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Ana Kai Tangata
Ana Kai Tangata (officially in Rapanui language, rapanui: Ana Kai Taŋata) is a sea cave in Easter Island that contains rock art of terns on its ceiling. It is located near Mataveri International Airport, Mataveri, and the cave opens up directly to the incoming surf. The cave is accessible and one of the most visited caves in Easter Island. Physical description The cave itself is made of volcanic rock that had been eroded away by the ocean.Lee, G., & Horley, P. (2013). The paintings of Ana Kai Tangata cave, Easter Island (Rapa Nui). Rapa Nui Journal, 27(2), 11–32 It is 10 meters high, 5 meters wide, and 15 meters deep. Although it opens out to the ocean, the cave is above the high tide line allowing for accessibility. Irregular boulders cover the floor of the cave, and the ceiling of the cave is domed and has good Acoustics, acoustic properties. Cave paintings The cave paintings are in red, white, and black and are mostly of the ''Manutara'' or the sooty tern. This bird was co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acoustics
Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics technology may be called an acoustical engineer. The application of acoustics is present in almost all aspects of modern society with the most obvious being the audio and noise control industries. Hearing is one of the most crucial means of survival in the animal world and speech is one of the most distinctive characteristics of human development and culture. Accordingly, the science of acoustics spreads across many facets of human society—music, medicine, architecture, industrial production, warfare and more. Likewise, animal species such as songbirds and frogs use sound and hearing as a key element of mating rituals or for marking territories. Art, craft, science and technology h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orongo
Orongo is a stone village and ceremonial center at the southwestern tip of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). It consists of a collection of low, sod-covered, windowless, round-walled buildings with even lower doors positioned on the high south-westerly tip of the large volcanic caldera called Rano Kau. Below Orongo on one side a 300-meter barren cliff face drops down to the ocean; on the other, a more gentle but still very steep grassy slope leads down to a freshwater marsh inside the high caldera. The first half of the ceremonial village's 53 stone masonry houses was investigated and restored in 1974, with the remainder completed in 1976 and subsequently investigated in 1985 and again in 1995. Orongo now has World Heritage status as part of the Rapa Nui National Park. History Between the 18th and mid-19th centuries Orongo was the centre of a birdman cult whose defining ritual was an annual race to bring the first ''manutara'' (sooty tern) egg back undamaged from the nearby islet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rano Kau
Rano Kau is a tall dormant volcano that forms the southwestern headland of Easter Island, a Chilean island in the Pacific Ocean. It was formed of basaltic lava flows in the Pleistocene with its youngest rocks dated at between 150,000 and 210,000 years ago. The crater Rano Kau has a crater lake which is one of the island's only three natural bodies of fresh water. The lake is located approximately above sea level, but is more than below the highest of the crater's ridges. The volcanic cone is largely surrounded by water, and much of it has been eroded back to form high sea cliffs which at one point (''te kari kari'') have started to bite into the crater wall. The inside walls of the crater are sloped at an angle of between 65° (steepest, near the crest) and 45° (gentlest, at the lake shore). From the ruins of the ceremonial village of Orongo the cliff face drops to the southwest at an angle of 50° to the sea shore some below. On its northern side, the volcano s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rapa Nui Language
Rapa Nui or Rapanui (, Rapa Nui: , Spanish: ), also known as Pascuan () or ''Pascuense'', is an Eastern Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family. It is spoken on the island of Rapa Nui, also known as ''Easter Island''. The island is home to a population of just under 6,000 and is a special territory of Chile. According to census data, there are 9,399 people (on both the island and the Chilean mainland) who identify as ethnically Rapa Nui. Census data does not exist on the primary known and spoken languages among these people. In 2008, the number of fluent speakers was reported as low as 800. Rapa Nui is a minority language and many of its adult speakers also speak Spanish. Most Rapa Nui children now grow up speaking Spanish and those who do learn Rapa Nui begin learning it later in life. History The Rapa Nui language is isolated within Eastern Polynesian, which also includes the Marquesic and Tahitic languages. Within Eastern Polynesian, it is closest to M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ahu Vinapu
