Earth

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Earths Mysterious Places

1. Easter Island
2. Stonehenge
3. Geoglyphs in Nazca Desert, Peru

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Easter Island
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History
Easter Island's human history began with the
settlement of the island by Polynesians, who are
likely to have arrived from the islands of
Mangareva or Pitcairn to the west. The history of
Easter Island can be related with the aid of a
reconstructed king list of Easter Island,
complete with events and approximate dates since
400. These Polynesian settlers brought bananas,
taro, sweet potato, sugarcane, and paper
mulberry, as well as chickens. The island at one
time supported a relatively advanced and complex
civilization. The European discovery of the
island, by the Dutch navigator Jakob Roggeveen,
occurred in 1722 on Easter Day. Roggeveen found
about 2,000-3,000 inhabitants on the island, but
it appears that there were as many as
10,000-15,000 of them in the 16th and 17th
centuries. The civilization of Easter Island had
degenerated drastically during the 100 years
before the arrival of the Dutch, owing to the
overpopulation, deforestation and exploitation of
the extremely isolated island with its limited
natural resources. However, by the mid-19th
century the population had recovered to about
4,000 inhabitants. Then in a mere 20 years,
deportation to Peru and Chile and diseases
brought by Westerners almost exterminated the
whole population, with only 111 inhabitants left
on the island in 1877. The island was annexed by
Chile in 1888 (by Policarpo Toro). The native
Rapanui have gradually recovered from their low
of 111 inhabitants. Note that the name "Rapa Nui"
is not the Rapanui's original name for the
island. It was coined by labour immigrants from
the original Rapa in the Bass Islands who likened
it to their home island. The Rapanui name of Rapa
Nui is Te pito o te henua ("Navel of the World")
due to its isolation, but this too seems to be
derived from another location, possibly a
Marquesan landmark. Recent events have shown a
tremendous increase of tourism on the island,
coupled with a large inflow of people from
mainland Chile, threatening to alter the
Polynesian identity of the island. The possession
of the land has created political tensions in the
past 20 years, with part of the native Rapanui
opposed to private property and in favor of the
traditional communal property of the land. (See
Demography below.)
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Deforestation and Decline
Modern Easter Island has few trees. The island
once possessed a forest of palms, but it is
thought that the native Easter Islanders
completely deforested the island in the process
of erecting their statues, as well as
constructing fishing boats and buildings. There
is evidence that the disappearance of the
island's trees coincided with the collapse of the
Easter Island civilization. Midden contents from
that time period show a sudden drop in quantity
of fish and bird bones as the islanders lost the
means to construct fishing vessels and the birds
lost their nesting sites. Chickens and rats
became leading items of diet. There is also some
evidence of cannibalism, from human remains. The
small surviving population of Easter Island
eventually developed new traditions to allot the
few remaining resources. In the cult of the
birdman (manutara), a competition was established
in which every year a representative of each
tribe, chosen by the leaders, would dive into the
sea and swim across to Motu Nui, a nearby islet,
to search for the first egg laid by a Sooty Tern
during the season. The first swimmer to return
with an egg would secure control of the island's
resources for his tribe for the rest of the year.
This tradition was still in existence at the time
of first contact by Europeans
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The Moai
Moai in Hanga Roa, with Chilean Navy training
ship Buque Escuela Esmeralda cruising behind
A Moai The large stone statues, or moai, for
which Easter Island is world famous were carved
at a later time than was initially thought.
Archeologists now estimate that they were carved
between 1600 and 1730, the last one being carved
around the time when Jakob Roggeveen discovered
the island. There are more than 600 large
monolithic stone statues, called moai, on the
island. Although often identified as "heads", the
statues actually have complete torsos many moai,
however, have become buried up to their necks.
Most were carved out of the rock at Rano Raraku.
The quarry there seems to have been abandoned
abruptly, with half-carved statues left in the
rock. The most common theory is that the statues
were carved by the Polynesian inhabitants
(Rapanui) at a time when the island was largely
planted with trees and resources were plentiful,
supporting a population of 10,000-15,000 native
Rapanui. The majority of the statues were still
standing when Jakob Roggeveen arrived in 1722.
Captain James Cook also saw many standing statues
when he landed on the island in 1774. By the 19th
century, all the statues had been toppled in
internecine wars. See the moai page for a more
extensive
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The Moai
Moai in Hanga Roa, with Chilean Navy training
ship Buque Escuela Esmeralda cruising behind
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The Moai
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Demography
Population at the 2002 census was 3,791
inhabitants. The figure is up from 1,936
inhabitants in 1982. This tremendous increase in
population is due mainly to the arrival of people
of European descent from the mainland of Chile.
Consequently, the island is losing its native
Polynesian identity. In 1982 around 70 of the
population were Rapanui (the native Polynesian
inhabitants). At the 2002 census however, Rapanui
were only 60 of the population of Easter Island.
Chileans of European descent were 39 of the
population, and the remaining 1 were Native
American from mainland Chile. Nearly all of the
population live in the town of Hanga Roa. Rapanui
have also migrated out of the island. At the 2002
census there were 2,269 Rapanui living in Easter
Island, while 2,378 Rapanui lived in the mainland
of Chile (half of them in the metropolitan area
of Santiago). Population density on Easter Island
is only 23 inhabitants per km² (60 inh. per sq.
miles), much lower than in the heyday of statues'
building (17th century) when there were between
10,000 and 15,000 native Rapanui on the island.
Population had already declined to only
2,000-3,000 inhabitants before the arrival of
Europeans. In the 19th century, disease due to
contacts with Europeans, as well as deportation
of 2,000 Rapanui to work as slaves in Peru, and
the forced departure of the remaining Rapanui to
Chile, carried the population of Easter Island to
the all time low of 111 inhabitants in 1877. Out
of these 111 Rapanui, only 36 had descendants,
and they are the ancestors of all the 2,269
Rapanui currently living on the island.
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The Moai are seen all over the island, and in
