Who discovered the Moai of Easter Island?
explorer Jacob Roggeveen
When Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen first discovered Easter Island in 1722, all the Moai on the island stood proudly upright. Sadly, over the next 150 odd years most had toppled over.
How did Easter Island get discovered?
The first-recorded European contact with the island took place on 5 April (Easter Sunday) 1722 when Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen visited for a week and estimated there were 2,000 to 3,000 inhabitants on the island. Four years later, in mid-March 1774, British explorer James Cook visited Easter Island.
What was discovered on Easter Island?
The greatest evidence for the rich culture developed by the original settlers of Rapa Nui and their descendants is the existence of nearly 900 giant stone statues that have been found in diverse locations around the island.
What is a fact about Easter Island?
Easter Island is the world’s most secluded inhabited island The only way to get there is by plane, as it doesn’t even have any harbours. The shortest flight is five hours from Santiago, and you can also fly there in seven hours from Tahiti. So what are the benefits of being so far away?
What do moai represent?
What do the Moai represent? It’s thought that the Moai were symbols of religious and political power and leadership. Carvings and sculptures in the Polynesian world often have strong spiritual meanings, and followers often believe a carving had magical or spiritual powers of the person or deity depicted.
What does moai mean?
The moai of Rapa Nui Easter Island is famous for its stone statues of human figures, known as moai (meaning “statue”).
When were moai built?
The moai and ceremonial sites are along the coast, with a concentration on Easter Island’s southeast coast. Here, the moai are more ‘standardized’ in design, and are believed to have been carved, transported, and erected between AD 1400 and 1600.
What are some interesting facts about Easter Island?
Interesting Facts on Easter Island Easter Island is one of the world’s most famous yet least visited archaeological sites. Easter Island is a small, hilly and treeless island of volcanic origin. Easter Island is sixty-three square miles in size and has three extinct volcanoes, the tallest rising to 1674 feet.
What is the story behind Easter Island?
The Story of Easter Island Easter Island (Rapu Nui) is considered to be the world’s msot isolated habitable land (Wolcott and Conrad 2011). The island is 64 miles², and lies in the Pacific ocean . When Jacob Roggeveen first discovered the island in 1722 he found 47 species of higher plants native to Easter and no animals bigger than insects.
Why is Easter Island so important?
Easter Island is one of the most unique places to visit because of its remoteness, concentration of archeological sites, geography, sightseeing and cultural heritage.
What are the theories of Easter Island?
One popular theory which has stood for many years was that the roads on Easter Island were used to drag the stones along and to take them to their spots. This was given weight by the fact that many finished old stones were found discarded at the side of many of these roads, making it seem plausible that they would have been dragged along in this fashion.