoever lives here is always listening to something, although he himself does not know what, and involuntarily feels himself on the threshold of something even greater, lying beyond the limits of our perception.”
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Everywhere on the island there are traces of a bygone past - in long corridors countless caves strewn with obsidian fragments; on the slopes of volcanoes covered with the remains of a disappeared culture; in the eye sockets of stone giants, some of which lie staring at the zenith, while others rise above the island, gazing into the unknown distance.
One of the famous mathematicians noticed that life on earth is an immense kingdom of approximate quantities. It seems this thesis quite convincingly demonstrates our ideas about Easter Island. So when it comes to the origin of the island, the origins of its ancient civilization, the purpose of the mysterious stone colossi and many other things that make up its many mysteries, it is always useful to remember the relativity of the knowledge that the scientific world has today.
Interest in this tiny volcanic formation, lost in the vastness of the ocean, has not waned over time. And the number of publications about this place is growing every year. It is difficult to say whether this makes us closer to the truth, but something else is certain: Easter Island knows how to puzzle and surprise.
A similar feeling arose in Thor Heyerdahl in the face of exciting uncertainty when he studied the mysterious island, where the inhabitants “built neither castles, nor palaces, nor dams, nor piers. They hewed gigantic humanoid figures from stone, tall as a house, heavy as carriage, dragged many of them through mountains and valleys, and installed them on powerful terraces at all ends of the island..."
The tireless desire of the ancient inhabitants of the island to carve out huge stone figures, the largest of which was the height of a seven-story building and weighed 88 tons, bore fruit: there are many hundreds of them on the island. They say about a thousand maoi (the local name for the statues - author's note). But each time the next archaeological expedition discovers more and more statues.
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One of the island's explorers, Pierre Loti, described his impressions of the stone giants as follows: “What human race do these statues belong to, with slightly upturned noses and thin protruding lips, expressing either contempt or mockery. Instead of eyes, there are only deep depressions, but under with an arch of wide noble eyebrows, they seem to look and think. On both sides of the cheeks there are protrusions depicting either a headdress similar to a sphinx's cap, or protruding flat ears five to eight meters long. Some are wearing necklaces inlaid with flint, others are decorated with carvings. tattoo."
The statues described by Pierre Loti are considered by a number of island researchers to be the most ancient. But besides these, there are sculptures of a different kind. “Every day we find statues of a different style - of different people,” wrote Francis Mazières, who visited the island with a scientific expedition in the mid-60s of the last century. “Facing their backs to the sea, placed on giant funeral platforms made of stone - ahu, they seem to be They monitor the life of the island. They and only they have open eyes. On the heads of these statues are huge red cylinders made of red tuff."
Thor Heyerdahl's expedition discovered a bearded figure in a sitting position. It was not like other island sculptures, causing a lot of speculation about its origin.
The French explorer Francis Mazière became the owner of a human figurine made of wood, which, in terms of its execution, was strikingly different from everything he had seen on the island before. This prompted the researcher to suggest that this figurine has nothing to do with Polynesian traditions and belongs to a different race.
Surprises await explorers in the labyrinths of the island caves. Rock frescoes were discovered in one of them. One of them resembles a penguin with a whale's tail. Another depicts the head of an unknown creature. This is the head of a bearded man with insect eyes. Deer antlers branch on his skull. The islanders call him "the insect man."
But what peoples created eyeless giants at the foot of the Raku-Raraku volcano? Who is the creator of the giants that stand along the coast? Whose hand painted the head of an “insect man” in one of the caves? “The local residents cannot explain anything,” wrote Francis Mazières. “They tell such a confusing jumble of legends that one would think that they never knew anything and that they are not at all the descendants of the last sculptors.”
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A modern tourist visiting the island, as a rule, is presented as an “exotic dish” with a story about a war between two island tribes - the “long-eared” and the “short-eared”. There is still a legend about the arrival of Hotu-Matua, the leader of the ancestors of the current islanders, on the island. "The land that Hotu-Matua owned was called Maori and was located on Hiva... The leader noticed that his land was slowly sinking into the sea. He gathered his servants, men, women, children and old people and put them on two large boats. When they reached the horizon, the leader saw that the whole land, with the exception of a small part called Maori, had gone under water."
