Easter Island's Moai Sculptures

It can be called Easter Island, but this does not mean that celebrates these days. Anyway this mysterious isle in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, normally called Rapa Nui, named very strange way and does not have any relationship with the Orthodox Easter. Easter Island was formed by a series of volcanic eruptions, was inhabited only by birds and dragonflies sea.

The first inhabitants found a lush island (unlike the picture of today), filled with giant palms, they used to build boats and houses. Several communities were formed as the population increased.

One thing tied them all together, the construction of the giant statues called moai (Moai) and the cult that formed around them.

It is unclear why the inhabitants of Easter Island statues manufactured in such a large extent. How they were made, it is almost unknown. Each statue he was made in the quarry. The soft tuff was perfect material for sculpture statues.

They used a harder volcanic stone to the statue carved in the rock. Eventually when a statue finished, cut out from the rock and we moved carefully using giant trunks of palm trees to the roll on the ground. Once the movement was going on, the statue was placed on a large platform, with an incredible accuracy in installations of stone.

The sculptures are inscriptions in Rapanouiskom language (Rapanuyskom) which has not yet been deciphered. The archaeological team led by American archaeologist Joanne Van Timpourgk after excavations 12 years, found that the statues of Easter Island is not only huge heads, but found their bodies into the earth.

The body of the statues has harmonic size with that of the head while the overall height of the sculpture reaches seven meters. Excavations also unearthed tools used to transfer the huge moai in their positions as well as human graves that era.

One theory is rats landed on the island in the canoe of Polynesian settlers turned the Easter Island in the rat paradise. And while residents deforestation actually massively forests to create farmland, these were the mice that prevented the new vegetation, eating tree seeds and plants. Other studies say it was ultimately victims of climate change. Again another theory says that the tiny island is the island of Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean for years housed the tribe of Rapa Nui, who were wiped out when they destroyed the natural environment of the island, or in accordance with other studies came into contact with European culture and unprecedented diseases transmitted their conquerors. 

Source - snopes.com