Easter Island's Colossal Stone Figures[复活节岛的巨大石像]jdX中国英语学习网
 jdX中国英语学习网
The legendary colossal stone figures of Easter Island are called "moai" by the inhabitants of Rapa Nui, the local name of the island. The moai have long puzzled historians and archaeologists: How were humans using primitive technology able to lift and move the 14-ton figures?
Starting as early as the fifth century, and perhaps as recently as the 16th, the islanders dragged at least 288 statues from a central quarry, where they were carved, to sacred ceremonial sites along the coast. According to local legend, some moai protected individual villages scattered across the island, and represented the spirits of ancestors, chiefs or other high-ranking males.
With their backs to the sea, the statues also may have symbolized the connection between the earth and the spiritual realm of the sky, according to archaeologists.
Of the 887 figures documented on Easter Island, only 288 were ever successfully transported to their final locations. Ninety-two are lying in various positions outside the quarry, as if abandoned during transport. The majority 一 397 一 remain in the quarry, where they are better protected.
These mysterious 14-ton statues, just torsos and heads with angular ears and elongated noses, draw up to 20,000 tourists a year to the remote island. The statues are one of the world's great sights, but unfortunately it's not too easy to get there: The island is in the middle of the South Pacific, 3,200 km away from the South American country of Chile that rules it. |
