Once in Chile, the Rapa Nui National Park is a major tourist spot in this region. In the Rapa Nui National Park, Chile travelers will get to witness to a unique cultural phenomenon. In the Rapa Nui National Park, one will get to see and explore many ancient monumental sculpture and architecture that were built by a society of Polynesian origin that settled there in A.D. 300.
They established a powerful, imaginative and original tradition, free from any external influence. From the 10th to the 16th century, the society built shrines and erected enormous stone figures known as “moai”, which created an unrivalled cultural landscape that continues to fascinate people throughout the world.
As said by the historians and archeologists, the original inhabitants of Easter Island were Polynesians who migrated to the island at the beginning of around AD 400. Descendants of these Polynesian settlers constructed the statues between 800 and 1600.
Rapa Nui is a triangular-shaped island, located in the South Pacific Ocean, about 3,700 kms west of the Chilean coast. The fine Rapa Nui National Park was named by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who landed here on Easter Day in the year 1722.
The Chilean government captured the island in 1888. The country of Chile first declared the island to be a National Park in 1935 and on 22nd March 1996 UNESCO designated the island a World heritage site. In 1998, UNESCO issued a stamp depicting the megaliths.
The Easter Island is of considerable archaeological importance. The region includes the richest site containing the megaliths of the Pacific island groups and the only source of evidence of a form of writing in Polynesia.