A mystery island

Press, 11 April 1979, Page 22

A mystery island

Easter Island, just a small dot on maps of the eastern part of the South Pacific Ocean, is famous because of the archaeological remains which have mystified the world since they were first discovered by early explorers. The small island, which has belonged to Chile since 1888, got its name because it was discovered by Admiral Roggeveen on Easter Day 257 years ago, two years before it was visited by the famous English explorer, Captain James Cook, of New Zealand fame.

When the Europeans discovered the island there were about 2000 or 3000 people living there. They were Polynesians like our Maoris who had spread through the Pacific. In 1863, • most of them were captured like slaves by Peruvians and taken to work in guano diggings in the Chincha Islanas. Only a few hundred people live on the island today, and none of them knows anything about the huge stone statues and platforms. This is unusual because most people have folk-lore which give clues to their history, even if it

is not always accurate. Hundred of the statues and busts of human"* beings, not showing recofc nised ethnic character; istics, lie in all directions, about the island. Some of them are close to the crater of the volcano, Rano Roraku, from whose compressed ash they were all made, but others are at numerous burial platforms on the island’s coastline. Who carved these statues? How did they shift' them and raise them into position? Today, when we can send a man to the. melon, our own earth has unravelled mysteries.