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The island was given its current name the day Europeans arrived in the 1700s – on Easter Sunday. The island is famous for its monolithic stone statues, called Moai, said to honour the memory of the inhabitants’ ancestors. There are nearly 1000 scattered around the island, usually positioned near freshwater.
Easter Island from space with Anakena bottom left, its sandy beach and turquoise shallows almost the only gap in the island's surf. Rano Kau is at top with Hanga Roa just below it and Terevaka prominent above Anakena. A west up photo from NASA.
Easter Island is a volcanic island, consisting mainly of three extinct coalesced volcanoes: Terevaka (altitude 507 metres) forms the bulk of the island, while two other volcanoes, Poike and Rano Kau, form the eastern and southern headlands and give the island its roughly triangular shape.
The view that the island was once home to a population of several thousand people stems from the assumption it would have taken large numbers to build and move the 800-plus huge stone statues or ...
Ma'unga Terevaka is the largest, tallest (507.41 m (1,664.73 ft)) and youngest of three main extinct volcanoes that form Easter Island.Several smaller volcanic cones and craters dot its slopes, including a crater hosting one of the island's three lakes, Rano Aroi.
Photos of Easter Island: It has also been shown to increase the longevity of a variety of animals including fruit flies, yeast, and a species of worm; this enhanced lifespan has been attributed to ...
Ahu Akivi is a particular sacred place on the Chilean island of Rapa Nui (or Easter Island), looking out towards the Pacific Ocean. The site has seven moai , all of equal shape and size, and is also known as a celestial observatory that was set up around the 16th century.
Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, never experienced a ruinous population collapse, according to an analysis of ancient DNA from 15 former inhabitants of the remote island in the Pacific Ocean.