Ahu Vinapu is an archaeological site on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in Eastern Polynesia. The ceremonial center of Vinapu includes one of the larger ahu on Rapa Nui. The ahu exhibits extraordinary stonemasonry consisting of large, carefully fitted slabs of basalt. The American archaeologist, William Mulloy investigated the site in 1958. Thor Heyerdahl believed that the accurately fitted stonework showed contact with Peru, especially in comparison to the stone walls of Sacsayhuaman. The stone wall faces towards sunrise at Winter Solstice. Vinapu is part of the Rapa Nui National Park, which UNESCO has declared a World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for .... References ;Bibliography * Mulloy, W.T. 1959. The Ceremonial Center of Vinapu. ''Actas del XXXII ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polynesian Navigation
Polynesian navigation or Polynesian wayfinding was used for thousands of years to enable long voyages across thousands of kilometers of the open Pacific Ocean. Polynesians made contact with nearly every island within the vast Polynesian Triangle, using outrigger canoes or double-hulled canoes. The double-hulled canoes were two large hulls, equal in length, and lashed side by side. The space between the paralleled canoes allowed for storage of food, hunting materials, and nets when embarking on long voyages. Polynesian navigators used wayfinding techniques such as the navigation by the stars, and observations of birds, ocean swells, and wind patterns, and relied on a large body of knowledge from oral tradition. Navigators travelled to small inhabited islands using wayfinding techniques and knowledge passed by oral tradition from master to apprentice, often in the form of song. Generally, each island maintained a guild of navigators who had very high status; in times of famine or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tangata Manu
The ''Tangata manu'' ("bird-man," from "human beings" + "bird") was the winner of a traditional competition on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The ritual was an annual competition to collect the first sooty tern () egg of the season from the islet of Motu Nui, swim back to Rapa Nui and climb the sea cliff of Rano Kau to the clifftop village of Orongo. Myth In the Rapa Nui mythology, the deity Make-make was the chief god of the birdman cult, and the other three deities associated with it were Hawa-tuu-take-take (the Chief of the eggs, a male god), his wife Vie Hoa, and another female deity named Vie Kenatea. Each of these four also had a servant god who was associated with them. The names of all eight would be chanted by contestants during the various rituals preceding the egg hunt. Birdman religion Contestants, all men of importance on the island, were revealed in dreams by ''ivi-attuas'' or prophets (who might be either men or women). Each contestant would then appoint one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sooty Tern
The sooty tern (''Onychoprion fuscatus'') is a seabird in the family Laridae. It is a bird of the tropical oceans, returning to land only to breed on islands throughout the equatorial zone. Taxonomy The sooty tern was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1766 as ''Sterna fuscata'', bearing this name for many years until the genus ''Sterna'' was split up. It is now known as ''Onychoprion fuscatus''. The genus name is from ancient Greek , "claw" or "nail", and , "saw". The specific ''fuscatus'' is Latin for "dark". Colloquially, it is known as the wideawake tern or just wideawake. This refers to the incessant calls produced by a colony of these birds, as does the Hawaiian name ''ʻewa ʻewa'' which roughly means " cacophony". In most of Polynesia its name is ''manutara'' or similar – literally "tern-bird", though it might be better rendered in English as "the tern" or "common tern". This refers to the fact that wherever Polynesian seafarers went on their long voyages, they usua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables can be used for any given locale to find the predicted times and amplitude (or "tidal range"). The predictions are influenced by many factors including the alignment of the Sun and Moon, the phase and amplitude of the tide (pattern of tides in the deep ocean), the amphidromic systems of the oceans, and the shape of the coastline and near-shore bathymetry (see ''Timing''). They are however only predictions, the actual time and height of the tide is affected by wind and atmospheric pressure. Many shorelines experience semi-diurnal tides—two nearly equal high and low tides each day. Other locations have a diurnal tide—one high and low tide each day. A "mixed tide"—two uneven magnitude tides a day—is a third regular category. Tide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volcanic Rock
Volcanic rock (often shortened to volcanics in scientific contexts) is a rock formed from lava erupted from a volcano. In other words, it differs from other igneous rock by being of volcanic origin. Like all rock types, the concept of volcanic rock is artificial, and in nature volcanic rocks grade into hypabyssal and metamorphic rocks and constitute an important element of some sediments and sedimentary rocks. For these reasons, in geology, volcanics and shallow hypabyssal rocks are not always treated as distinct. In the context of Precambrian shield geology, the term "volcanic" is often applied to what are strictly metavolcanic rocks. Volcanic rocks and sediment that form from magma erupted into the air are called "volcaniclastics," and these are technically sedimentary rocks. Volcanic rocks are among the most common rock types on Earth's surface, particularly in the oceans. On land, they are very common at plate boundaries and in flood basalt provinces. It has been est ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
