Easter Island and its secrets

History : Lost in the Pacific Ocean , Easter Island is known to Europeans only since the XVIII century, it was opened in 1722 by the Dutchman Roggevenom. As the sailor noticed a triangular scrap of sushi on Easter Sunday, the island received the modern name, although the local inhabitants - the descendants of the Polynesians still call it Rapanui. In 1770, the Spaniard Gonzalez arrived in this place, who formally declared the island the territory of Spain, however, annexation of the territory did not follow.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, a small island visited Cook and Laperouse, the explorer Lisyansky, and Peruvian pirates captured the islanders in captivity to sell them later as slaves. In 1863, French missionaries arrived at Rapanui, seeking to spread Catholicism among the islanders, exchanging from the naive Polynesians the best fertile land for pieces of colored cloth, and exporting the locals to Tahiti for hard labor on the plantations. In 1888, Easter Island became an integral part of Chile, and until now its territory is governed by the Chilean commandant.

Sightseeing : Easter Island of Chile allows everyone to visit, and it attracts the attention of tourists thanks to the unusual stone sculptures that the islanders call "moai". Sculptures resemble huge heads, and their mass is tens of tons, so no researcher can accurately explain how heavy sculptures could appear on an island with a "wild" population and a rather scarce vegetation. Who could have wrought the moai, bring them to the coast, hoist the statues on specially prepared pedestals, and then crown them with a massive headgear?

Huge sculptures were carved from lumps of volcanic lava in the southern part of Rapanui, and then ready to be installed on ceremonial pedestals along the ocean coast. And among the surviving "moai" stands out a huge statue Ahu Ko Te Riky weighing twenty tons, whose head is decorated with a symbolic stone, and its creation dates back to 690. Unusual sculptures are also found in the vicinity of the Rano Raraku quarry, and the height of the majority of moaev exceeds six meters. Each statue in this place previously belonged to a separate kind of islanders, and beneath it was a crypt, where Polynesians carefully laid the bodies of deceased relatives.

Arriving at Easter Island, travelers will be able to begin acquaintance with the original culture of the islanders from visiting the town of Orongo, where you can see the restored buildings, built of soft stone. The city is surrounded by an impregnable rock, on which even now the carved images of mythical bird people are clearly visible. The most interesting landmark is the ancient temple of Ahu Vinapu with stone sculptures, which look like the creativity of the Inca Indians. Perhaps these statues are proof that the first inhabitants of Rapanui were immigrants from the territory of South America.

Visiting the mysterious Easter Island, you can wander for a long time through the ancient fortress of Ahu Tahai, which was rebuilt in the 60s of the last century thanks to the work of the American William Mullo. On the territory of fortification, the VII century temple, which is the oldest architectural structure of the island of Rapanui, has been preserved, and in this place are various types of tombstones.

Mysteries : Travelers and explorers Easter Island attracts other riddles, in addition to the huge "moai". So, the islanders still store wooden figures, as well as sacred plates cut from wood toromiro with unusual inscriptions and drawings. The inhabitants of the island call these "rongo-rongo" plates, and the signs and letters inscribed on them, which are the germ of primitive writing, are not deciphered now.