What secrets does Easter Island hide? Where is Easter Island? Easter Island: photo Easter Island South America

This question interests many. This place is exotic and shrouded in a whole heap of legends and beliefs. However, getting there will be very difficult.

Where is Easter Island: coordinates

A small piece of land, annexed by Chile at the beginning of the twentieth century, is located 3,600 km from the South American continent. To the nearest island group- 2075 km to the east. It is not difficult to guess that of all the inhabited places on Earth, Easter Island is one of the most remote. Area of this unique monument Rapani culture is 163.6 km2. Exactly small size and the very distant location from the mainland determine the questions about where the Easter Islands are located. By the way, this combination is absolutely incorrect, since there is only one island in that region, and counting small patches of rocky shallows as islands is hardly correct. It is all the more surprising that such a thing, lost far in the waters, sheltered in its small lands the amazing nation of Rapa Nui, which supposedly erected amazing stone sculptures.

Historical reference

Of course, it’s not enough to know where Easter Island is. Its history is no less interesting than its location.

The island arose as standard for numerous archipelagos and atolls of the largest ocean on the planet: thanks to volcanic eruption. Constant eruptions and violent winds have made the shores difficult to access for ships to moor: there are only two places where you can set foot on the coast from a liner without first crashing on the rocks.

The first colonists reached this lost piece of land 1,300 years ago. They noticed large palm groves, which were immediately used to build houses and boats. Later, the small civilization had a hard time: the constant attacks of Peruvian pirates decreased every year. In addition, Catholic preachers destroyed the artifacts of the people from Easter Island, which caused irreparable damage to the unique culture of Rapa Nui. Currently, the remains of ancient structures are under the protection of UNESCO.

Moai stone statues

How the Rapa Nui created the famous stone sculptures is still not known. They are blocks that weigh up to 14 tons and can reach 4 meters in height. It is curious that idols can be found everywhere: in places where Easter Island meets the ocean, or in the depths, near mountains and volcanoes. In other words, the Moai cult was of great importance for the population of the era of the construction of stone idols. Presumably, they were built to mark the death of a fellow tribesman: the larger the statue, the more honor the deceased received. However, the question arises: “How stone blocks moved from one point of the island to another?

It will most likely be impossible to find the answer to this. However, the unfinished prototypes of future statues found suggest that the idols were first hollowed out of rock, and then transported on logs or cables from one part of the island to another.

How to get there?

It would seem that knowing where Easter Island is, reaching its shores would not be a problem. Unfortunately, it is not. You can try your luck and board one of the liners that set sail from the shores of Australia or South America, heading to conquer the vastness of Oceania, especially since the first inhabitants reached the island on dilapidated boats. However, the most adequate option is to fly by plane.

But not everything is so simple with a flying unit: you can fly to the coveted place only from Chile and Tahiti. For residents of Russia, even Australia is very far away, but this is only a transit point on the way. In total, the flight to the shores of the famous island will take several days, and will also eat up a fair amount of finances. It is also worth remembering that there is only one city on the island, so visiting the UNESCO monuments is the only joy available to tourists.

When to visit?

Despite the remoteness of the place where Easter Island is located, it is a fairly popular tourist region, which has its own periods of influx and decline in the activity of visitors. Considering the fact that this piece of land is located near the equator, it is impossible to encounter snowdrifts here at any time of the year. However, the high season begins in the summer: from January to March. This is followed by a decrease in tourist flow, although temperature conditions are still not very severe: about 17 degrees in the coldest months. Thus, if you want to enjoy the beauty of Easter Island without the noisy crowds, it is better to come between April and November.

Easter Island is a unique place. Here you can admire the volcano, visible even from space, and unique stone sculptures. In addition, the island's population can tell travelers a lot, as local legends have been passed down from generation to generation. So now we know where the Easter Islands are, and what they, or rather he, are.

