As you might surmise, Eater Island–an earthen, 45-acre mound in the Pacific Ocean between South America and the Polynesian Islands–was discovered on Easter Sunday, 1722. What the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen and his crew witnessed the, remains a puzzle today: hundreds of colossal stone statues (moai) with long sloping noses, pursed lips, sharp chins, elongated ear lobes, each facing inland with its back to the sea.
The obvious questions persist. Who are they? How were they hauled into place? Why were so many toppled or destroyed? Questions with no answers.
Most of the stories about Easter Island’s origins center on an ancient king’s migration to the island–in two 90-foot canoes, stuffed shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds of his subjects. They were a cult who believed that supernatural powers were projected through the sightless eyes of the giant statues. One the other hand, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl made the same voyage aboard his raft, Kon Tiki, and theorized in several book that the monuments were actually the work of South American stone carvers.
Who really knows? You’ll have to draw your own conclusions…and the experts at James TravelPOINTS, 1-800-538-7461, www.travelpoints.com, know just the right way to visit this mysterious island.
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