Easter Island

 

A few days ago, I returned from my latest adventure.  It was a 10 day trip to Easter Island.  Of course, a few days at the start and end of the trip involved flying there and back through Santiago, Chile, so the actual days on the island were about 5 full and 2 half days.  I am passionately interested in megalithic and pre flood civilizations, and this place fits the bill.  As always, I won’t be doing a travelogue per se, only writing about my favorite experiences.  Easter Island has quite an interesting history, and if you would like to learn more, click here. 

Easter Island belongs to Chile, and is 2300 miles due west of Santiago in the south pacific, and is only 63.2 square miles in size.  The only way to get there is to fly back and forth from Santiago.  It is truly out in the middle of nowhere!  It is a sub tropical volcanic island.  When the first Europeans arrived there in 1722, the population was estimated at between 2,000-3,000 people.  Through a variety of circumstances that you can read about, by 1877, the population hit an all time low of only 111 people.  Today, there are about 8,000 residents, some Rapa Nui and some Chilean.  Because of the dramatic reduction in population, most of the ancient knowledge was lost because many islanders who held that ancient knowledge perished. 

There are archaeological ruins all along the coast line.  Many have been restored which are the ones that the tourists visit.  These are the ahus, or platforms, and the moai, or megalithic statues.  The moai were placed on the ahus, and represent the ancient Polynesian chiefs or leaders.  The vast majority of moai face inland away from the sea, and generally have a plaza in front of them and a village beyond that.  The moai are huge with the largest restored one on the island standing at 32 feet with a weight of 82 tons.  They were carved out of relatively soft volcanic tuff at the island’s quarry.  There are about 1000 recorded moai, including those that have been restored and are standing, those that toppled over and have not been restored, those remaining at the quarry and are unfinished, and those left by the roadside. How they were moved from the quarry to their locations along the coast has never been accurately determined. 

I am very interested in megalithic ancient archaeological sites around the world.  How did those people carve, move and stack those multi ton stones?  My sense is that some humans on earth who lived before the end of the last Ice Age had the ability to do this.  The great flood that is described by many ancient cultures around the world happened in conjunction with the end of the Younger Dryas cold period at about 11,600 years ago.  That is when sea levels around the globe rose by 300-400 feet, swamping coastlines.  To read more about this, I refer you to “Forgotten Civilization” by Robert Schoch, and “The Missing Lands” by Freddy Silva.  Both write extensively about Easter Island.

So one of my reasons for visiting Easter Island was to see for myself what they were talking about.  The moai were ostensibly carved by the Polynesians who got there between 800-1200 CE.  The last moai were carved in the early 1700’s.  I have to say that I have come home with more questions than answers!  The following posts are about some of my more interesting experiences.