Before dwelling on numerous questions, the answers to that researchers of this mysterious islands, we will briefly describe what is reliably known about the island Easter.
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Its area is only 118 square meters. km, it arose thanks to the volcanic activities, craters of extinct volcanoes on the island of whole seventy, and most of the island is reserved, belongs National park. Easter Island is located far from The centers of civilization are in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. Seen from above, it resembles a triangle with sides 16, 18 and 24 kilometers, from there it’s far to get in any direction – to Chile’s coast about 3,500 kilometers, to the nearest island – 2,000 kilometers.
There is no island farther from any continent – isn’t this fact should seek answers to the many mysteries of the distant land? Extreme living conditions – not a single one grows here tree, only rare grass. There are neither rivers, nor even streams, there are only three small lakes in which rainwater collects, they located in the craters of extinct volcanoes, and in the center is located desert.
The climate is subtropical, warm from November to April, there are excellent sandy beaches and no rainy season. Only city with Hotels and Airport – Hanga Roa. The island was named Dutch sailors who landed on it on the first day of Easter week 1722 year. He has more exotic names – Rapa Nui – The Big Paddle, and also Te-Pitot-o-Te-Henua – the Navel of the Universe, and Mata-Ki-Te-Rank – An Eye Looking to the Sky.
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Now among the islanders there are representatives of various races: Caucasians, Negroids and representatives of the indigenous peoples of America. They are mainly engaged in fishing and sheep farming. Despite modesty of nature, foreigners also like to be here: people on this the island find peace of mind and charge positive energy.
Further continuous riddles. Starting from the question: where did it come from Is the island an indigenous population? Traditions speak of a mysterious land Khiva overseas, where the first islanders came from. But to the west or the legendary land is located east of the island; report. And from this, the idea of the probable the ancestral home of local residents: either America or Polynesia.
In antiquity and the Middle Ages, geographers guessed that somewhere to south of the equator should be a whole continent, not yet open and waiting for its discoverers. There by all means found cities and peoples with a high culture.
To clarify this exciting issue, in 1722 a small flotilla of the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeven, consisting of three warships owned by the Dutch West Indies company, rounded the South American Cape Horn, heading from east to west. The company is the customer of this enterprise, in addition to the thirst for geographical discoveries, was guided by completely commercial considerations – I was looking for new sources of raw materials and markets.
Moved first west of the coast of Chile, and then, heading to the north, the flotilla unexpectedly discovered land. The sailors decided that this is the mysterious continent. Soon, however, they had to moderate appetites: it turned out that open land is not a continent, and a lonely island, lost among the vast expanses of the Pacific the ocean. Since this discovery was made on Easter, Jacob Roggeven named the island in honor of this holiday.
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To get to the island, sailors rejoiced at their discovery was not so simple. Ships cruised for three days in a row along the north coast of the island, waiting for a strong surf, not allowing to commit disembarkation. The boats were lowered only on April 10, and on the island About a hundred and fifty discoverers landed.
This is how a participant describes the landing and meeting with local residents. of these events Karl-Friedrich Behrens, sergeant-militia from Mecklenburg in the book under the unusual title “The Sophisticated Southerner, or Detailed description of travel around the world “, published in Leipzig in 1738 year:
“We went ashore in the name of God with a detachment of up to 150 people – the locals surrounded us so closely that we could not step step and were forced to make their way by force; and since many of them wanted to take our weapons, we had to open fire, why these inhabitants were frightened and retreated away, but no more than ten steps, assuming that our bullets are not further they will reach, and again gathered in a crowd. And we had to shoot again them. Then they came to pick up the dead and came to us with gifts, fruits and all kinds of plants, so that we leave them in peace. ”
Next, the observant traveler describes a rich the island’s flora and abundant harvests of fruits and vegetables, which this land gave to its inhabitants. He described the inhabitants Easter Islands:
“Invariably peppy, physique okay, with strong limbs, but without thinness, very nimble in the legs, friendly and malleable, but pretty shy: almost all of them, bringing their gifts, be it chickens or fruits, threw them to the ground and immediately ran away with all speed as only could. Their skin is tanned, like gishpansev, however among them there are blacks, and some are completely white; and still have among them redskins, as if burned in the sun. Their ears long, often reaching to the shoulders; and in many sections of the ear white pieces of wood inserted as a special decoration.