These stories may contain echoes of some ancient events. Their fragmentary and vague nature makes it impossible to even get closer to true history islands. Even the purpose of the statues is not clear.
James Cook believed that the stone idols were built in honor of the buried rulers and leaders of the island. Professor Metro thought that the statues depict deified people. The American scientist Thomson believed that the statues were portraits of noble people, and another explorer of the island, Maximilian Brown, believed that they depicted their creators. Katherine Roopledge said that stone figures are images of gods. Admiral Roggevahn, without expressing himself specifically, only noticed that local residents lit a fire in front of the statues and, squatting, bowed their heads.
Among Western researchers there is a “competitive” version about the purpose of the statues. According to it, the tribes living on the island were at enmity with each other for the right to be first. And supposedly prestige in this tireless struggle was won, among other things, by the number of statues carved by each rival tribe. Thus, according to this version, statues are not even a goal, but only a means of self-affirmation for people.
It is unlikely that the “aboriginal” of the island, old man Veriveri, would agree with such an interpretation, who once told Francis Mazières, as a sign of special trust, the following: “All maoi (statues) of Raku-Raraku are sacred and face the part of the world over which they have power and control.” which is responsible. That is why the island was given the name Te-Pito-o-te-Whenua, or the Navel of the Earth... The Maoi, which face south, are different from the rest. They retain the forces of the Arctic winds..."
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Easter Island, the Navel of the Earth... But these are not the only names of the island. Our compatriot Miklukha Maclay recorded the following local name - "Mata-ki-te-Rangi". James Cook recorded several at once: “Vanhu”, “Tamareki”, “Teapi”. The Polynesians called the island "Rapanui", and the islanders still call it "Te-Pito-o-te-Whenua".
Many who visited the island paid attention to the striking disproportion between the giant statues, quarries of truly cyclopean scale and the modest-sized residential buildings of the local residents.
“The obvious disproportion of the ahu with the overthrown statues compared to the remains of the houses was striking. The statues towered over the village, fixing their gaze on it. With their backs to the sea, these giants seemed to be called upon to support the courage of the human captives of the land lost in the ocean.” So wrote Francis Mazières. These lines also belong to him:
“The walls of the quarry, hollowed out in the shape of a crater, are located on a very steep slope, and a lot of work had to be done, not only to make cylinders out of it (Maoi headdresses. - Author's note). And here, as elsewhere on the island, it seems as if ordinary human scale did not suit those who worked in this quarry."
Meanwhile, Rapa Nui can hardly be called an ideal abode for the realization of titanically energy-intensive fantasies. To begin with, food and water resources on the island are limited. Fresh water, the main source of replenishment of which for centuries has been rain, is deprived of many mineral salts necessary for the body - this is the result of filtration of water during its passage through the spongy volcanic rocks of the island. Drinking such water, according to experts, led to serious illnesses.
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Obtaining food itself required, apparently, enormous energy costs. And, of course, she was missed. This is evidenced by the fact that cannibalism was developed on the island relatively recently. According to evidence, even two Peruvian merchants became victims of cannibals.
Most scientists have come to the conclusion that the first, unknown to us, civilization, which was the creator of the Maoi, other colossi, was subsequently destroyed and assimilated by the second migration, the decline of which has been observed on Rapa Nui for at least the last three hundred years.
“On the island you can find traces of a prehistoric people,” concludes Francis Mazières, “whose presence we are beginning to feel more and more and which forces us to reconsider all the data about time and ethics that science is now imposing on us...”
Let's go back to the present day. In the early 60s of the last century, a powerful tidal wave that penetrated 600 meters deep into the island, some Maoi were thrown back to a distance of up to 100 meters. Work to restore the statues began relatively recently - there was no appropriate lifting equipment. It was only after the Japanese company Tadano donated $700,000 and delivered a powerful crane to the island that things started to take off. This year, many maoi that were toppled by the tsunami were raised. But the question arises: how did the ancient inhabitants of the island move the stone giants, the smallest of which weighs at least 35 tons? All hypotheses that have arisen around this problem can be divided into three categories. Fantastic ones appeal to alien power. The rationalistic approach relies on the islanders using all kinds of ropes, winches, winches, rollers... There is even a version according to which the statues moved along a road several kilometers long, covered with sweet potato puree, which made it slippery.
