Dutch
Admiral Jacob Roggeveen (1659-1729) made the first European discovery of
Easter Island on Easter Day, April 5, 1722, and ended 1,400 years of
isolation on the island. Triangular shaped, Easter Island or Rapa Nui as it is
known locally, is located 2,300 miles (3,700 km) west of the Chilean coast in the
South Pacific Ocean. Over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the nearest populated
center, Rapa Nui is one of the most isolated settlements in the world. The
island is small, only 60 square miles (155 sq km), and is barren except for the
hardy grasses that grow there, but is noted because of the large mysterious
statues or moai that dot the island. Although the discovery of this island was
not considered important at the time, it has since attracted the attention of
archaeologists and scientists from all over the world.
The monumental
sculptures of Easter Island or Rapa Nui represent one of the world's great
sculptural traditions and have inspired awe ever since. Around 800 of these
sculptures or moai were made from 1100 AD when the island was settled until
1600 AD. Most remain in Rapa Nui with a few examples existing in institutions
such as the British Museum and the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.
Carved out of local basalt rock moai represent the
faces of ancestral chiefs, built to offer the local population protection for
this life and the next. They usually range in height from 2 - 10 meters but one
unfinished moai stands 20 meters high. They were usually situated on a ahu
(stone platform) facing outwards.
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