Easter Island, located in the southern Pacific Ocean, is one of the world's least-known and most remote locations. It's roughly 3,600 kilometers off the coast of Chile. They are also formally recognized as citizens of this country. They are mainly renowned for their massive statues. What happened to them?
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| Easter Island map |
Easter Island has one city and one airport. The local airport supports connections from Chile, Polynesia, and other Pacific Ocean islands. Getting to the cities of Hanga Roa is difficult and time-consuming. There are no neighbors within 2,000 kilometers of Easter Island. The island, home to 8,000 inhabitants, is not a popular tourist attraction due to its remoteness and ticket rates.
Mysterious figures in the Easter Island
.png "Mysterious figures in the Easter Island") |
| Sculptures in the Easter Island |
The magnificent sculptures of human beings known as moai are Easter Island's defining feature. The great bulk of the 887 sculptures are around six meters tall. They each have a huge head with delineated sections of the face and a torso with arms down. The carved figurines' ears are abnormally huge and lengthy.
Why were they erected? Stone, monolithic works, according to local beliefs, were to supply the island's people with "accumulating and storing" the supernatural abilities of the greatest chieftains. Humanoid figurines are still venerated today. You must not destroy them, and some of them have particular zones that must not be passed.
The majority of moai are made of volcanic tuff. The rocks were extracted from a local quarry. Archaeologists believe that the site where the stone was mined was abandoned immediately. Why? This has been a mystery to scientists. It's also unclear why some of the sculptures are left incomplete. Some of the monuments are reported to have fallen to the ground. During fights between local tribes in the nineteenth century, they were toppled.
The sculptures are distributed haphazardly over Easter Island. The Ahu Tongariki is one of the most popular tourist attractions. It is made up of fifteen monuments. Another popular set of sculptures is the Ahu Akiwi group, which consists of seven figures known as the "seven explorers."
Why the Easter Island is called The Easter Island?
Dutch sailors gave Easter Island its name. On Easter Sunday, 1772, members of an expedition commanded by Jakub van Roggeveen found it. This name is rarely used by the locals. They think they were coerced into it. Rapa Nui, which means "great earth" or "great stone" in Polynesian, is the name they choose.
In 1995, Easter Island was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.