Their body is painted (tattooed) with images of birds and different wonderful animals, one more beautiful than another. In women, usually on the face red paint … and they wear red and white robes and small hats on the head, woven of reed or straw; they were going to around us, and sat down, and laughed, and were very friendly, others but they called to us people from their homes and waved their hands. ”
However, perhaps the greatest impression on the eyewitness made gigantic statues. Towards them the locals sergeant Behrens realized that these were images of gods or idols. Curious Behrens wondered how these statues could appear, watching the islanders “make bonfires in front of the very tall stone statues that hit us, “and could not understand,” how these people, not having either a drill tree or strong ropes, were able to build them. ”
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Modern scientists also only build versions about the gigantic statues, “of which there is a fair amount on the entire bank; they (the islanders) prostrate themselves before them and perform prayers. All these idols carved from stone in the form of people with long ears crowned the crown, all this is cut down with such art that we it only remained to be amazed.
Near these pagan idols or some distance from They laid large white stones with a length of 20 to 30 steps. Part worshipers, obviously, served as priests of these idols, for they prayed longer and sincerely others. From these other priests you can distinguish also by the fact that not only in their ears are large white pieces of wood, but their heads are shaved baldly, that is, completely devoid of hair … They wear caps of white and black feathers that resemble plumage of a stork. ”
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The original culture of the islanders did not wait for their researchers – ethnographers who would have her carefully documented and described. What happened the next fifty years, it is not reliably known – most likely, internecine war, in the result of which the archaic civilization perished.
Easter Island as it is
In 1774, the famous English sailed to Easter Island explorer and traveler James Cook also searched the legendary southern mainland. He found most of the statues dropped and lying on the ground. This once prosperous island reigned desolation. Most of the fields have been abandoned. Locals were in poverty. “It was hard for us to imagine how the islanders deprived of technology, were able to establish these amazing figures and in addition to plant huge cylindrical stones on their heads “, – perplexed mariner.
No less famous traveler is the Frenchman Jean Francois Laperouz, arrived on the island in 1786, made a detailed map and indicated more accurate Easter Island coordinates. He began to build versions, what happened here, that past greatness replaced the decline. He reasoned about the “trees that these inhabitants had the imprudence to cut down in very old times. “Sloppiness and mismanagement the population, according to Laperouse, were the cause of the island decline.
“Long stay on the island of AND льle-de-France, which is very similar on Easter Island, – wrote Laperuz, – I was taught that trees never give new sprouts, unless they are sheltered from the sea winds by other trees or a ring of walls, and this experience allowed me discover the reason for the devastation of Easter Island. The inhabitants of this island there was less reason to complain about volcanic eruptions, long ago extinct than by their own negligence. ”
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After Laperouse, for a long time no one approached the mystery of the island. The Spaniards, who arrived on the island at the end of the 18th century, were not ethnographers or historians. They pursued economic goals. When European scientists came to the study of the island, there there were only the famous statues, a temple on the edge of the crater of one of island volcanoes and a few wooden tablets with letters that have yet to be decrypted to researchers. These mysterious hieroglyphic letters so far managed to read only partially.
In the 19th century, the local population suffered devastating raids from the continent.
In 1862, the island survived the attack of Peruvian slave traders, who captured and stole the mining of guano in the Atacama Desert 900 man, including the last “arika” (king). After some while another 300 residents were captured and taken to Tahiti for plantation work.
From the next invasion of lovers of profit, not only escaped indigenous people, but even missionaries who lived there. All of them set off from sin away, extending to the west of Easter Islands Gambier Archipelago. Population losses were impressive: for a short period of time from 1862 to 1877 the number of inhabitants of the island decreased from 2500 to 111 people.
The rest could not clearly tell anything about the customs of their ancestors. Scientists have suggested that the authors of Easter Island statues there were Polynesians who settled on this island between IV and XII centuries.
He put forward his version of the origin of the indigenous population famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heyerdahl, in the 1950s started exploring the island. In his opinion, he was populated immigrants from Ancient Peru. There is evidence that the island Incas visited repeatedly. Mysterious stone statues are very similar. on figurines found in the South American Andes.
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There are agricultural reasons in favor of this version: yam, which is grown here, distributed in Peru. However carried out scientists genetic analysis of the population of Easter Island shows another direction – the ancestors of the indigenous inhabitants had a Polynesian origin. The Rapanui language spoken by the islanders belongs to the family of Polynesian languages.
