Easter Island - An Enthralling Island Of Wonderment.

Easter Island is Perhaps amongst the most out of the way islands in the world but over 1000 years ago a small canoe piloted by people of a distant land arrived there. This small group, isolated on the Island, grew into an incredible society in the hundreds of years that followed. Nobody knows why, but they carved huge stone statues out of volcano rocks. These moai as they are known have become wonders in the modern world. The Rapa Nui, as they called themselves, suddenly disappeared. Who were they originally and where did they go? Despite much research and debunking of wilder theories, there remain a lot of questions.

Science supports one of the strangest theories as to the origins of the Easter Island people. A Spanish ship called the San Lesmems disappeared without a trace near Tahiti in the mid 1500's. Stories describe Basque survivors marrying and breeding with native Polynesians. Some of the offspring of these people endeavored to travel to Spain in 1600, but never arrived and never returned home. When tested Rapa Nui people showed the presence of Basque genes.

Easter Island is most renowned for inhabitants that are its huge stone statues, moai, at least 288 once standing on gigantic stone platforms named ahu. 250 ahu platforms form a nearly solid perimeter around the islands, spaced about a half mile apart. 600 more moai statues, most in one way or another incomplete, are laying around the island, either still amongst the rocks from which they were cut or on the side of ancient roads that connect quarries with the coast where the completed statues are found. Most moai are carved from volcanic stone that comes from one volcano, the Rano Raraku. The statues stand around 14 feet 6 inches high and weigh an average of 14 tons. Some of the larger ones top 33 feet high and weigh 80 tons, but one was found that was 65 feet high, still not fully carved from the rock, and would have weighed nearly 300 tons when completely finished. Trees were cut and used as rollers so up to 150 men could bring the various sized statues to their final resting places.

Easter Island has been studied, but it's still not known why the moai were constructed. It could be that the Easter Island moai were similar to statues found around Polynesia, but with their construction and purpose changed by local customs.