There is also a hypothesis of a mystical nature. According to the islanders, the statues moved through the spiritual power of mana, which was possessed by the leaders of their distant ancestors. “What if in a certain era,” asks Francis Mazières, “people were able to use electromagnetic forces or anti-gravity forces? This assumption is crazy, but still less stupid than the story of the crushed sweet potato.”
Of course, you can assume anything, but in the face of a 22-meter-high colossus, ordinary logic becomes powerless.
Easter Island is sometimes compared to a fragment of lava, on which, without any transitional steps, the most original art and the most mysterious writing in the world arose. The latter is a fact all the more significant since until now writing has not been discovered on the Polynesian islands. On Easter Island, writing was discovered on relatively well-preserved wooden tablets, called kohau rongo-rongo in the local dialect. The fact that the wooden planks have survived the darkness of centuries is explained by many scientists by the complete absence of insects on the island. Yet most of them were eventually destroyed. But the culprit for this turned out to be not tree bugs, accidentally introduced by a white man, but the religious fervor of a certain missionary. The story goes that the missionary Eugene Eyraud, who converted the inhabitants of the island to Christianity, forced these writings to be burned as pagan. So even tiny Easter Island got its own Herostratus.
Nevertheless, a certain number of tablets have survived. Today, there are no more than two dozen kohau rongorongo in museums and private collections around the world. Many attempts have been made to decipher the contents of the ideogram tablets, but they all ended in failure. As well as an attempt to explain the purpose of paved roads, the time of their creation is lost in the mists of time. On the Island of Silence - another name for the island - there are three of them. And all three end up in the ocean. Based on this, some researchers conclude that the island was once much larger than it is now.
Near Rapa Nui is the tiny island of Motunui. This is several hundred meters of steep cliff, dotted with numerous grottoes. A stone platform has been preserved on it, on which statues were once installed, later thrown into the sea for some reason. “How could people build an ahu with maoi there,” reflects Francis Mazières, “where we cannot approach even by boat? There, where it is impossible to climb the rock? What mass carried these multi-ton giants here? The theory of using a bed of sweet potato is equally powerless here , and the theory of wooden rollers!"
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Was Easter Island once part of a larger landmass? There are still ongoing debates around this issue in the scientific world. In the second half of the 19th century, well-known scientists at that time, Alfred Wallace and Thomas Huxley, hypothesized that the population of Oceania, including the inhabitants of Easter Island, was a remnant of the “oceanic” race that lived on the now sunken continent.
Academician Obruchev generally supported this theory. He believed that when the continent began to gradually sink under water, the population of the elevated territories began to carve stone statues and place them in the lowlands, in the hope that this would appease the gods and stop the advance of the sea. Sometimes this continent appeared in scientific hypotheses as Pacifida, sometimes as Lemuria.
The modern scientific world, with a few exceptions, perceives this kind of hypothesis with a great deal of skepticism. But on the other hand, history knows many examples when, at first glance, a completely crazy idea turned out to be true. Let us recall at least the classic case with the hypothesis of “stones that fall from the sky.” In 1790, a meteorite fell in Gascony. A protocol was drawn up, signed by three hundred eyewitnesses, which was sent to the French Academy of Sciences. But the “tall Areopagus” called all this stupidity, since science was well aware that stones cannot fall from the sky. But this is true, by the way.
Recently, two hypotheses have become most widespread: the hypothesis of the American origin of Polynesians and Polynesian culture (to which a number of scientists include the Rapanui civilization) and the hypothesis of the settlement of the Polynesian islands from the west. Thor Heyerdahl argued that Polynesia was inhabited by two migration waves. The first arrived from the South American Pacific coast (the location of modern Peru). Polynesia owes the appearance of stone statues and hieroglyphic writing to settlers of Andean origin. The second wave came at the beginning of our millennium from the northwest coast North America. At one time there was a rumor about the Vikings who sailed to Easter Island in ancient times and settled there. In some versions, they try to interpret the history of the island’s civilization from the perspective of ethnogenesis: supposedly the first settlers who had high level passionarities, were the only ones in all of Polynesia who knew writing. But gradually, century after century, the original level of passionarity began to dissipate, which ultimately led to the obstruction and extinction of culture...
