STILL A MYSTERY

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 110, 11 May 1935, Page 31

STILL A MYSTERY

EASTER ISLAND MON()LITHS

SPECIMENS ACQUIRED

From remote Easter Island^ with its 600-ton monoliths standing sentinel over the secret of their apparent connection with early Egyptian or East Indian civilisation, a Franco-Belgian expedition has returned to Honolulu in the Belgian training . ship. Mercator; • ' •''■.. Although the island is regarded as a point of contact with the civilisations of legendary lost continents and vanished races, the three members of the party: have reached the. conclusion that its present people: are of Polynesian ancestry, states,the "Christian Science Monitor." The reason for the existence on this small island, 2300 miles from Chile, of the strange idols, monuments, and tombs-not found elsewhere in the-Pacific, has yet to be discovered, they. say.: , The expedition was sponsored by the Governments of France and Belgium.- \v ■ ;. •■

: On the Mercator the researchers are taking back to the Belgian Museum of the Cinquantenaire a large collection of archaeological discoveries. One of these is a six-ton stone'monument to the Hanga One One, .god of; Easter Island fishermen. It is more than 500 years old, and is one of .three: such monuments discovered. One remains at. the island and.' another is in the British Museum: . ' " '•' ■

Most; of \ the idols discovered represented deities of whom the people asked protection against the forces of Nature, ■ the expedition reported. 'But the ancient mythology is being abandoned so readily the people helped the expedition find small idols and to carry them, aboard" ship^ There are 200 of the huge monoliths, weighing between 600 and 800 tons. Only 40 of them are still standing erect in full View from the sea; Qn,: the slope; of the same mountain from which they were apparently taken,;; are seyeral statues in various state of execution. One, about" 600 ft long, seems to have been just completed, and is still lying, face upwards, ready for •transportatidhi' Further studies, the researchers indicate, may throw hew light on the early, migrations of Polynesian peoples across the Pacific. -." ■ : : .;)

The small.island is treeless," and the natives raise chiefly sweet potatoes and sheep, although they have a few horses and cattle. : .-. :^; -' \-" :■; it