Since those above are already trying to understand why this Moai decided to drown, I answer. Employees of both dive centers in the area said that they tried to take away a particular specimen by ship. But something went wrong and the ship capsized.
This version is quite true because:
- it is really made of stone and is very similar to those left on land
- lies at a depth of 28 meters. For the fun of divers, ships and other things are sunk in the area of 15–18 so that they can dive without AOWD
- a lot of idols were taken out. It is quite possible that once again a ton of stone was poorly secured. There are no legends like “The spirit of the stone did not allow us to leave the island.” Just bad luck once again. Dozens of other Moai were removed and are in museums around the world. The most skillfully made one with an ass (almost the only one with this part of the body) is exhibited in the London Museum (I don’t remember which one)

Moai underwater is unusual. But the most surreal and jaw-dropping view is the volcano mountain where these Moai were chiseled out of stone. Seeing multi-ton stone faces scattered at different angles is cool.

The island is nothing at all. The photos above show typical vegetation. The only thing missing is trees; they are still present on this piece of land in some low-lying places. There are no minerals. The sea doesn't shine either.
Why did people decide to settle there about thirteen centuries ago? In fact, the question is different, why did the people who settled there cast off and run into the open ocean? There were no global cataclysms in this area to allow us to talk about an isthmus to the mainland or the presence of other islands a thousand years ago. Just for some unknown reason, one authoritative person said “Let’s rush there” and pointed at ninety degrees to the shore of his homeland. And others said “Come on!” Scientists still don’t know what made the authority lift so many people from their homes and swim to nowhere. But it’s perfectly clear why these people decided to settle on the island of “damn nothing.” It’s very simple - when you’ve traveled a couple of thousand kilometers in boats across the Pacific Ocean (at that time there were no steam engines even in Europe), you’ll be happy with anything.

So, the second wave of immigrants came, who seemed to arrive without women. It is unclear what they were hoping for. But they were lucky - women were in the first wave. And the first migrants shared them in a friendly manner. Everyone lived happily and called themselves Rapa Nui.
But there are few resources, so few that even the handful of people who grazed on this island were not enough. In addition, those who arrived last were slightly underdeveloped. And a paradox occurred: those who came in large numbers became bosses, and those who remained turned into almost powerless guest workers.

I don’t know how guest workers won honor and respect. But the cool ones decided everything like adults. Google suggests that better times About ten thousand people lived on the island. I don’t know how many clans there were, but they definitely existed. And the more developed settlers did not come up with anything better as proof of toughness than riveting idols from stone. The Rano Raraku volcano was adapted for raw materials. If you want honor and respect for your clan, hollow out a stone muzzle weighing several tons and cockroach it into your territory. Whoever has more stone faces is cooler. Each idol symbolizes a connection with the ancestors and endows the clan with mana. When wars happened, enemies tried to plunder as many of the enemy's Moai as possible, thereby demoralizing him.
The second unanswered question is how the Moai were dragged from the volcano. Although the island is small, transporting such cargo requires very compelling reasons and some kind of technology. There was more than enough of the first, but there were problems with the second. I'm not sure that the Rapanui even used horses. Most likely it was dragged by hand. This is where the less developed migrant workers came in handy. Some believe that stone muzzles weighing several tons were rolled on logs, others believe that they rolled from side to side. But somehow they were pushed even to the opposite coast. Although, as the photographs show, there are a lot of them, and even more likely, most of them remained on the hill.
The largest Moai, which was finally dragged to its destination, is five meters high and weighs 75 tons. The largest, which was not completed yet, is about twenty meters high and 270 tons.

The tough ones, by the way, were called long-eared, and migrant workers were called short-eared.
And the latter did not like this state of affairs. They carry Maui, and honor and respect to those who forced them to carry them. The revolution has happened. And although the long-eared ones were developing, the short-eared ones clearly knew life. Whatever one may say, it was necessary to develop not carrying some kind of crap across the entire island, but at least upgrade the stone axes. In general, all or almost all of the long-eared people were dealt with.
This concluded production of Maui. They continued to worship those that had already been installed in holy places, but they stopped bringing new ones. Official version seems to be saying that short-eared people have not matured enough in intelligence to achieve such a crowning achievement of human genius as hollowing out a several-ton muzzle and ramming it five kilometers away. Personally, I think that they just turned on their brains to the fullest and came to the conclusion that in this world, even in their little world, there are much more interesting, and most importantly, much more useful activities.

