Mysterious Easter Island Trivia Quiz

Answer: Chile

It was annexed to Chile in 1888, and until 1965 the Chileans literally kept the natives as prisoners on their own island! Now it's a province of Chile.

Answer: Sala y Gomez Island

Sala y Gomez Island is only 258 miles east of Easter Island, but it is uninhabited, making Easter Island one of the most remote inhabited islands on Earth. Pitcairn is 1,260 miles West, Chile is 2,300 miles to the east, and Tahiti is 2,515 miles to the West.

Answer: moai

Not much is known about these massive statues, carved by the native islanders centuries ago. The average head is about 13.29 feet tall, and weighs 13.78 tons! Ruff is the kind of volcanic stone they are made out of, a toki is the tool used to carve them, and an ahu is the flat mound or stone platform some moai sit on!

Answer: 64 square miles

This makes it bigger then Disney World (48 square miles), but a little smaller than Washington, D.C.(69 square miles). It was created by three volcanoes over two million years ago.

Answer: False

The heads supposedly brought spiritual powers to its builders, not long life or good luck. They were monuments to the islanders' ancestors.

Answer: Rano Raraku

This quarry was first used around the year 900 A.D. Of all the statues, 288 were transported to their spots, 397 never made it out of the quarry and 92 were somewhere in between.

Answer: By outrigger canoe

They came from East Polynesia, somewhere around the Marquesas Islands. Around 400 A.D. they arrived in their outrigger canoes, which are sea-going canoes with floats on either side to help keep them from capsizing.

Answer: True

Most sources will tell you it means "The Navel of the World." However, it was mistranslated in the nineteenth century and actually means "The Navel and the Uterus."

Answer: "slender race" or "thin people"

The Eepe lorded over the Momoko, and made them do all the work. These names were mistranslated in the nineteenth century, and people thought they meant "long ears" and "short ears."

Answer: 20,000

Between 1000 A.D. and 1680 A.D.there was a huge population boom. Years later, though, a British captain saw that there were 700 men and only 30 women!

Answer: Jacob Roggeveen

He was leading three Dutch ships in search of new continents when they sighted the island on Easter Sunday, 1722. They named it Paaseiland, which is Dutch for Easter Island.

Answer: Nancy

They planned to sell them to sealers, but after a few days of sailing, the islanders jumped overboard. The Nancy kept sailing and they drowned. A little while later, Peruvian slavers also frequented the island.

Answer: False

It was named Rapa Nui in 1863. French Polynesian officials didn't recognize the name Easter Island or the name Te Pito te o Henua, so they renamed it after a similar Tahitian island, Rapa. Easter Island was bigger than that other one, so it was called Rapa Nui, or Great Rapa. The other one is now known as Rapa Iti, or Little Rapa.

Answer: Rongorongo

These hieroglyphics have never been translated, and only 21 tablets have survived. Rongorongo is written in a method called reversed boustrophedon. Besides being something no one should have to spell, it is a kind of writing where, instead of going from left to right and then down to the next line, left to right, mirror image until it reaches the other side again!

Answer: tuberculosis and smallpox

Peruvian slavers brought the smallpox. It was islanders, however, who brought the tuberculosis to Easter Island. They had been slaves in South America and, freed, returned home, bringing the disease with them.

Answer: French

His name was Jean Baptiste Onesime Dutrou-Bornier. He forced all the other missionaries and about 300 islanders off "his" island. Historians disagree about how he died. Some say he was thrown by his horse, but others argue that he was murdered by the remaining islanders.

Answer: True

He gave a few pieces of evidence, including the fact that sweet potatoes, an American plant, grow there. Another was that the structure and building techniques of the statues really resemble that of South America.

Answer: 1996

UNESCO stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. "World Heritage Site" means that it is a cultural treasure, and will be protected forever.

Answer: Hanga Roa

Easter Island's population is about 2000, as of the year 2004, and all of them lives in Hanga Roa. The people's name for themselves is the Rapanui. The island's main source of income is tourism.

Answer: False

False! NASA lengthened the existing airport runway. That way, the space shuttle can just LAND there in stead of crashing and then being rescued!