My song
For many decades people's minds have been occupied with the mystery of Easter Island a
remote piece of volcanic soil far away in the Pacific Ocean
but our planet hosts thousands of such Lonely Island's
What is so particular about this one the mystery is concealed not on the island itself?
But the giant stone statues covering it who created the world-famous huge stone heads
Did they serve any specific purpose?
Where did their creators arrive from and where did they disappear?
Well, it seems the answer is finally just around the corner watch this video and satisfy your curiosity
Learning all the truths about Easter Island remember to give us thumbs up. We work to make your life brighter
What do we know about the island itself?
Rapanui which is the name given to Easter Island by its first?
Inhabitants is the territory of Chile and is situated in the southern pacific ocean?
And it is so so far that you can easily consider it one of the most distant places on the world's map
It lies
1,200 miles away from Pitcairn which is its closest neighbor?
Chile itself is
2,300 miles away to the west the only transport that can take you there is a plane
If you want to get to this destination point you will need to spend five hours on board flying from Santiago Chile to Easter Island
The area of the island is just 63 square miles and such let's admit a tiny territory is home to
887 huge stone statues
Here are some interesting facts you might not know about them
The statues carry the name boy, they started to be carved at some point between the 13th and 15th centuries
Rapanui statues are easily recognized. Thanks to the peculiar faces
They have long noses wide Chin's
Rectangular ears heavy brows and deeply set eyes
It is quite curious that the nostrils curl in the way fishhooks do
Firstly people thought that the statues were made up only by their heads
But surprisingly it turned out that there are full bodies that are attached to that
It was discovered during excavations in May 2012 the bodies were just hidden underground
In fact the statues are very tall the biggest one is 33 feet tall and weighs 90 us tonnes
But that's not the record once that you unearthed on the island was incomplete
but according to scientific calculations it had to reach 70 feet in height and weigh about
297 US tonnes
Still the heads of the statues visible from the first site make up 3/8 of each statue size as
For the arms they were carved against the bodies resting in different positions
Most statues
834 out of
887 were carved from the material called tough, which is in fact compressed volcanic ash
Curiously all the statues except one group face inland it means their backs are turned to the ocean
Perhaps the reason for that was the belief that the statues were the protectors of the villagers
That's why they overlooked the settlement
The only statues not fitting into this pattern can be found at a looook Evy a sacred place for the people of Rapa Nui
There is a unique statue on the island it is the only statue which was found in a kneeling position
It's name is to Kotori
Scientists believe that the statue depicts an ancient singer his position resembles the one people took at the festival of rui
The head of the statue is lifted quite high and you can even notice a beard
To Kotori looks much more human-like than the other statues
It's smaller size and the unusual
Material the statue is made of red Puna puah stone are the things that make it stand out among the rest
All these facts are quite intriguing right keep watching there are several mysteries to unravel
People keep wondering how the statues of such huge weight have been distributed all around the island
What is more when Europeans first arrived at the island in 1722?
They found a small local population just between one and a half and three thousand people
How could it correlate with the hundreds of statues on the island?
Surely there had been numerous theories about how the statues had been moved
One of the most popular ones among the lovers of mysteries was the belief that the statues have been created and moved by aliens
But even if you like this theory we are sorry to debunk it the stone the statues were built from originates from the island itself
the birthplace of most of the material was an extinct volcano
Situated in the northeast of Easter Island and not another planet
The mystery surrounding the way Rapa Nui people could move the statues
challenged the researchers not letting them back off in the 80s some of them decided to recreate a statue and check the
possibility of moving it around
They were to use only the tools that could be available for the Aborigines. It seemed impossible to do
But a bit later an American archaeologist succeeded in moving a ten US ton copy
Several decades passed and another group of American
Scientists proved that the Islanders could tie ropes and circling the huge statues and move them with a walking motion
They backed up their theory with practice moving a full-sized replica for three hundred and thirty feet using this method
Actually their idea can explain why
Rapanui folklore states that the statues were walking with the help of magic it explains the way the statues were
transported to their designated places
But what about the remaining question? How could a handful of inhabitants create such magnificent and numerous monuments a?
New study has been conducted recently to specify the maximum number of the inhabitants in the heyday of the islands
Civilization the results arrived and they were quite unexpected it turned out that as many as seventeen and a half
thousand people could comfortably live on the island at
Least 19 percent of the land could be covered with the fields of sweet potatoes that used to be the main source of food for
The population what is more the Islanders consumed quite a lot of seafood and fish?
So knowing these numbers you can see that there were enough people to create the stone masterpieces
But what happened to them why did they disappear?
At first it was believed that the reason for such a decrease of the population was an eco side
the natives cut out large forests and palm trees making spare room for moving the statues around as well as
Agriculture they thought the trees were going to grow back fast enough. It was a misleading concept the deterioration of the environment
Resulted in hunger and this in turn led to Wars and cannibalism
Nowadays however such a theory has been proven wrong
first of all Rapa Nui inhabitants seem to be very talented
agricultural engineers
They deliberately fertilized the fields with the volcanic rock in
Fact another research has shown that people had been living on the island for many centuries and the population only
Started to decrease when Europeans began visiting
So a much more realistic explanation is also very tragic South American raids in the pursuit of slaves
frequented the island throughout the nineteenth century
Half of the Aborigines were taken away
What is more European traders brought to the island new diseases?
which the locals hadn't been protected from and
introduced in forced
Migration it. Led to the fatal decline of the nation that presented the world with such a miracle as the mystery of Easter Island
Have you heard these facts before share your opinion and ideas in the comments below
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