THE EASTER ISLAND

A Few Things About The Island Easter Island is a Chilean island

in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeastern most point of the Polynesian Triangle. Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapa Nui people. Easter Island is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world. The name "Easter Island" was given by the island's first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday (5 April) in 1722, while searching for Davis or David's island.

HISTORY Inhabitants of Easter Island have endured famines,

epidemics, civil war, slave raids, colonialism, and near-deforestation; its population declined sharply more than once. The island is called by today's local residents as "Rapa Nui", which in their language means "Big Island". It is located about 3,700 km west of the western coast of South America (Chile), and 3,200 km southeast of the French Polynesia. It has a triangular shape, and has three craters of volcanoes, one on each end. Its name (Easter Island), has came from the fact that it was rediscovered by Europeans (and more specifically from a Dutch captain named Rogkeven), on Easter Sunday 1722. According to the oral history of the island, a person called Chotou Matoua was the first resident of the island. Archaeologists are confident that the first inhabitants arrived in it, 400-800 AD.

THE STATUES The large stone

statues, or else moai, for which Easter Island is famous, were carved in the period 1100–1680 CE. The Moai statues are located on Easter Island. These monolithic statues made from volcanic ash in the region Rano Rarakou, representing human figures.

MYSTERY… It is unclear why the

inhabitants of the Easter Island made statues to such a great extent. How they were made, is almost unknown. Each statue was made in quarries. The soft volcanic ash was perfect material for sculpting statues. They used a harder volcanic rock, to carve the statues in the rock. Eventually when a statue finished, they cut it from the rock and moved it carefully using giant trunks of palm trees to roll them on the ground. Element of the difficulty of moving statues, are along the ancient pathways broken and abandoned statues.

If you ask today's inhabitants of the island about the name of the statues, they will answer you that in their language they call them: mata kita rane. To find out which is the odd of the case, the only thing you have to do is to see what similarities this designation has with the Greek phrase: Eyes looking sky, which means: eyes that look at the sky.

Another part of the mystery is that, as they say, the statues never look towards the sea.. Their look is always headed to the island..

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Hara K.Xenia P.

Dimitra K.Eleni G.

Resources:wikipedia.grmistiria.com

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