Easter Island is in the South Pacific, 3800 km west of Caldera in Chile and has a population of about 2000. This Island was discovered first by the Dutch Admiral Jacob Roggeveen on an Easter Saturday in 1722. Therefore it is called “Easter Island”. This island was later annexed by Chile in 1888. In reality however, a British lady Katherine Routledge exposed this island to the world during her visit in 1914-15.
Easter Island is noted for its mysterious statues of remote and unknown origin. These statues, consisting of giant heads facing inland, fringe the island’s coast line. Their height varies from 3 to 36 ft and weigh upto 20 tons. More than 1000 such statues have so far been discovered. These statues are called Moi. The biggest head of them is 32 ft long and weighs 90 tons. However, so far no one precisely knows who built them. The mysterious scripts discovered in Easter Island are yet to be decoded.
According to some recent opinions these statues were constructed by Polynesians. There are many evidences which show that inhabitants of Easter Island constructed Ahus and these statues during 1110 and 1205 and the process also continued upto 1650. At that time this Island was ruled by a group of Hanau Epe.
Stones which were used for the construction of these statues were brought with the help of tree stem sledges. According to William Mulloy, the inhabitants of these Islands could not have carried these heavy stones upto a distance of more than one thousand feet in the course of a day. They would have made them by using wooden frames. There are some statues whose eyes have not been fully made. These are called blind Moi. There are about 100 such statues.