The Mysteries of the Moai on Easter Island | National Geographic

less than 1m read

·Nov 11, 2024

[Music] Imposing stone sentinels stand guard on Rapanui, a volcanic island that anchors the western point of the Polynesian triangle in the South Pacific. You might know it as Easter Island.

[Music] About 42% of the island is Rapa Nui National Park, a world heritage property established in 1995 to preserve the natural and cultural wonders of this Chilean territory. This Polynesian outpost blossomed in isolation, developing a distinct architectural and artistic culture. Moai, the enormous heads that dot the landscape, are the lasting legacy of this ancient society. The effort to construct these monuments and move them around the island must have been considerable, but no one knows exactly why the Rapa Nui people undertook such a task.

The hundreds of moai standing on Easter Island today were restored by historians, anthropologists, and archeologists in the 20th century. To get the best view of the moai, trek to Rano Raraku, where the volcanic rock used in their construction was quarried. Of the 887 remaining statues on the island, roughly 400 are strewn in and around the volcanic crater.

While most people visit Rapa Nui to explore its cultural history, the island is also home to some excellent diving, surfing, and enticing beaches. It's miraculous that Polynesian people ever reached Rapa Nui in the first place. Getting there today is much easier, but the island is still very far afield. Long flights service Rapa Nui from Chile and Tahiti.

[Music]

Water potential worked example

Origins of agriculture | World History | Khan Academy

View All

Scaling Culture | Jason Kilar, former Hulu CEO

So my name is Jason. Um, uh, I was asked to, uh, speak about culture, and I’m going to do it through two lenses: my observations about culture and then, really importantly for this day, my observations of how to efficiently scale culture. I wanted to sha…

The 5 Secrets to making a TON of Money

What’s up, you guys? It’s Graham Years. So, when it comes to learning how to make more money, I’ve noticed a few major differences between the people who make a normal average income and the people who end up making a ton of money. And when I talk about …

Meet the Founder of Stoicism | ZENO OF CITIUM

We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say. Zeno of Citium, around 300 BC, founded the Stoic school of philosophy. He published a list of works on ethics, physics, logic, and other subjects, including his most famous work: Zeno’…

World's Lightest Solid!

This is aerogel. The world’s lightest, that is least dense, solid. This piece has a mass of just 1.22 grams. That is only a few times the mass of the same volume of air, which kind of makes sense because it is 99.8% air. In fact, some aerogels are so ligh…

Math's Fundamental Flaw

There is a hole at the bottom of math, a hole that means we will never know everything with certainty. There will always be true statements that cannot be proven. Now, no one knows what those statements are exactly, but they could be something like the T…

Quantitative electrolysis | Applications of thermodynamics | AP Chemistry | Khan Academy

We already know that in an electrolytic cell, current or movement of electrons is used to drive a redox reaction. If we look at a generic reduction half-reaction, the stoichiometry of the half-reaction shows how many electrons are needed to reduce a gener…

The Mysteries of the Moai on Easter Island | National Geographic

More Articles