The short-eared people stopped hammering rocks to boost their self-esteem. The old idols, of course, have not gone away, but either a tsunami will roll in or a volcano will hit it a little. Stone by stone, but gradually the Moai were destroyed, taking mana with them. And besides, all clans cannot remain at the same level of coolness. If we don’t make new Moai, then where will we get additional honor?

And at some point, the veneration of the Moai begins to intertwine with the veneration of the bird-man, something like a demigod or something like that. Old beliefs and gods are not abolished, but gradually move towards rituals and the acquisition of power without material evidence like a block of ten tons. Now the bird-man has become the main one on the island. He is the god's vicegerent and is worshiped as a god. To become one, you must be the first to complete the task on the designated day and hour. To do this, next to the damn nothing of Easter Island there is a fucking nothing in the form of the island of Motu Nui. Apart from stones, there are only nests of sea gulls on it. So, to become a god, you need to go down the very steep rocky slope of the volcano, swim a kilometer to Motu Nui, climb its steep slope, find a sea gull egg and return along the already trodden path with it to present it to the chief priest. Of course, it cannot be broken. Where they put it in order to save it during the return journey, history is silent. Or maybe there was no need to drag it, maybe they took the gentlemen at their word.

Now another confirmation of my theory that the short-eared ones were not so stupid. At least some of them. So, some pretzel managed it. But it is not he who becomes the main one, but the one he represents. Not every shit becomes the main thing, right? Now the one who was represented by the hero-egg finder, well done, he is now a god. He is shaved in all places. including eyebrows. They give a new name. They are renovating the cave dwelling after the previous god. In this cave, the hero's representative will spend the next year, making laws and resolving conflicts. He cannot cook his own food - the priest does it for him. He cannot cut hair or nails, this is also the responsibility of the priest. He can’t let alone talk to anyone, no one has the right to look at him. That is, God lives as a hermit. His only means of communication with the people under his control is the high priest, who conveys the decrees of the bird-man. Not stupid, right? At the same time, every year the priest does not strain for the sake of his title, well, except for jumping, waving the local censer and bringing food to the “overlord” (I doubt that at least one priest himself strained for the sake of cooking). What that pretzel from the cave actually said, even the pretzel himself won’t remember in a year. Even if he remembers, at the time of his communication with other people he will no longer be a god. This means that attacking the high priest is fraught with the loss of your own eggs, and not the bird’s. And cooking is also a good space for action. If the bird-man wanders off the banks, then mix in the necessary drug and that’s it. The gods called to themselves, he was so cool, what else can I say. In the meantime, there are no eggs, I will be in charge here. Well, or fuck off to Motu Nui right now, if that’s what you want, but don’t come back without balls. Are there any birds with eggs? Your problems.
Although in fact the main power was with the military leaders, I believe.

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.”

Everywhere on the island there are traces of a bygone past - in the long corridors of countless caves strewn with fragments of obsidian; 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 tower 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 that this thesis quite convincingly demonstrates our ideas about Easter Island.

So when it comes to the origin of the island, its origins ancient civilization, about the purpose of the mysterious stone colossi and about 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.

Thor Heyerdahl had a similar feeling in the face of exciting uncertainty when he studied 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 a carriage, dragged many of them through mountains and valleys, and installed them on powerful terraces all over 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. There are said to be about a thousand maoi (the local name for the statues). But each time the next archaeological expedition discovers more and more statues.

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 only deep depressions, but under the arch of wide noble eyebrows they seem to look and think. On both sides of the cheeks there were protrusions representing either a headdress similar to the cap of a sphinx, or protruding flat ears from five to eight meters long. Some wear necklaces inlaid with flint, others are adorned with carved tattoos."

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 other 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.”

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 entire 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..."

