What are the statues on Easter Island called? Wrongly accused moai.

Located in the South Pacific Ocean, nearly 4,000 kilometers west of the Chilean coast. This island, also called Rapa Nui, was discovered on Easter Sunday in 1722 by a Dutch captain. At that time, it was almost uninhabited, but on its territory there were hundreds of giant statues, each weighing several tons. The traditional term for the name of these idols has become

the word "moai". The statues have an eyeless face. The largest of them, Paro, weighs about 82 tons and is about 9.9 meters high.

So who built them and how did they get there? No one still knows the exact answer to these questions, but many are trying to find a clue. It was almost impossible for the inhabitants of the island to carve and put the moai in an upright position without transport, only with their primitive tools.

One theory suggests that Easter Island was inhabited by Polynesian sailors who traveled in their canoes guided by the stars, the rhythms of the ocean, the color of the sky and the shape of the clouds. They first arrived on the island in 400 AD It is possible that there were two classes of inhabitants on the island - with short and long ears. Long-eared people were rulers and forced short-eared people to carve moai. That is why statues on Easter Island mostly have long ears. Then the short-eared people revolted and killed all the long-eared people.

Apparently, the statues of Easter Island were carved from the upper edge of the wall of a volcano on the island. They were moved using ropes made of ancient hard grass. The rope was wrapped around the moai and then a large group

men pulled one end forward.

The other, smaller group acted as a counterweight and pulled the other end of the rope back.

Thus, the statues of Easter Island moved towards the ocean. Moving one idol could take a month, since this process was very difficult.

The population is believed to have reached 11,000. Due to the small size of the island, its resources were rapidly depleted.

When they were all exhausted, people resorted to cannibalism - they began to eat each other. Work on the statues ceased. When

the first Europeans arrived on the island, most of the inhabitants were already extinct.

Another question is what functions the moai carried and why they were built. Archaeological and iconographic analysis shows that the statues of Easter Island were symbols of power, both religious and political.

In addition, for the people who created them, they were actually the repositories of the sacred spirit.

Regardless of what moai were designed for or why they were built, their popularity is higher than ever before.

Currently, the island has a thriving modern tourism industry, hundreds of travelers and lovers of the unknown come there to see with their own eyes the majestic idols gazing out to the sea.

In the early stages of civilization, it was common for people around the world to erect megalithic structures. Let us recall at least Stonehenge in Great Britain, numerous dolmens or phallus-like boulders. But from this series of ancient megaliths stand out those for which Easter Island is famous. The statues erected there impressed the Europeans from the very beginning. And they continue to amaze to this day. After all, their secret has not been fully solved. In addition, the question of where the first people came to this small piece of land, lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, three thousand kilometers from the mainland, has not been disclosed. In this article, we will briefly share the secrets of Easter Island. After all, this land is simply overflowing with sights.

Where is Easter Island located

The moai statues were the first to meet European sailors in 1722. The ship, led by Captain Jacob Roggeven, landed on unknown shores on Holy Week, so it was decided to name the island in honor of the upcoming holiday. The natives themselves called their land Te-Pito-o-Te-Henua, Rapa Nui and Mata-Ki-Te-Range. But the word Easter (Pascua) was more familiar to the ear of Europeans, and on all maps of the world the island appears that way. It is located in the eastern corner of the Pacific Ocean and is a land triangle with a facet length of no more than twenty-four kilometers. The island is of volcanic origin, so it is mountainous. The highest point is 539 meters above sea level. Administratively, this land belongs to Chile, although it is three thousand six hundred kilometers from the nearest town of Valparaiso. Easter Island has a wonderful climate conducive to a measured rest. The waters near its shores are warmed up to + 24 degrees all year round, and the beaches are strewn with interesting pinkish sand. But the main attraction that attracts many tourists to Easter Island is the statues.

The history of the discovery of a lost civilization

The Dutch navigator J. Roggeven was the first to suggest that the idols, towering along the entire coast of Rapa Nui, could not have been made by the aborigines whom he found. The people who inhabited the island at the beginning of the eighteenth century reached the level of development of a primitive society. They had primitive tools of labor, and there was doubt that they could make such sculptures and bring them from the quarries to the shore. Roggeven stayed on the island for only a day, but he managed to observe how the natives sat around the idol, kindled a fire and sang ritual songs. A second expedition led by Felipe Gonzalez arrived in 1770. The Spaniards suggested that the stone idols were brought here from the mainland. But who and where brought the statues to Easter Island? Excavations in the 20th century helped establish that the moai are of local origin. There was also a stonebreaker. It was located in the crater of the extinct volcano Rano Raraku.