Will our knowledge of Easter Island become more accurate? In any case, a number of researchers, for example our compatriots F. Krendelev and A. Kondratov, rely on this in their book “Silent Guardians of Secrets.” "The mysteries of Easter Island are one of the most pressing and current problems modern geology, they write. “One can hope that the data obtained by geophysicists, geologists, oceanologists, volcanologists and other representatives of the exact sciences will be able to shed new light on long-known facts and help find solutions to problems that ethnographers, archaeologists, and historians have struggled with unsuccessfully.”
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It must be said that today the “exact sciences” have brought a number of interesting data to the problems of the island’s evolution. Rapa Nui is located in a unique place from a geological point of view. Beneath it is the fault boundary of giant tectonic plates, which seem to divide the ocean floor. The oceanic plates Nazca and Pacifica and the axial zones of underwater ocean ridges converge on the island. Which gives another reason to think about the symbolic name of the island. This is truly a kind of “Navel of the Earth”.
Today, the main wealth of the inhabitants of Rapa Nui is, of course, the mysterious past of their small island. It is precisely this that attracts scientists from all over the world here, which is why planes with tourists land at the local airport twice a week. At such hours, the life of the island, unhurried and monotonous, like the ocean surf, comes to life. The small airport building is filled with multilingual polyphony: someone is looking for a guide, someone is offering a car for rent, someone needs a hotel... But a few hours pass, and again peace and quiet reigns over the island. You can count the number of cars here on your fingers. And they also obey the general rhythm of unhurried existence. In these parts, a speed of 50 kilometers per hour looks like unforgivable recklessness. Along the roads from time to time there are signs limiting the speed to 30 kilometers.
Easter Island is not in too much of a rush into the future. Modernity - air travel, the Internet, telephone communications - has a limited sphere of influence here. The true owners of the island are still the silent stone guards, firmly holding their secrets in securely closed lips.
The publication is based on Russian and foreign materials about Easter Island.
This is a volcanic island, its size is relatively small, only 166 square meters. km, and a height of 539 meters, is located in the eastern part of the Pacific Ocean. The island has 70 extinct volcanoes that have never erupted in the 1,300 years since colonization. The island belongs to Chile (3,600 km to the west of the Chilean city of Valparaiso). Its population is only about 2,000 people, so it is said that it is the most secluded corner of the world.
Ancient sculptors tried to use sparingly natural material and not to do extra work; for this, when marking future statues, they used -
they cut down the slightest cracks in the stone monolith and cut down the statues in whole series, and not one at a time. ■
Easter Island and its entire history are shrouded in mystery. Where did its first settlers come from? How did they even manage to find this island? Why were 600 multi-ton stone statues made and installed? In 1772, the island was discovered by the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen, this happened on Easter Sunday, hence the name - Easter Island (in the language of the Polynesians the island was called Rapanui). Imagine J. Roggeveen’s surprise when he discovered that three different races, blacks, redskins and completely white people, were living peacefully here. They were all welcoming and friendly to guests.
The Aborigines worshiped a god they called Mak-Mak. Researchers found carved writings made on wooden tablets. Most of them were burned by Europeans and it can be called a miracle that something survived.
Researchers think these may be statues of leaders deified by local residents after their deaths.
These tablets, called rongo-rongo, were written first from left to right, and then from right to left. For a long time, it was not possible to decipher the symbols printed on them, and only in 1996 in Russia was it possible to decipher all 4 surviving tablets.
But the most mysterious and fascinating discovery on Easter Island is the giant monolithic statues, called moai by the aborigines. Most of them reach a height of up to 10 meters (some are smaller than 4 meters) and weigh 20 tons. Some still reach large sizes, and their weight is simply fantastic, about 100 tons. The idols have a very massive head, long ears, a heavy protruding chin and no legs at all. A few have red stone caps on their heads (perhaps these are leaders deified after death in the form of statues).
To create the moai, builders used solidified lava. The moai were hewn straight out of the rock and were supported only by a thin bridge, from which, after processing was completed, the statue was chipped off and brought to the desired shape. The crater of the Rano Raraku volcano, as a visual aid, still preserves all the stages of processing stone giants. First, the general appearance of the statue was carved, then the craftsmen moved on to the contours of the face and carved the front part of the body. Then they treated the sides, ears and finally, hands folded on the stomach with disproportionately long fingers. After this, the excess rock was removed, and only the lower part of the back was still connected to the Rano Raraku volcano by a narrow strip. Next, the statue was moved from the crater, across the entire island, to the installation site (ahu).