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 noticed the striking disproportion between giant statues, quarries of truly cyclopean scale and modest-sized residential buildings of 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 which has been rain for centuries, is deprived of many mineral salts necessary for the body - this is the result of filtration of water as it passes through the spongy volcanic rocks of the island. Drinking such water, according to experts, led to serious illnesses.

Obtaining food itself required, apparently. huge 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.
And 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 island Easter got his Herostratus.
However, 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. It's a few hundred meters 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!"

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 “high 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 with 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 a high level of passionarity, 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 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 pressing problems of 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 the long-standing known facts and help find solutions to problems that ethnographers, archaeologists, and historians have struggled with unsuccessfully.”

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.
Author of the publication

Based on the name of the island. But the island was created long before the concept of Easter arose, and there are much more anomalies in it, so we learn new knowledge immediately after the end of the world :)

Easter Island is an island in the Pacific Ocean, the furthest from land. famous islands(as a result, tourism to this island is expensive). The island is of volcanic origin and is located at the intersection of several lithospheric plates (underneath it there is a fault boundary of giant tectonic plates that seem to divide the ocean floor; the Nazca and Pacifica oceanic plates and the axial zones of underwater ocean ridges converge on the island). Well, the most famous attraction is the stone statues:

The island has the shape of a right triangle, the hypotenuse of which is the southeastern shore. The sides of this “triangle” have lengths of 16, 18 and 24 km. Inactive volcanoes rise in the corners of the island:

Rano Kao (324 m)
Pua Katiki (377 m)
Terevaka (539 m - highest point islands)

Let's start our exploration of Easter Island with stone statues. All stone statues are monolithic, meaning they are carved from a single piece of stone rather than glued or fastened together. Ancient craftsmen carved “moai” - stone statues on the slopes of the Rano Roraku volcano, located in the eastern part of the island, from soft volcanic tuff. Then the finished statues were lowered down the slope and placed along the perimeter of the island, over a distance of more than 10 km. The height of most idols ranges from five to seven meters, while later sculptures reached 10 and 12 meters.

The statues had caps made of red pumice on their heads, and their eyes were painted:

The tuff, or, as it is also called, pumice, from which they are made, has a sponge-like structure and easily crumbles even with a slight impact on it. so the average weight of a “moai” does not exceed 5 tons.

Stone statues were installed on stone “ahu” - pedestal platforms that reached 150 meters in length and 3 meters in height, and consisted of pieces weighing up to 10 tons from the same pumice.

According to another version, the stone statues of Easter Island are estimated to be much heavier: they say that their weight sometimes reaches more than 20 tons, and their height is more than 6 meters. An unfinished sculpture was found, about 20 meters tall and weighing 270 tons.

There are a total of 997,397 stone moai statues on Easter Island. All moai, except for seven statues, “look” into the interior of the island. These seven statues are also different in that they are located inside the island, and not on the coast. A detailed map of the location of stone statues, as well as other attractions, can be seen in this figure (click to enlarge):

It is also said that there are two types of statues on the island:

The first species, without “caps” (45% of the total) are 10-meter giants weighing 80 tons. All of them stand on the slopes of the Ranu Raraku crater chest-deep in sedimentary rocks - this is for the reason that they are much older than the other statues, those with “hats”. The fact that these statues are much older than the second type of moai is also indicated by the fact that traces of erosion on them appeared much more clearly than on the “dwarf” 4-meter statues. In addition, the 10-meter-high giant moai do not have “hat” and their appearance is slightly different from the second type. For example, their faces are narrower.
The second type are small 3-4 meter statues (32 percent of the total), which were placed on pedestals (ahu). All ahus stand near the seashore. These moai have "caps" weird shape. This type of moai is very well preserved. Their faces are more oval than the narrow-faced statues of the first type.

The erection of statues on Easter Island is a stumbling block among “rationalists” and “otherworlders.” The first claim that all the statues could have been installed on the island ordinary people using ordinary earthly means. Whereas the “otherworlders” cite anything from magic-mana to aliens as the forces behind installing statues.

Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl in his book “Aku-Aku” gives a description of one of these methods, which was tested in action local residents. According to the book, information about this method was obtained from one of the few remaining direct descendants of the Moai builders. Thus, one of the Moai, overturned from the pedestal, was put back by using logs slipped under the statue as levers, by swinging which it was possible to achieve small movements of the statue along the vertical axis. The movements were recorded by placing stones of various sizes under the top of the statue and alternating them. The actual transportation of the statues could be carried out using wooden sleds.

Whoever is right, one thing is true: all the statues were made on this very island, in quarries. And from there they were transported to the installation site. How did they find out? It’s very simple: many unfinished idols are in quarries. When you look at them, you get the impression of a sudden cessation of work on the statues.

The photo shows one of the unfinished stone statues:

And here are a few more unfinished statues on the slope of the volcano:

Let's dwell on another phenomenon that is still inexplicable, which, of course, is inferior in scale, but is neck and neck in mystery.

This is the mysterious script of Easter Island. We can say that this is the most mysterious writing in the world. The latter is a fact all the more significant since until now writing has not been discovered on the Polynesian islands.

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. By the way, research recent years once again confirmed that on the kohau rongorongo tablets each sign conveys only one word, and not the entire text is written on them, but only keywords, the rest were read by the Rapanui people from memory.

There is another interesting fact on the island. So, the first picture in the article shows the heads of statues with underground torsos. So, this image is not far from the truth. So, if you take a good dig around some of the statues, you can dig up some very interesting things:

That is, some of the statues are much larger than they seem. Moreover, it is unknown how they ended up underground: either by themselves, or they were initially buried.

Another mystery of the island is the purpose of the paved roads, the creation of which 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.

And finally, a trump card that destroys the arguments of the “rationalists”. So, next to Rapanui there is a tiny island of Motunui. This is several hundred meters of a steep cliff, dotted with numerous grottoes. Island on the map:

So, a stone platform has been preserved on it, on which statues were once installed, which were later thrown into the sea for some reason. And the question arises - how? How rationally can stone statues be delivered there? No way. Only with the help of unknown forces.

Which, by the way, begs the question: why? If rationalists justify the construction of stone statues in at least an acceptable way - for protection from flooding, or for protection from something else, or as objects of worship, etc., then supporters of the “otherworldly” hypothesis of installing statues simply have nothing to say. Think for yourself: why would people who have supernatural abilities and can carry multi-ton boulders over vast distances do this? After all, they did not worship them: real power and superstition do not go hand in hand...

So the “otherworldly” hypothesis also goes in vain. What remains? The facts remain:

Easter Island, remote from populated lands for many hundreds of kilometers
huge multi-ton statues (some are more than half buried in the ground)
undeciphered script
roads of unknown purpose
lack of clear theories of how it was all done.

And it turns out that Easter Island is a mystery that has not yet been solved.

And it won’t be possible if the world ends tomorrow :)

Based on materials from http://agniart.ru/rus/showfile.fcgi?fsmode=articles&filename=16-3/16-3.html and http://www.ufo.obninsk.ru/pashi.htm

Current time on Easter Island:
(UTC -4)

Easter Island - the only island V Pacific Ocean, where their own writing system was developed - rongo-rongo. Pictograms on wooden tablets are represented by various graphic symbols, images of people, animals, body parts, houses, boats, etc. The Rongorongo writing has not yet been deciphered, despite the fact that many linguists have studied this issue. Currently, there are many scientific hypotheses about the origin and meaning of Rapa Nui writing. Some scholars believed that the Easter Island letter came from India via China, others that via New Zealand. Thor Heyerdahl tried to prove the South American Indian origin of both writing and the entire culture of the island.

How to get to Easter Island

You can get to the island from Santiago regular flights Chilean airline LAN. From December to March, flights operate seven times a week, in other months - twice a week. The flight takes five hours, and the ticket price will be approximately 350 - 400 US dollars, provided that tickets are purchased in advance on the airline's website. Recently, the island can also be reached from the capital of Peru, Lima, from where LAN operates three flights a week. As a rule, the plane simply makes an intermediate landing at Mataveri Airport and then flies on to Tahiti.

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