Mysterious people

The Easter Island statues, photos of which are the hallmark of this Chilean province, are not the only mystery of these places. Even the first navigators described what they found among the natives of representatives of three races. There were dark-skinned people, Asians and people with completely white skin. J. Cook guessed to bring a Polynesian with him to the island, who at the very least managed to communicate with the locals. They said that twenty-two generations ago, their leader Hotu Matua arrived here. But where - they could not really say. The natives also explained that the stone statues on Easter Island are not images of gods, but of their former rulers, whose souls continue to care for their descendants. Where did the first inhabitants of the lost island come from? Many hypotheses have been put forward in the scientific world. Opinions were expressed that the aborigines were immigrants from Egypt, India, Scandinavia, the Caucasus and even the disappeared Atlantis. Thor Heyerdahl made a successful attempt to sail to the islands of Polynesia from the coast of Peru on a primitive raft, but this does not yet prove the Aztec origin of the inhabitants of Rapa Nui.

Statues in Easter Island

It is not in vain that Moai have caused a stir among researchers and have generated so many scientific hypotheses. After all, not the very existence of megalithic sculptures was strange, but the fact that the existing primitive society could not create them in any way. First of all, the size of the stone idols is impressive. Most of them are about ten meters high and weigh an average of fifteen tons. The largest statue reaches 21 meters and 90 tons. How could hunter-gatherers carve them out of solid rock and bring them to their destination? All this gave rise to the esoteric hypothesis that the statues were brought to Easter Island by aliens from outer space. The appearance of the moai is no less interesting. Long-eared, with flat cheekbones - they do not look like any of the human races. Some idols are decorated with imitation tattoos or necklaces. Others have a strange headdress made of stone on their heads.

What the excavations showed

Modern research has brought some clarity to the question of the origin of moai. It turned out that the idols do not belong to a civilization that existed thousands and even millions of years ago. They were installed from the 10th to the 16th century. And they were carved in the crater of the extinct volcano Rano Raraku. And most of the statues remained in the quarry. Some more crashed in transit. The sculptures were transported using ropes and platforms with rotating rollers. Work began with the face and headdress. The idols' eye sockets were filled with white coral and black obsidian. But the bodies of the statues from Easter Island were more stylized.

Mysterious tablets

Modern archaeologists have also discovered that, unlike idols, was not visible to everyone, and even from afar. These were wooden planks covered with letters. And these artifacts were most likely brought in. Since there is not a single tree on the island. Unfortunately, the texts mentioned have not yet been deciphered. What is written on the tablets is still a mystery. Basically, it seems that in the 10th century, representatives of a more developed civilization arrived on Easter Island. Gradually, the society, due to extreme isolation, degraded. The inhabitants forgot writing and stopped creating new moai.

Other attractions

What else is Easter Island able to surprise a traveler with? The statues (excavations have discovered about 300 more pieces covered with volcanic alluvium) are not the only attraction of this lost piece of land. Take, for example, the pedestals on which these stone idols are installed. It is believed that these are tombstones, on which from one to several statues were ritually placed. In the administrative center of Hanga Roa, you can get acquainted with the history of Easter Island. It is also recommended to visit the fortress of Au Takhai. Modern Easter Island is a piece of paradise lined with luxury hotels.

Easter Island is an amazing place where thousands of tourists from all over the world strive to get there. We have already discussed a lot with you about Easter Island. Analyzed and and searched and even I showed you.

But in all these discussions, I somehow paid little attention to where and how these huge heads and statues arose. This place is located on the lower slopes of Terevak - the largest and youngest of the three extinct volcanoes that actually form Rapa Nui (better known as Easter Island).

Let's take a closer look at this ...

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Among the huge number of attractions there is a special place on this island - the volcanic crater "Rano Raraku" made of compressed volcanic ash or tuff. This crater is fraught with interesting mysteries.

Rano Raraku is an extinct volcano with a height of about 150 meters, located in the eastern part of the island in the middle of a grassy plain, 20 kilometers from the city of Hanga Roa and 1 kilometer from the coast. The southeastern slope of the volcano partially collapsed and exposed a rock - yellow-brown tuff with numerous inclusions. It is to this rock that the volcano owes its popularity - it became the birthplace of the famous stone images of Moai.