different shapes, sizes, and stages of
completion. Many Moaiare left unfinished at the
quarry site. No one is sure yet as to what
purposes did the Moai served, but outside
scholarly research together with accumulated
local knowledge, shows evidence that the Moai
were carved by the ancestors of the present
inhabitants.
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Long Ears vs. Short Ears
Ron Fisher in his work Easter Island Brooding
Sentinels of Stone, mentions as one explanation
for the statues that "two classes of people,
the-so-called Long Ears and Short Ears, lived on
the island. The Short Ears were enslaved by the
Long Ears, who forced the Short Ears to carve the
Moai. After many generations and during a
rebellion, the Short Ears surprised the Long Ears
killing them all, which explains the abrupt end
of the statue-carving.
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most face inland to watch over the villlages.
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Many of the were buried up to their shoulders and
thereby appearing as disembodied heads.
All of the Moai were toppled in tribal wars about
250 years ago. Many have recently been rebuilt -
starting in the 1950's.
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The Moai were excavated for the first time by
Thor Heyerdahl in the 1950's and were
photographed at that time.
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Moai sit on platforms - ceremonial shrines called
Ahu.
It is also aligned to the moon.
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RONGORONGO
Rongo-rongo is the hieroglyphic script of Easter
Island. It has remained a mystery since its
discovery. For over a hundred years, controversy
has raged over the meaning and source of these
enigmatic characters.
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2. Stonehenge
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3. Geoglyphs in the Nazca Desert
Located between Paracas and Nazca, Ica is a lush
agricultural oasis surrounded by desert sands. It
sits at the center of wine and pisco (brandy)
production in Peru, Today enormous geoglyph
figures of animals, birds and geometric figures
remain etched in the desert, a testimony to this
remarkable culture.
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Map of the Geoglyphs
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The Nazca desert is the giant draft board
Alla Belokon suggests that the Nazca lines
represent our Solar system planets as crystal
structure nodes, and were built by a flow of
directed energy of unknown nature from the air.
The Nazca desert square is about 500 km2. Its
soil surface is covered all over with a network
of peculiar gravings in the form of figures which
are shallow but large in size. These figures
cannot be viewed either from the ground or from
the surrounding low hills. They number nearly
13,000 lines, 100 spirals, more than 700
geometric areas (the geoglyphs) in the form of
triangles and trapezia. At first the each
investigator attention is attracted the drawings
of animals (a monkey, a dog, a whale, some fishes
and a number of birds). There are a flower and
tree also. The meaningful drawings number about
thirty. Therefor this type drawings make only
0.2 of the total number of figures. The rest of
figures (98.8) are the geometrical figures
(called geoglyphs). Its are the lines that run
rectilinearly for the distance of up to 10 km and
the triangles, rectangles, and, more often,
trapezoidal geoglyphs with rectilinear
stone-formed edges (The biggest rectangles has
the side sizes about 80x780 m). Innumerable
zigzags and sinusoids forming the so-called
decoration, can be encountered among these
figures. Also there are more then ten lines
centers on the desert. Its have represented as
the points from which a few lines are outcoming
to different directions.
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The Nazca geoglyphs are the "markings" of The
Drawing Ray"
At first view the all geoglyphs are looked as the
chaos and the drawings are worthy to our
attention only. However as the drawings so the
geoglyphs fascinate us. What reason is for that?
Any creation by Unknown Wisdom comprises certain
intellectual capabilities indicating the level of
its development and technological means
available! During more than twenty years I was
forced to prove that it is impossible to create
the drawings by hand and don't to damage the
desert surface. Besides, the desert of Nazca is
only one element of the phenomenon. Ground
drawings similar in style are encountered in the
middle part of the Andes all along the Pacific
Ocean coast in South America (1500 km). Thus they
should in no way be attributed to one local
Indian culture such as the Nazca culture.
According to my estimates, made on the basis of
the measures obtained by G. Hawkinss expedition,
more than 100, 000 man-years would have been
required to construct by hand the figures on the
desert of Nazca.
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Hummingbird
The spectacular Lineas de Nazca are giant
drawings of animals and geometric figures in the
desert sands of Pampa de San José near Nazca.
Believed to be created around 300-700 BC, these
figures aren't easily seen from the ground. If
you climb the observation tower erected by the
Pan American highway just north of Nazca you'll
see only a few of them.
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Monkey
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The zigzag-shaped and sinusoidal lines forming a
single complex with the drawing of the monkey,
covers the area of 20.000 square meters. One more
interesting element is worth noting the monkey's
forelegs have a different number of fingers the
right one - five, while the left one - only four.
The same feature is characteristic of another
figure which received an adequate name "Figure
with nine fingers". Such insistent repetition
ciold not be just a sort of coincidence.
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Tree and Hands (nine fingers)
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Tree and Hands with 9 Fingers
Drawing of  "The tree" with a zigzag line. There
is an illustration in point as far as the of
constructing a drawing is concerned the line
runs rfom the vertex of a small triangle,
encircles it, then makes a few zigzags with an
amplitude of over 500 m (while gradually getting
thinner), form a figure of a "tre" and, at last,
reaches a large rectangle. Its total length is 5
km. Why have such complicated way been used if it
was forming by hands? It is the absurdity. But it
became clear if the method of "the grawing ray"
was used. The zigzag line was need for decrease
of radiation power and for recieve a slim line
forming the image.  
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The Spider
The drawing of a spider is 46 m long.
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the alcatraz,
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The Whale
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The Condor
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Geometric Figure
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The Astronaut