THE PACIFIC RIDDLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 187, 9 August 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

THE PACIFIC RIDDLE.

TOMBS OF EASTER ISLAND-

On Easter Island, one of the most inaccessible inhabited bits of land on earth, may be the last vestiges of the long dead civilisation sometimes mentioned in the writings of the ancients. Though only forty-live miles in area and some 2000 miles from the Chilean coast, it contains vast memorials and tombs of a forgotten race, the riddle of which has been the subject of speculation for two centuries.,

The tombs, some of which are 300 feet long, stretch in an unbroken line around Easter Island's shore. They are of stone, about 15 feet high and sometimes 100 feet wide. While no one knows who built them, they are evidently memorial to the great of the race that died. Scattered near the tombs are many' hundreds of great stone statues, carved out of the solid volcanic rook.

These crude statues, some of which are seventy feet high, are thought to be at least 2000 and perhaps 5000 years old. They may have been intended for idols or they may be stone portraits of the great chiefs and warriors of this mysterious people.

, The rock out of which the images were carved was quarried inside the crater of an extinct volcano, and on the slopes of the mountain are scores of the images in various stages of completion. At, the quarry itself, rude stone tools were foundand they were lying in positions that suggested that the work of removing the stone was halted suddenly. One romantic theory has it that Eas-~ ter Island was the Mount Olympus of a continent or island since submerged like the mythical Atlantis. It formed the cultural and religions centre of the region and was used as a tomb for the illustrious dead. While romantic, this theory is plausible, because Easter Island itself could never support a population capable of producing such a civilisation, and the nearest neighbouring island is more than 1000 miles away. However, Easter Island may once have been the centre of a large archipelago, since submerged. The work of quarrying and building the memorials may have been interrupted by war or pestilence.