How difficult it was to move the moai is evidenced by the fact that many of the statues were never installed on their ahu and a large number of them were left lying halfway to the goal. Sometimes this distance reached 25 kilometers. And now it remains a mystery how these statues, which weighed dozens of tons, were actually moved. Legends say that the idols themselves walked to the ocean shore. Scientists conducted an experiment, a vertically mounted statue was swung (with ropes tied to the top) and alternately pushed forward, then the left, then right shoulder. To those who watched the work, it gave the impression that the statue was moving on its own. And yet, simple calculations prove that a small population could not process, move and install even half of the finished statues.
Who are the inhabitants of Polynesia, who did they come from, how and when did they populate these islands? The mystery about the origin of the local residents has given rise to many different hypotheses. And since there were no records of the history of Easter Island, but only oral stories, it is clear that with the passing of generations, the culture and traditions of the islanders became increasingly vague.
It is believed that the local population of Polynesia originated from the Caucasus, India, Scandinavia, Egypt and of course from Atlantis. The islanders themselves claim that 22 generations have passed since then, when the leader Hotu Matua brought the first settlers to this paradise, but no one on the island knows where from.
Thor Heyerdahl put forward his hypothesis. He drew attention to the physical matches between the elongated appearances of Easter statues and certain peoples of South America. Heyerdahl wrote that the sweet potatoes that grew in abundance on the island could only have been brought from the Amazon. Having studied local legends and myths, he concluded that all the poetic epics of the Polynesians are in one way or another connected with the god Tiki (son of the Sun), who once sailed here from the eastern mountainous country. Then Heyerdahl began to study the South American culture of ancient times. Legends have been preserved in Peru that people of white gods came from the north and installed giant statues made of solid stone in the mountains. After a clash with the Incas at Lake Titicaca and complete defeat, this people, led by the leader Kon-Tiki, which translates as Sun-Tiki, disappeared forever. In legends, Kon-Tiki led the remnants of his people across the Pacific Ocean to the west. Thor Heyerdahl argued in his book that the Polynesians have an American past, but the scientific world did not pay due attention to his work. Can we seriously talk about the resettlement of American Indians to Easter Island if they did not have ships, but only primitive rafts!
Then Heyerdahl decided to prove in practice that he was right, but the methods by which he wanted to achieve this were not at all scientific. He studied the records of the Europeans who first came here and found many drawings describing Indian rafts, which were made from balsa wood; it was very durable and weighed half as much as cork. He decided to build a raft based on ancient models. The crew was immediately selected: Yorick Hesselberg the artist, Hermann Watzinger the engineer, the Swede Bengt Danielsson the ethnographer, Torstein Raaby and Knut Haugland..
The raft was built and in 1947, on April 28, they sailed from the port of Callao, many people gathered to see off the brave sailors. It should be noted that few people believed in the successful end of this expedition; they predicted its certain death. On the square sail was depicted Kon-Tiki himself, the great navigator who (as Heyerdahl was sure of) in 500 AD. discovered Polynesia. An unusual ship was named after him. In 101 days, the expedition members covered 8,000 km in the Pacific Ocean. On August 7, the raft reached the uninhabited island of Raroia, almost crashing on a coral reef at the very edge of the coast. After some time, the Polynesians sailed there on pirogues, they gave a worthy welcome to the brave sailors.
And after a few days, the travelers were picked up by the French schooner “Tamara,” which had specially sailed for them from Tahiti. A grand success of the expedition. Thor Heyerdahl proved that American Peruvians could reach the Polynesian islands.
Obviously, the Polynesians were the first to populate the island, or maybe it was the Peruvians or even tribes from Southeast Asia. A. Metro, a professor who led the Franco-Belgian expedition to Easter Island in 1934-1935, came to the conclusion that the first settlers led by the leader Hotu Matua sailed here in the 12th-13th centuries. S. Englert is sure that the settlement of the island began even at a later time, and the installation of giant idols began in the 17th century, almost on the eve of the discovery of this island by Europeans. There are many more different versions. For example, supporters of mystical sects are confident that the cradle of humanity is Lemuria, a continent that died four million years ago and Easter may be part of it.