According to scientists, around 900 AD on Easter Island arrived several large boats with several dozen Polynesians who brought pets with them and cultivated plants. An attractive island appeared before their eyes, covered in impassable forests at that time.
There was everything necessary for a completely comfortable life. The civilization that arose on the island in this way is in full bloom, lasting from 1000 to 1500. In this era, the population of the island Easter increased to about twenty thousand people. Then there were about 800 stone statues created using stone tuff tools in the crater of Rano Raraku.
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More than 230 statues were transported so far in an incomprehensible way from impressive craters and mounted on stone platforms on the coast of the island. Nearly 400 more statues, each of which weighed more than 100 tons, remained unfinished. The most the largest of the statues weighs 270 tons.
However, due to some events, the felling of the statues has stopped. Allegedly, there was internecine conflict. This is indicated thousands of scientists discovered arrowheads and darts from obsidian. The conflict caused the statues to be dropped. their pedestals. By the time she arrived on Easter Island Jacob Roggeven squadron, the population of the island was about two thousand survivors of the conflict.
But this is just the alleged civilization of Easter Island. So whether everything was in fact, scientists have no confidence. how there are no exact answers to the question of what are stone the statues are moai. Their meaning, purpose, and most importantly – the way delivery to the place of installation. The locals claimed that the moai protect them and their land from evil spirits. All standing statues are rotated facing the island.
They were transported to the destination already ready-made. This three main roads served. Pedestals on which these statues were installed – ahu – stand along the coastline. The largest pedestal is 160 meters long with a central platform about 45 meters. It housed 15 statues.
However, the vast majority of statues are not finished and lie in quarries located along ancient roads. Other statues located in the crater of Rano Raraku. Many statues left unfinished and are in varying degrees of readiness. Some only contours are outlined, while others only a few finishing touches when they could be separated from rocks to drive to the installation site. Still others are never waiting for the dispatch. It seems that at one point on something happened on the island that in one fell swoop stopped the creation of the moai. Builders as if on command finished work, throwing right on their workplace tools – stone axes, sledgehammers and chisels.
Already installed statues, standing on their pedestals, were tumbled down and broken. Their platforms were also broken.
A separate genre that required the virtuosity of the ancient masters, was the construction of platforms under the statue – akh. The first ahu are age approximately 700-800 years. At first, blocks were made of which a flat pedestal was developing. Blocks were fitted one to one as tight as possible. Research on the roads on which they moved platforms, gave interesting results. In some places there were found pillars that may have served as supports for levers, with which the statues were dragged to the sea. Construction time of these Roads installed only approximately – suggest that the statues finished transporting by about 1500.
The researchers speculation is that these sculptures delivered to installation sites by small groups of people, using simple technique in the form of strong ropes from plant fibers, most likely reed, wooden rollers, levers and installed them in a vertical position by adding stones under them.
The folklore of the inhabitants of this mysterious island has kept information about slowly lowering the earth under water, as well as disasters, caused by the god Uwoke, who once split the earth with his fiery by the staff. Perhaps the mainland with an ancient advanced civilization or though would rather big size of the island were still in ancient times somewhere nearby?
Another unsolved mystery, however, which has quite real chances, mysterious letters on wooden tablets found on Easter Island. Only a small one reached us part of them, much more died in the fire of conflicts between islanders and uninvited guests from across the ocean. Preserved wooden planks – kohau made from dark shiny toromiro tree. Such there are only 25 plates left in museums around the world.
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On these plates, images of stars, spirals, lizards, are carved frogs, turtles, as well as a character of local mythology – human bird with wings. They contain about 14 thousand characters. The inscriptions on the plates went from left to right, and then in the reverse order. In the 1960s, almost all of them were published by a German ethnographer. Thomas Barthel. Hieroglyphic letter rongorongo scientists are trying decrypt for over 130 years.
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One of the indigenous language researchers Stephen Fisher for deciphering inscriptions learned related languages - Hawaiian, Samoan, Major, belonging to the same Polynesian group. After that, he collected all the data on rongorongo and even descriptions traditions, rituals and beliefs of the inhabitants of Easter Island, during six years met with all specialists involved in this language, and also got acquainted with the original boards with inscriptions. The result of these efforts was released in 1997 from the pen of a scientist an impressive work on the subject of his research. Some inscriptions have been read by him.