In the oval crater, 350 by 280 meters, there is a freshwater lake, the shores of which are densely overgrown with totor reeds. Until recently, this lake served as a source of fresh water for the local population.

The volcano was formed during the Holocene. It is the secondary volcano of Maunga Terevaka, the island's largest upland. When its last eruption took place is unknown.

Early Raraku is a pyroclastic cone in shape. The height of its summit is five hundred and eleven meters. The slopes of the volcano are covered with a soft grass carpet resembling alpine meadows, the southeastern slope is partially collapsed.

For nearly five centuries, Rano Raraku has been used for quarrying. It was here that the stone was mined for most of the famous monolithic sculptures of Easter Island, known as moai. Today you can see how the remains of as many as 387 moai of varying degrees of completion literally encircle the crater. Early Raraku is today part of the World Heritage Site of Rapa Nui National Park.

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Almost all of the statues on Easter Island (95%) were carved in the quarries of this crater, and then somehow moved for miles to various locations around the island. Nobody knows how they did it. Moai are visible on the slope, which for some reason either were not completed or they were not moved to where needed

Photo 4.

There are many interesting things about this place. For example, some people consider such unique plants as "totora" reeds, which overgrown the shores of the lake in the crater, as the first evidence of contact with the South American mainland. Totora have been growing in this place for at least 30,000 years, long before people settled on Rapa Nui. The southern slope of Rano Raraku on Easter Island is literally dotted with lots of moai.

Photo 5.

Some of them are half buried in the ground, while others are incomplete. And the most fascinating sight on Rano Raraku is the moai in the quarry. Some of them are incomplete, while others are impossible to reach today as they are located very high on the outside of the crater. Here you can see one of the largest examples of moai, which is 21.6 meters high. It is almost twice the size of its "brothers", which became famous for the coast of Easter Island.

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The moai is estimated to weigh 270 tonnes and is many times the weight of any moai found elsewhere on the island. Scientists believe that some of the unfinished moai were abandoned after their creators eventually stumbled upon a very hard rock in a quarry. And other sculptures allegedly were not even going to be separated from the rock in which they were carved. In addition, some of the moai outside the quarry are partially dug up to their shoulders in the ground. Interestingly, these moai do not have hollowed out eyes.

Photo 7.

In addition, they do not have a "pukao" at the top - a hat-shaped structure carved from light red volcanic rock that was mined elsewhere, Puna Pau. Nevertheless, it is these moai that have become a real "visiting card" of the island.

Photo 8.

In the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano there is a large freshwater lake with clear water. In this lake, once a year, the inhabitants of the island nowadays hold a swimming competition. One of the slopes is lined with idols. The average size of the statues is slightly smaller than on the outside of the crater and much rougher. It is still unknown why it was necessary to make statues inside the crater, because it is a very difficult task to pull out a multi-ton monolithic sculpture without damage even in our time using technology. There is a hypothesis - this is nothing more than a training ground for the ancient vocational school No. 1 of the Rapa Nui island for the preparation of qualified stonecutters and the statues were not intended for export.

Photo 9.

A herd of wild horses lives in the crater. There are a huge number of horses, wild and domestic, on the island, people are not afraid and they can be found in the most unexpected places. If the ancient Rapanui had horses, they would have cut this entire mountain to the ground.

Photo 11.

Moai - stone statues made of compressed volcanic ash on Easter Island. All moai are monolithic, that is, cut from a single piece of stone, and not glued or held together. The weight sometimes reaches more than 20 tons, and the height is more than 6 meters. An unfinished sculpture was found about 20 meters tall and weighing 270 tons. There are 997 moai in total on Easter Island. All moai, contrary to popular belief, "look" deep into the island, and not towards the ocean.

Slightly less than a fifth of the moai were moved to the ceremonial grounds (ahu) and installed with a red stone cylinder on their head (pucau). About 95% are carved from the compressed volcanic ash of Rano Raraku, where 394 moai now stand. Work at the quarry at the foot of the Rano Raraku volcano was abruptly interrupted, leaving many unfinished moai. Almost all completed moai have been moved from Rano Raraku to the ceremonial platforms.

Recently, it has been proven that the deep eye holes were once filled with corals, some of which have now been reconstructed.