In scientific circles they are still arguing about the purpose of stone statues, why they threw ready-made moai in the quarry, who and why knocked down the already standing statues, why were some people given red hats? James Cook wrote that the moai were erected by the inhabitants in honor of the deceased rulers and leaders of the island; other researchers think that the Easter giants marked the boundaries between sea and land in this way. These are ritual "guards" that warn against any invasion from the sea. There were those who thought that the statues served as boundary pillars marking the possessions of tribes, clans and clans.
Jacob Roggeveen thought that statues were idols. In the ship's log, he wrote: “About their worship services... we only noticed that they light a fire near tall statues and squat down next to them, bowing their heads. Then they fold their hands and swing them up and down. A basket of cobblestones was placed on the head of each statue, having previously painted them white.”
On Easter Island there are statues that reach a height of 22 meters (the height of a 7-story building!) The head and neck of such statues are 7 meters high with a diameter of 3 m, the body is 13 m, the nose is a little more than 3 m, and the weight is 50 tons! In the whole world, even nowadays, there are not many cranes that can cope with such a mass! 
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 their weight is around 80 tons. Drawings are carved on the bodies, from which one can understand how the aborigines lived. For example, a long Indian boat that floats on the sea. In fact, the moai are the patrons of the island. They, as the locals believed, were protecting it, so they were constantly watching the aborigines, facing the island and not the ocean. Some moai have what appear to be red stone caps.
How they got there, given their weight and antiquity, remained a mystery for a very long time. In 2012, excavations began, and unexpectedly it was 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 the head of the excavations, Anna Van Tilburg, the body of the idol is quite comparable to the head - it is about 7 meters in length. In fact, according to the scientist, statues with bodies were encountered even without excavations; simply, given their number, a maximum of 150 were included in the frame, where half of the idols had only heads and parts of forearms visible, no more.
According to experts, initially no one intentionally buried the idols at all. It’s just that the climate on the island changed, 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.
During excavations, a number of mechanisms were also found that made it possible to install giant colossi. Scientists found that the idols were stretched in a supine position, and then they were turned over, placed 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 actually belonged could have signed 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 about the island and its strange inhabitants who erected such statues? In 1687, sea robber Edward Davis, trying to evade Spanish justice, noticed a hill somewhere on the horizon. He did not have time to swim to it, but later he told about it, and everyone believed that a new continent had been accidentally discovered. It was given the code name "Davis Land". The navigators were so interested in the new continent that many rushed to look for it, but, naturally, they found only islands.
In 1722, the Dutch military man Jacob Roggeveen discovered a certain land on the horizon, which was called Easter Island, since the holiday was celebrated then. Local name of the territory - Rapa Nui, "the navel of the earth". When the island was discovered, it was initially believed that it was the same “Davis Land”, a lost continent where there were once signs of a highly developed situation, but everything was lost as the mainland sank, leaving only the highest mountains. The moai discovered by Rapa Nui were believed to fully confirm this. In fact, Easter Island was never a sunken continent. This is simply the top of a huge underwater hill formed from the lava of a long-extinct volcano.
Actually, as almost always during colonization, the appearance of the Dutch did not bring anything good to the locals. Literally shortly after their arrival, the sailors killed several aborigines, despite the fact that there were not many of them on the island at all. Jacob Roggeveen described the inhabitants of Rapa Nui as strong and tall people with a lot of blue patterns among the elders of the tribes, in yellow and dark pink clothes. All the aborigines had dazzling white teeth, easily cracking even hard nuts with them. Distinctive feature– heavy earrings in the ears, in which the lobes stretched very much and hung down. Stone idols also had a similar ear shape. Local residents lit fires in front of them and prayed as if to deities. Actually, the aborigines claimed that these were their powerful and ancient leaders who, after death, acquired that same divine power.
According to genetic analysis, Easter Island was settled by Polynesians back in 1200, who managed to cross the Pacific Ocean on tiny, decrepit boats at a time when this was a difficult task for Europeans. They also created these stone idols in the period somewhere before 1500. It’s interesting that even though those same statues were carried 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, it’s all the fault of rats, a protracted struggle with which led to the complete “nakedness” of Rapa Nui.
