Easter Island statues attract the attention of many tourists for their specific performance. 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, made in the same style, have been discovered. 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 inaccurate 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.
We recommend that you look at the statue of Christ the Redeemer.
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, by tradition, the nuances of the technique of creating statues of Easter Island are passed on from the elders to the younger, so it has not yet been 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.