In the middle of the 19th century, all moai outside Rano Raraku and many in the quarry were overturned. Now about 50 moai have been restored at ceremonial sites.

Photo 13.

It was obvious that the manufacture and installation of moai required a huge investment of money and labor, and for a long time the Europeans could not understand who made the statues, what tool and how they moved.

The island's legends speak of the ruling clan of Hotu Matu'a, who left their home in search of a new one and found Easter Island. When he died, the island was divided between his six sons, and then between his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The inhabitants of the island believe that the supernatural power of the ancestors of this clan (mana) is contained in the statues. Concentrating mana will lead to good harvests, rain and prosperity. These legends are constantly changing and transmitted in fragments, which makes it difficult to reconstruct the exact history.

Among researchers, the most widespread theory was that moai were erected by settlers from the islands of Polynesia in the 11th century. Moai could represent deceased ancestors or give strength to living leaders, and also be symbols of clans.

Photo 14.

The mystery of the creation, movement and installation of the statues was revealed in 1956 by the famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heirdahl. The creators of the moai turned out to be an endangered indigenous tribe of "long-eared", which for centuries kept the secret of creating statues in secret from the main population of the island - the tribe of "short-eared". As a result of this secrecy, the short-eared people surrounded the statues with mystical superstitions, which for a long time misled the Europeans.

At the request of Thor Heirdahl, a group of the last "long-eared" living on the island reproduced all the stages of making the statues in the quarry (cutting them out with stone hammers), moved the finished 12-ton statue to the installation site (in a prone position, dragging, using a large crowd of assistants) and set on their feet with an ingenious arrangement of stones placed under the base and three logs used as levers. When asked why they hadn’t talked about this to European researchers earlier, their leader replied that “no one asked ME about this before.” The natives who participated in the experiment "" reported that for several generations no one had made or installed statues, but from early childhood they were taught by their elders, orally telling how to do it and forcing them to repeat what was told until they were convinced that the children remembered everything for sure.

Photo 16.

One of the key questions was the tool. It turned out that while the statues were being made, a stock of stone hammers was being made at the same time. The statue is literally gouged out of the rock by them, with frequent blows, while the stone hammers are destroyed simultaneously with the rock and are continuously replaced with new ones.

It remained a mystery why the "short-eared" people tell in their legends that the statues "came" to the places of installation in an upright position. The Czech researcher Pavel Pavel hypothesized that the moai "walked", turning over and, in 1986, together with Thur Heirdahl, set up an additional experiment in which a group of 17 people with ropes quickly enough moved a 20-ton statue in an upright position.

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Of all the archaeological wonders on Rano Raraku, there is one that quite a few tourists know about, and which is perhaps the most unusual of all.

This is a bearded Tukuturi who is one of a kind moai - he kneels. The Tukuturi pose was subsequently used by women and men who participated in the choir during the festivals known as "Riu". In particular, the singers kneel, tilt their bodies back a little, and raise their heads. Also, performers, as a rule, wear beards (it is easy to see that Tukuturi is bearded).

Photo 30.

Tukuturi is made from red volcanic slag that can only be found, as mentioned earlier, in Puna Pau. However, it "sits" on Rano Raraku, which is a tuff quarry. Some surviving records suggest that this figure may be associated with the cult of "tangata manu" - a special ritual-competition in which the settlers competed annually.

Indirect hints suggest that this was the last moai made after the classic moai statues were stopped.

Photo 20.

Easter Island statues attract the attention of many tourists for their specific design. Some of them can be seen in the largest museums in the world, but the best way is to go to Chile and walk among the idols, admiring their scale and diversity. It is believed that they were made in the interval from 1250 to 1500. However, the secret of creating sculptures is still passed on by word of mouth.

Easter Island statues and their main characteristics

Many people wonder how many statues of this type exist and where these huge bodies came from on a small island. At the moment, 887 sculptures of various sizes have been discovered, made in the same style. They are also called moai. True, it is possible that excavations carried out from time to time on Easter Island will lead to the discovery of additional idols, which the local tribes have not installed in place.

The material for making stone statues is tuffite - a rock of volcanic origin. 95% of moai is made from tuff extracted from the Rano Raraku volcano, which is located on Easter Island. Few of the idols are made from other breeds:

• trachita - 22 statues;
• pumice stones from Ohio volcano - 17;
• basalt - 13;
• mujierite of Rano Kao volcano - 1.