For quite a long time it was believed that the aborigines themselves could not create such statues: it was very physically difficult. There were various semi-fantastic versions of the appearance of stone idols on Easter Island. For example, one of them said that this was a certain ancient stone race, which, under the influence of climate, was, in fact, paralyzed for centuries. According to another version, the statues are the work of aliens, who, according to ufologists, love to interfere in everything that happens on our Earth.
by Notes of the Wild MistressEaster Island is a small piece of land among the vast expanses of the 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.
Recently, tourism has begun to bring income to local residents. There are more and more people wanting 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 Roggevahn first set foot on it. This happened on Easter Sunday, which is why the island began to be called Easter Island.
Local residents greeted the sailors very warmly. And the Dutch immediately had questions. Firstly, how did these friendly islanders end up 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 do local residents disfigure their ears so much, the lobes of which are cut and greatly stretched. But the most amazing sight awaited the travelers ahead.
Giant stone statues
Roggevahn and his sailors were shocked to discover giant stone statues on the island, which the locals called moai. Most of these statues are between 4 and 10 meters tall. But some giants reach a height of more than 20 meters. The statues have large heads with prominent chins and long ears. No legs at all. Some of them are wearing red stone caps, others are without hats. Some stand on pedestals, others are buried up to their heads.
Now 887 of these statues have survived. They are still located throughout the island and continue to amaze tourists. The question of whether the small, helpless inhabitants of the island could have erected such giants as in the seventeenth century remains unanswered.
According to the stories of Dutch navigators, the aborigines discovered on the island worshiped the deity Mak-Mak. Wooden tablets with writing, called rongo-rongo, were found on the island. The letters were written either from left to right or vice versa. No one was able to decipher the inscriptions. It’s a pity, because they are the ones who could help reveal the secret of the statues and the origin of the inhabitants of Easter Island themselves.
Easter Island hypotheses
For now there are only hypotheses and assumptions. No other records were kept about the island, and oral histories of the islanders' culture became increasingly unclear and vague over time. There is evidence that the aborigines told Captain Cook that twenty-two generations had passed since the leader Hotu Matua led people to the island, but from where, they could not say anything.
According to one of the scientists' hypotheses, the inhabitants of the island sailed to it in canoes and began making statues, using the leaves of giant trees to transport them, and propping up the statues with the trunks of these trees. When Europeans arrived on the island, the entire forest had already been destroyed, and an environmental disaster led to the extinction of the population. Proof that the people of the island could have arrived from across the sea can be seen in an ancient image of a boat found on one of the stones.
The famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl was sure that the inhabitants of Peru moved to the island, reaching it on their balsa wood rafts. To prove his point, he even made an amazing journey, crossing the ocean with his crew on a homemade 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 have erected giant statues? Something is 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 incredible that suddenly becomes obvious.
There is another interesting hypothesis. The statues were erected by the Atlantean people. They were up to 10 meters tall, and their ancient civilization flourished on the huge continent of Atlantis, of which only a piece remained - Easter Island. The rest sank into the ocean. And the inhabitants who were found 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 writing on the wooden tablets is deciphered. Or, suddenly, the legendary Atlantis will be discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
Our beloved company Pandora presented a very interesting and unusual series " Pandora Shine" this spring. "Pandora Shine" is a new line of jewelry that features 925 sterling silver and 18 karat gold plating.
This collection was created as part of Pandora Spring 2018. More spring-themed 2018 Mother's Day decorations arrived in April. And you can see all these decorations on the website.
"Pandora Shine" - new Pandora line
Pandora Shine is the first new line from Pandora since the launch of the Pandora Rose collection back in 2014. The Pandora company has invested a lot of effort and resources to create it and to satisfy the taste of even the most demanding client. As mentioned above, this collection was released with real gold plating, which reaches 18 carats. Because of this coating, jewelry looks very expensive, shiny and luxurious. The company also presented sets of jewelry, since this is a new collection and it is almost impossible to match a product from the previous collection to this rich yellow color. But she presented a wide selection of new jewelry to suit every taste and style. The theme of the collection consists of spring motifs, namely bees, honey and honeycombs. Pandora charms, bracelets, earrings, pendants and rings are exclusively available in these styles. You will not find a product that does not resemble this theme. All products are engraved with honeycombs and some of them are decorated with zirconium stones.