This small piece of land is considered one of the most mysterious places on our planet. Riddles for researchers are encountered literally at every step. How did the aborigines get here - and people of different races: both white and black? How could they survive if there were no big trees on the island and its inhabitants had no fuel during the cold and windy winters? And, of course, the main mystery of this place is the numerous stone idols. Who and why created and placed them in a certain order?
White-skinned native
The island was discovered on Easter Sunday in 1722 by an expedition of the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeven. The Europeans stayed here for only one day - but the entries in the logbook indicate that they immediately faced unsolvable mysteries. The first of them: among the islanders who boarded the ship, one was white! Second: the natives had skillfully executed tattoos on their bodies with images of animals and birds that were not found on the island. And the most amazing thing is that on the ocean shore, with their backs to the water, there were huge stone idols, which the aborigines paid tribute to, but they could not say anything about the creation of which.
Now Easter Island (local name - Rapanui) belongs to the Republic of Chile and is the most inhabited piece of land in the world from the continent (the distance to the Chilean coastline is 3.5 thousand kilometers). Its area is 163 square kilometers, the population (according to the 2012 census) is 5806 people. The official languages are Spanish and Rapanui, and the economy is based on tourism.
The expedition of Jacob Roggeven estimated the then number of aborigines at about two thousand people. And, of course, the Europeans could not understand how the natives, who even made boats from pieces of wood (since only bushes grew on the island), could not only cut down monolithic sculptures, but also move them to the place of installation.
For centuries, scientists have puzzled over this mystery. The stone idols, which the aborigines call "moai", are ten meters high. They were made in the craters of extinct volcanoes (unfinished sculptures are still preserved there). The total number of statues is about 900. The location of some of them seems to be chaotic, others are arranged in a strict order. They are very similar: huge heads with powerful chins, long ears, and rough and expressive features. The volcanic tuff from which they are made is a relatively light material, but since there are no trees on the island (which means there is no way to use levers and rollers), the work of moving stone idols seems to modern scientists to be overwhelming for the aborigines.
This gave some researchers reason to assume that these sculptures were created and installed by representatives of some other, possibly alien civilization. Moreover, according to legends, stone idols independently reached the places where they are now.
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Boats and potatoes
Surprisingly, it was only in 2012 that work began to unearth some of the statues. And it turned out that the idols have not only heads, but also stone bodies covered with patterns! Moreover, they look like aboriginal tattoos - with images of some objects, as well as animals and birds that are not on the island!
It turned out that nobody buried the bodies of stone idols, they gradually disappeared into the ground under their own weight.
The drawings on the statues helped in solving many issues. First of all, where did people come from on the island. On the bodies of some of the sculptures, large boats sailing on the sea are carved. This confirmed the hypothesis of scientists that Rapanui was once inhabited by Polynesians (inhabitants of the islands of the central and western parts of the Pacific Ocean).
But at the same time, the version of the famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl was confirmed, who claimed. that the stone idols of Easter Island are similar to ancient sculptures found in South America, and the presence of potatoes on Rapanui indicates contacts with this continent. As you know, the expedition led by Thor Heyerdahl sailed on the Kon-Tiki raft from the coast of Peru to the Tuamotu archipelago (much further than to Easter Island) in order to prove that such travels were possible in antiquity.
Thus, there was no doubt that the colonization of the island took place in several stages and from different habitats of people.
It only remained to find out how it was carried out.
Gods with long ears
According to local legends, long-eared people once lived on the island - they inserted heavy jewelry into the earlobes, which made them stretch up to their shoulders. Until recently, similar tribes have survived in the jungles of South America, so we can confidently say that they were from these places (most likely from the territory of modern Peru, as pointed out by Thor Heyerdahl). But with them on the island lived short-eared - the descendants of those who arrived from Polynesia.
Some wooden tablets with local inscriptions, deciphered literally a few years ago, called "kohau rongo rongo", as well as studies of paleontologists, have allowed to restore the instructive history of the island for our contemporaries.
It was inhabited by the Polynesians around 400 AD. Bananas, potatoes, and sugar cane were grown here. The settlers brought chickens with them, which took root well. The island then looked like a piece of paradise - a subtropical forest with large palms and delicious fruits. The number of the population could reach 20 thousand people who were engaged not only in agriculture, but also in fishing.
Around 1200 A. D. here the inhabitants of South America appeared - those very long-eared people. The former aborigines took them for gods - after all, they possessed much greater knowledge. Long-eared settlers from Peru seized power over the descendants of the Polynesians. They forced the short-eared to create sacred stone colossi that emphasized the divine origin of the rulers race.
During the excavation of the bodies of the statues, ropes and the remains of wooden levers were found - that is, large trees then grew on the island. It became clear why the legend says that the stone idols walked on their own - they were moved in an upright position, making small “steps” of 20-30 centimeters (this is how heavy furniture is moved). It might seem to the uninitiated that the moai themselves walk along paved roads, three of which have survived on the island.
Ecological catastrophy
By the XIV-XV centuries, life on the island fell into decay. The heirs of the once single ruler of the long-eared ones began internecine wars. But the main thing is that everyone wanted to establish themselves at the expense of the larger, and therefore more powerful stone idols. The forest was completely cut down for their transportation. Due to the fact that there were no fruits, the Rapanui birds left. Coastal fish and dolphins left for other places - there was no food left for them in the water near the island. Cannibalism flourished among the inhabitants. The population died out, and, in the end, the short-eared ones rebelled. It is difficult to say how long the uprising lasted - some researchers speak of tens of years. As a result, all the long-eared were destroyed. Stone idols ceased to be made, some of them remained in the quarries.
But the damage caused to nature turned out to be irreversible. There were no trees - and people lost the building materials for making huts and boats. The long-eared did not disclose to the short-eared the secrets of obtaining good harvests, hunger reigned on the island, and, as a result, cannibalism. The population has decreased almost tenfold.
In 1862, Peruvian slave traders who arrived in Rapanui took almost all the inhabitants into slavery.
Ducats in the wallet
The mystery of the origin of stone idols was solved. But the island still holds many other secrets. One of them is the incomprehensible and surprising disappearance of this piece of land, which was repeatedly recorded in the logs of ships sailing by. For example, in August 1908, the Chilean steamer Gloria sailed to Rapanui to replenish its fresh water supply. But the island was not at the desired point. According to calculations, it turned out that the steamer passed through it.
A similar story happened in 1928 with a tourist liner. And during World War II, two German submarines approached Easter Island, where they were to be met by a refueling tanker, and Rapanui was not found either.
In 1922, after a strong tsunami, pilots sent to reconnoitre airplanes reported that the island was completely hidden under water. But a few days later, Rapanui was again in his place.
Many researchers suggest that Easter Island is located in an anomalous zone, where people or objects from other dimensions can appear - and the earth itself is capable of disappearing for a while.
In the late 1980s, an Australian expedition discovered the remains of a medieval knight and his horse here. Excavations were carried out on the territory of a small swamp, the bodies of the rider and the horse are well preserved. Judging by the armor, the knight was a member of the Livonian Order of the XIV-XV centuries, in his wallet there were gold ducats minted in 1326. How did he end up on an island lost in the ocean? The only explanation that scientists have put forward is that some mystical forces brought him here from a place where he was in mortal danger.
This is just a small part of the mysteries of the mysterious island. So we will wait for new discoveries of its researchers.
Margarita Kapskaya