Easter Island is one of the places that most attracts people's attention in the world! The fantastic island intrigues researchers and curious people, who has never seen an image of the famous Easter Statues? See now the main mysteries and questions about the Chilean island.
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Where is and how to get to Easter Island
Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as it is called by locals, is part of the territory of Chile. However, it is one of the most distant islands on the continent, located more than 3 thousand kilometers from the capital of the South American country.
It is an island of volcanic formation (that is, born from volcanic activity) belonging to Polynesia, a group of islands in the southern pacific ocean. Because it is an island so far from the mainland, the only way to get there is by plane. As it is a world-renowned tourist spot, its access is easy thanks to travel packages.
Inhabitants of the Island
Even though it is an island so far from the mainland, it has been inhabited since the 900s by the Rapa Nui. But due to various crises and problems, it went into decline.
The Rapa Nui arrived on the island by canoe, after Hoto Matu'a ancestor of the Rapa Nui to dream of an ideal place for their people. With that, he sent soldiers in canoes to find this place. Once the site was found, canoes were built to take the people to their new home. Arriving on the Island there was a distribution of the people into 6 different tribes led by sons of Hoto Matu'a.
The decline of society started due to scarcity of resources. But not only because of that, internal problems were decisive, in addition to problems brought in from outside, in this case, diseases brought by Europeans.
Moais: The Famous Statues of Easter Island
Nothing describes Easter Island better than the famous Statues called Moais. They have already been the object of several anthropological research, to try to discover the real meaning and purpose for their existence.
In total, there are about 900 moais throughout the island, their production was such that some were not even complete. Even though they may look frightening, they are not meant to frighten invaders, or pay homage to ancient gods.
In fact, it was discovered that they are a way of paying homage to the ancestors of the inhabitants of Easter Island. It is very common to see the Moais close to each other, because inside the village there was a type of altar where rituals were performed. In these places Moais were placed, and it is believed that rituals were performed where the dead were possibly cremated.
What are Moai made of?
Studies have revealed that the statues are made of basalt rock, common on volcanic islands. Locals extract these 2 to 20 meter rocks from a crater called Rano Raraku and then carve the statues.
What most intrigues people today is how they were once ready to be transported to the places where they are today. Well they possibly used artifice like the Egyptians in building the pyramids.
One of the methods used may have been using a kind of sledge, where several pieces of wood are placed under what you want to carry, and you push, always putting the wood back in front of you.
Another theory is that the Easter people tied ropes to the statue and pulled alternately to make the statue move. This method, as strange as it may seem, is efficient and fast. Check out a demo:
Tourist spot
At its peak, Easter Island already had about 15,000 Rapa Nui inhabitants. However, with the decline of Rapa Nui society with all the factors already mentioned above, today the island has one of the lowest population densities in the world. Nowadays very few of the Rapa Nui live on the island, already mixed.
The island has become a huge tourist spot, where mainly the statues and mysteries involving the Rapa Nui bring thousands of people to know the island every year.
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