Rapa Nui

:01:12

Fifteen hundred years ago a small band
of Polynesian voyagers discovered

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...one of the most remote
islands on earth.

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And began a mystery
that still endures.

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The band and their chief,
Hotu Matu'a,

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Settled the lush oasis, and were
lost to the world for the next 1,000 years.

:01:34

European sailors rediscovered the
island and named it Easter Island.

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The Europeans found a barren,
treeless place,

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Inhabited by numerous warring clans

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And the gigantic stone statues
built over centuries

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As a form of ancestor worship.

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Hotu Matu'a's descendants called the island
Navel of the World, Rapa Nui.

:01:56

And centuries of isolation
had convinced them

:02:00

They were the only people
left on earth.

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Still, no one knows why the
statues were so large,

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Or why work on them suddenly ceased.

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But legend speaks of a terrible
conflict between the clans

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A few decades before the Europeans