Hello fellow Steemians, how's your weekend? In my previous post about Easter Island, I made a brief introduction about the Polynesian Culture Triangle, the Rapa Nui history and traveling to Easter Island. I also shared my experience of visiting the only tropical beach Anakena. Today I'm going to show you the best spot on the island for watching sunset - Ahu Akivi.
From the picture below(shot from my DK travel book of Chile, also shown in my previous post), you can see that the overall shape of Easter Island is triangular. The main and only village Hanga Roa is located at the southwest. The photos in this post were all taken at the site number 3 - Ahu Akivi, which was a short motor scooter ride from our homestay in Hanga Roa.
大家好！我在上篇关于复活节岛的第一篇文章里简要介绍了波利尼西亚文化大三角的历史地理、复活节岛的社会发展和旅游概况，也带各位去看了岛上唯一的热带珊瑚沙滩 — 阿纳凯纳。今天这篇，请跟我一起来探索岛上观日落的最佳地点 — 阿基围。
从下面的地图（拍于我的DK智利旅游指南书）上可以看出，复活节岛大致呈三角形。主要的人口聚居地汉加努阿处于岛的西南。这篇文章里所有的照片都拍摄于下图中的景点三 — 阿基围。从这里到汉加努阿我们住的民宿，骑踏板摩托车很快就可以到达。
Ahu(ceremonial platform) Akivi was set up around the 16th century and it’s aligned in an east–west direction with 7 Moais(the giant monolithic stone statue) of equal size and shape, which are all 4.9m tall and 18 tons of weight. It is surrounded by agricultural land and rolling hills, as you can see from my photos here:
Ahu Akivi is quite unique on Easter Island, since the 7 identical statues here all face towards the sea, while almost all other Moai statues on the island face the village as a protective mana. Mana is believed to be the supernatural power in Polynesian culture and is part of contemporary Pacific Islander culture. The early Rapa Nui people consider Moai statues as their ancestors or Tupuna. Tupuna were seen as the reincarnation of their clan leaders or prestigious kings. The Moais were erected to protect the Rapa Nui people and to bring prosperity to their clan and village.
Legend has it that the Rapa Nui people positioned the 7 Ahu Akivi statues towards the Pacific Ocean to propitiate the sea to help the navigators. According to Wikipedia:
However, according to an oral tradition, Hotu Matu’s priest had a dream in which the King's soul flew across the ocean when the Rapa Nui island was seen by him. He then sent scouts navigating across the sea to locate the island and to find people to settle there. Seven of these scouts stayed back on the island waiting for the king to arrive. These seven are represented by the seven stone statues erected in their honour.
Another unique feature of Ahu Akivi is that it is a sacred celestial observatory. The 7 Moais here face exactly the sunset during the Spring Equinox, and have their backs right to the sunrise during the Autumn Equinox. And that middle point also aligns with the Moon. You can only find such an astronomically precise feature at this particular location on Easter Island. Amazing, isn't it?
That's why we rode to this spot in the later afternoon, as we thought to watch the sunset here over the 7 Moais and the Pacific Ocean should be a good choice. And it was! Look at the photos I took during the golden hour. It's not the most stunning sunset I have ever seen, and these photos are not my best sunset photos neither. But a beautiful sunset on Easter Island, one of the most remote places in the middle of the ocean; in a relatively rainier season; and this special location on the island, all made it pretty epic. =)
So that's it for today's sharing about Ahu Akivi. I hope you like it! =) Please tell me what you think in the comments. I will show you more of my experiences on this enchanting island in my future posts. Stay tuned and see you next time! :D
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!steemitworldmap -27.115154 lat -109.395015 long Ahu Akivi Easter Island d3scr