2024 WORLD CRUISE
2024 WORLD CRUISE – BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS
SILVERSEA Silver Whisperer – January 15 – May 26.
132 Nights. 66 Ports, 15 Countries.
Tag: Easter Island
Wednesday, January 25, 2023 – Photo of the Day – Easter Island, Chile
Where in the world are we?
Easter Island
Easter Island is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania.
The island is most famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, which were created by the early Rapa Nui people. The native islanders carved them using only stone hand chisels made of basalt.
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 5, 1722.
The current Polynesian name of the island, Rapa Nui (“Big Rapa”), was coined after the slave raids of the early 1860s and refers to the island’s topographic resemblance to the island of Rapa in the Bass Islands of the Austral Islands group.
In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park.
TODAY’S EXCURSION – EASTER ISLAND PANORAMA
We compared the vastly different styles of moai statues at each archaeological site, taking in Easter Island’s haunting landscape.
The unusual Moai of Tahai stand on their stone “ahu” platform along the coastline north of Hanga Roa, the island’s only city. The five main statues here vary widely in scale and shape and are among the oldest known, dating back to the 7th century. The two largest figures may represent a mother and father or symbolize venerated ancestors of an indigenous clan. No one knows for sure; Easter Island’s enigmatic moai were created by a remote culture without written history and descended into infighting and environmental chaos before disappearing entirely by the 1700s.
It’s only thanks to the efforts of American archaeologist William Mulloy, who excavated sites from 1955 – 1975, that we can observe these marvelous mysteries standing at all. Arriving at inland Ahu Akivi, you’ll notice the style difference immediately – these seven Moai thought to represent ancient ambassadors, face out toward the sea and overlooking a village long in ruins.
The return drive to the pier included a stop at Ahu Poukura, a moai site yet to be restored and we visited a local market offering wood and shell handicrafts.
