Easter Island Statues南太平洋复活节岛石像

李蓓

Easter Island is an island（岛） in the South Pacific（南太平洋）. But don’t get confused by（被迷惑） its name. It’s not an island full of（充满） bunnies（兔子）. It’s an island full of amazing（令人惊讶的） statues（石像）.

Easter Island is an island of Chile（智利，位于南美洲）. It is far from（远离） anywhere. It is tiny（微小的），only163 square kilometers（平方千米）. About 6，000 people live there.

There are 887 stone statues（石像） on the island. Most of them stand near the sea. People call them MOAI. They have big heads and little bodies. Their noses are large and their ears are long. A statue is about 4-10 meters tall. It weighs（重） about 90 tons（吨），as big as 18 adult（成年的） elephants. The bodies of some statues are underground（在地下）. We can only see their heads now.

A small number of statues have hats on their heads. People used red stones to make the hats. The hats weigh 3 tons. They must be the heaviest（最重的） hats in the world.

About 1，700 years ago，people arrived at（抵達） this beautiful island. They made the big statues for their gods（神）. They made the statues with stones from the middle of the island. How did they move the large stones？ Nobody knows.

Don’t carve（雕刻） or climb（攀爬） on the statues when you go there！ In 2008，a tourist（游客） was fined（被罚款） about 10，000 pounds（英镑） for breaking（弄坏） off part（部分） of a statue.