The main source for the study of the inscriptions was for Fisher a rod from Santiago – a wooden scepter with a length of 126 and a thickness of 6.5 centimeters. More characters are carved on it than on other artifacts, containing the written language of the inhabitants of the island. This symbol of power belonged to one of Arica – the leaders of the island population. In 1870 Chile’s IMF officers bought the rod and it was placed in a museum. Natural History in Santiago.
How to read the texts, Fisher realized in 1993, during one of the visits to Chile and Easter Island. Looking through photos with the inscriptions, he drew attention to the fact that the text on the scepter divided by vertical lines into almost a hundred unequal sections and that to the right of each line a specific character was depicted.
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The scientist concluded that the text should be read from left to right, when I saw the following pattern: in one section of the group hieroglyphics made up a single line, and in another – the same two lines were occupied with hieroglyphs, and they broke off from the right the edges. Hence, the character to the right of the dividing line, starts the next section of text. This gave the key to reading. texts. Further research allowed us to translate the fragment text from the rod from Santiago.
His preliminary translation is as follows. The image of the bird behind which followed by images of fish and the sun, meaning: “All Birds connected with the Fish and gave birth to the Sun … “If the translation is correct, then on the rod captured cosmogonic representations of the ancient inhabitants of the island Easter.
Archaeologists managed to reconstruct the application process itself hieroglyphs on the surface of the rod from Santiago: the carver applied hieroglyphs first using sharp obsidian fragments (volcanic glass) and then deepened the pattern with shark tooth. Folklore of the islanders testifies that the wands were the first items on which the text was applied.
Thomas Bartel praised the achievements in decoding the language, made by Stephen Fisher. By the way, it was Bartel who managed to clarify the meaning of another tablet: the inscriptions on it are a calendar. However, scientists are still at the very beginning of the disclosure one of the secrets of Easter Island.
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The language of the inhabitants of Easter Island knew the word that defined Slow movement without the help of legs. In European languages it is the word can be translated as “levitation”. Perhaps this explains centuries-old practice of moving around the island of huge statues? Иat the same time sheds light on perhaps the most mysterious story, associated with Easter Island.
Another one that does not lend itself to any intelligible explanation. the mystery of Easter Island appeared before scientists in the late eighties years of the XX century. Researchers from the Australian expedition under the leadership of Professor R. Myers excavated in a small swamps, during which the remains of a medieval a knight sitting on a horse. Swamps thanks to conservation the properties of peat in them are well preserved by such artifacts that decompose just in the ground.
However, even if the find were made in a less favorable the environment, the eyes of scientists would still have things to explain the appearance of which on Easter Island is not possible. The knight was dressed in armor that allowed him to be identified. origin. He was a member of the Livonian Order – chivalrous state in the Baltic, which existed in the XIII-XVI centuries. IN the rider’s wallet lay three golden Hungarian ducats 1326 of the year.
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It is also important that the rider’s burial is not It was. This was established by the nature of the location of the remains. Some researchers are inclined to believe that the appearance of Livonian knight in the swamp of Easter Island can be regarded as teleportation case – a process in which an object moves from from one place to another in a very short period of time, almost instantly. There is an assumption that this is one of the hidden mind skills.
Some similar cases were recorded earlier. IN In the years 1620-1631 a novice lived in one of the Spanish monasteries Maria. Without going away for a long time from the walls of her native monastery, she managed to conduct missionary activities among the Indians Central America. She did not hide this fact, since she led a diary in which ethnographic information was recorded about the Indians. For missionary purpose, she completed about 500 instant movements across the Atlantic Ocean.
Naturally, no one believed her stories until in 1631 the monastery was not visited by the priest Alonso de Benavides from the mission Isolito in New Mexico and several other clergymen with him. They are confirmed the information about the Indians told by Mary. It turned out also that the nun gave the Indians bowls made in Spain especially for her monastery.
Here is the time to recall the indigenous vocabulary Easter Island residents words denoting moving without help legs.
Also important fact: the knight found on the island was clothed in heavy armor. They are worn only during the battle. Perhaps during the knight was in danger, and his mind opened certain channels in other dimensions that allowed you to move for many thousands kilometers, to the other end of the world, from danger. However it did not save him. The horseman fell into the swamp and under the weight of his armor sank.
Easter Island is one of the most mysterious places on our planet. How long will it take to unveil its many riddles? And is this even possible? ..
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