Aku-Aku Eclipse Easter Island July 11th, 2010

Anthropology Museum

The Museo Antropológico Padre Sebastián Englert is an excellent first stop for visitors to the island. The geology and anthropology of the island are explained in a comprehensive set of panels (in Spanish, but booklets of English translations are available to to visitors) and a modest collection of artefacts and reproductions of items in other collections is on display.

Doggone Greys—they're everywhere!

Here is an unusual female moai-like figure.

This is a reproduction of a fish carved in the enigmatic Rongorongo. This is said to be a hieroglyphic language used on the island and subsequently lost. Beats me—with all the parentheses it looks for all the world like a Lisp program!

Petroglyphs are shallow carvings on rocks and often take just the right angle of light to see clearly; you could walk right past many without noticing anything unless you're looking carefully. Here is a somewhat goofy “birdman” carving which only pops out when viewed from this perspective.

Because of its remoteness, Easter Island has very little wildlife and most of that arrived with human settlers. That's the case for the few lizard species, one of which we spotted outside the Anthropological Museum.

by John Walker July 20th, 2010

This document is in the public domain.