Many sources provide unreliable information regarding the mass of moai, since they calculate it taking into account the fact that they are made of basalt, and not less dense basalt rock - tuffite. Nevertheless, the average weight of the statues reaches 5 tons, so contemporaries often speculate how such heavy figures were moved from the quarry to their original locations.

The Easter Island statues range in size from 3 to 5 meters, and their base is 1.6 meters wide. Only a few statues reach a height of over 10 meters and a weight of about 10 tons. All of them belong to a later period. Such statues are distinguished by elongated heads. In the photo, it seems that they convey the facial features of the Caucasian race, but in fact the physiognomy repeats the features of the Polynesians. This distortion was used for the sole purpose of increasing the height of the statues.

Questions asked when seeing moai

First, many are interested in why the statues are scattered throughout the island and what is their purpose. Most of the idols are installed on ahu - burial platforms. The ancient tribes believed that the moai absorb the power of outstanding ancestors and later help their descendants from the other world.

There is a legend that the founder of the tradition of erecting idols was the leader of the Khotu Matu'a clan, who ordered after his death to erect the statue on Easter Island, and divide the land itself between his six sons. It is believed that mana is hidden in idols, which, with proper meditation, can increase the harvest, bring prosperity to the tribe, and give strength.

Secondly, it seems that it is impossible to transfer such boulders from the volcano to sufficiently remote places through the jungle. Many put forward different hypotheses, but the truth turned out to be much simpler. In the second half of the 20th century, a traveler from Norway, Thor Heyerdahl, turned to the leader of the "long-eared" tribe. He tried to figure out what the statues are called, what they are for and how they were made. As a result, the whole process was described in detail and even reproduced as an example for visiting researchers.

Heyerdahl wondered why earlier the production technology was hidden from everyone, but the leader only replied that before this period no one had asked about moai and had not asked to show how they were made. At the same time, according to tradition, the nuances of the technique of creating statues of Easter Island are passed on from the elders to the younger ones, so it is still not forgotten.

In order to knock moai out of volcanic rock, it is necessary to make special hammers with which figures are beaten off. When struck, the hammer shatters into pieces, so hundreds of such tools had to be created. After the idol was ready, it was manually pulled by a huge number of people using ropes and pulled to ahu. At the burial site, stones were placed under the statue and with the help of logs, using the lever method, they installed it in the required place.

Our planet only reveals its secrets to humanity. How many corners are there yet to visit and explore? How many amazing discoveries will be made in the foreseeable future? It is very difficult to give an unambiguous answer to all these questions. At almost every step, we are all faced with amazing phenomena and phenomena, which thousands of scientists around the world are trying in vain to explain. Unusual finds, which are scattered around the globe, are just waiting for their "finest hour" to discover their true nature and purpose.

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How to get to Easter Island read our article.

Today I propose to go together to one of the most unusual islands - Easter Island, which belongs to the Latin American state of Chile. It was here that amazing giants made of stone - monolithic statues of Moai - first appeared before the discoverers of distant lands. They are officially known as the idols of Easter Island. It is believed that the statues were created by the aborigines who inhabited the island. Stone sculptures date back to 10-15 centuries. In addition, the island is simply "teeming" with interesting finds in the form of ancient caves, grooved alleys that go somewhere into the ocean. All this testifies to the fact that the island was once the center of a nation unknown to archaeologists with unusual traditions and unique customs. Are you interested? Still would!

Not every one of us knows why the island received such an unusual name. The first impression that the name is tied to a famous holiday turns out to be correct. The island was first visited by Europeans in 1722. It was in this year that a ship from Holland under the command of Jacob Roggeven dropped anchor off the coast of a distant Pacific island. Since the overseas lands were discovered just at the time of the celebration of Easter, the island received the corresponding name.

It was here that some of the most impressive man-made phenomena of all civilization were discovered - the stone statues of Moai. Thanks to the stone statues, the island became known all over the world and is rightfully considered one of the main tourist centers of the Southern Hemisphere.

Purpose of statues

Since statues appeared on the island in ancient times, their size and shape inspired thoughts of extraterrestrial origin. Although it was still possible to establish that the statues were created by local tribes who once inhabited the island. Despite the fact that several centuries have passed since the discovery of the island, scientists have not yet been able to unravel the true purpose of the stone giants. They were credited with the role of tombstones and places for worshiping pagan gods, they were even considered as the most real monuments to the famous islanders.

