Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Easter Island, Chile

I love the name of Easter Island..sounds really cool, and makes me think that its actually a place where small colourful chocolate eggs are hidden all over it, and children with baskets in their hands run all over it in order to find as more delicious chocolate eggs as possible...
Well, ok...Easter Island isnt even close to my imagination, but the place itself is fascinating indeed.


The Easter Island (also called Rapa Nui, or Isla de Pascua in Spanish) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. The island is a special territory of Chile. Easter Island is famous for its monumental statues, called 'moai' created by the Rapanui people. It is a world heritage site with much of the island protected within the Rapa Nui National Park.

The large stone statues, or moai, for which Easter Island is world-famous, were carved during a relatively short and intense burst of creative and productive megalithic activity. The period when the statues were produced remains disputed, with estimates ranging from 400 CE to 1500–1700 CE. Almost all (95%) moais were carved out of distinctive, compressed, easily worked volcanic ash or tuff found at a single site inside the extinct volcano Rano Raraku.

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