The first descriptions of the Dutch navigator help to form a definite impression of the meaning of the statues. For example, the discoverer noted in his diary that the aborigines made fires and prayed near the statues. But the most surprising thing was that the aborigines did not have a developed culture and could not boast of certain achievements in construction or some kind of technology developed even for that time. Accordingly, a completely natural question arose about how these tribes living according to primitive customs were able to create such amazing statues.

Numerous researchers have made the most unusual assumptions. Initially, the statues were believed to be made of clay or were brought from the mainland at all. But soon all these guesses were refuted. The statues were completely monolithic. Skillful authors created their masterpieces directly from the rubble of rocks using primitive tools.

Only after the famous navigator Cook, who was accompanied by a Polynesian who understands the language of the island's aborigines, visited the island, it became known that the stone statues were not at all dedicated to the gods. They were installed in honor of the rulers of ancient tribes.

How the statues were created

As already mentioned, the statues were hewn out of the monolithic fragments of rocky rocks in the quarry of the volcano. The work on creating unique giants began with the face, gradually moving to the sides and arms. All statues are made in the form of long busts without legs. When the Moai were ready, they were transported to the installation site and placed on a stone plinth. But how these multi-ton giants moved from the quarry of the volcano to stone pedestals over a huge distance is still the main mystery of Easter Island. Just imagine how much force could be required to deliver a 5-meter stone giant, the average weight of which reached 5 tons! And sometimes there were statues more than 10 meters in height and weighing more than 10 tons.

Every time humanity is faced with something inexplicable, a lot of legends are born. It happened this time too. According to local lore, the huge statues were once able to walk. When they reached the island, they lost this amazing ability and stayed here forever. But this is nothing more than a colorful legend. Another legend says that inside each statue were hidden the untold wealth of the Inca people. In pursuit of easy money, hunters for antiquities and "black archaeologists" have destroyed more than one statue. But nothing but disappointment within them expected.

Is the mystery solved?

Not so long ago, a group of American scientists who were studying the ancient giants announced that they were very close to solving the Moai statues. Researchers claim that the statues were transported in groups using primitive lifting mechanisms, huge carts, and even large animals. Since the statue was transported in an upright position, from a distance it seemed as if the stone block was moving independently.

Tourism

From the very moment when tourism began to develop at a crazy pace, when the popularity of this type of outdoor activity and spending time gained immense popularity among lovers of exotic and simply curious citizens, Easter Island has become a real place of excitement. Thousands of people from all over the world come to see the amazing statues made of stone. Each statue is unique and has a distinctive decoration, shape and size. Many of them have fancy-shaped headdresses. By the way, hats differ in color. And, as we found out, they were made in another place.

Erected on special pedestals, these silent creations of human hands cause sincere admiration for everyone who is lucky enough to see them with their own eyes. They seem to be peering with their "dead eyes" deep into the island or into the blue distance of the ocean. If they could talk, how many interesting stories could they tell about the lives of their creators? How many secrets could be comprehended without tormenting in numerous guesses?

The most popular place to visit is the Tongariki platform. On the stone base, 15 statues of different sizes are located at once. The statues have preserved many traces of civil wars and other destructive events that the island was subjected to. There is information that in 1960, a monstrous tsunami hit the island, which threw stone statues into the interior of the island by 100 meters. Residents managed to recreate the platform on their own.

Finding the platform is not difficult. It is located in close proximity to the Rano Raraku volcano, which became their deposit. Taking pictures among the giant Moai is the sacred duty of every tourist who has visited the Chilean island. According to "seasoned photo hunters", the best time for photo sessions is sunset and sunrise. In the rays of the sun, the stone giants appear in a different, unusual beauty.

The mere sight of these stone giants evokes awe and respect in front of their creators, makes you think about your life and about the true place in the Universe. The giants of Easter Island are some of the most mysterious creations, the secret of which we all have yet to learn. They came to us from the quarry of the volcano and carry a still unknown mystery of thousands of centuries.

How to get there

Unfortunately, getting to Easter Island is very problematic even today. Although there are two simple ways - air and water - they are still quite costly. The first method will require you to purchase a flight ticket. You can fly from the Chilean capital Santiago. The flight will take at least 5 hours. You can get to Easter Island using a cruise ship or yacht. Many tourist ships sailing off the coast of the island gladly enter the local port, giving their passengers a unique opportunity to touch the long history of the mysterious island.