Anakena is a white coral sand beach in

Rapa Nui National Park Rapa Nui National Park ( es, Parque nacional Rapa Nui) is a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located on Easter Island, Chile. Rapa Nui is the Polynesian name of Easter Island; its Spanish name is Isla de Pascua. The island is located ...

Rapa Nui Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly ...

(

Easter Island Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...

), a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

an island in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. Anakena has two ahus; Ahu-Ature has a single

moai Moai or moʻai ( ; es, moái; rap, moʻai, , statue) are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island, Rapa Nui in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main mo ...

and Ahu Nao-Nao has seven, two of which have deteriorated. It also has a palm grove and a car park. Anakena is unusual for Easter Island in that it is one of only two small sandy beaches in an otherwise rocky coastline.

Legend and History

According to island oral traditions, Anakena was the landing place of

Hotu Matu'a Hotu may refer to: * Hotu Matu'a, legendary first settler of Easter Island * The Yellow River Map The Yellow River Map, Scheme, or Diagram, also known by its Chinese name as the Hetu, is an ancient Chinese diagram that appears in myths conc ...

, a Polynesian chief who led a two-canoe settlement party here and founded the first settlement on Rapa Nui. It was later a ceremonial centre where islanders read from

Rongorongo Rongorongo (Rapa Nui: ) is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that appears to be writing or proto-writing. Numerous attempts at decipherment have been made, with none being successful. Although some c ...

boards. Anakena featured in the

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 ...

or Birdman cult as in years when the new Birdman was from the western clans, he would end his celebrations at Anakena.

Archaeology

Modern archaeology has found traces of human settlement at Anakena as early as 1200 CE, though linguistic and other analysis indicates a range of dates for first settlement of Rapa Nui between 300 and 1200 CE. Anakena has been the site of several archaeological digs including those of

Katherine Routledge Katherine Maria Routledge (), née Pease (11 August 1866 – 13 December 1935), was an English archaeologist and anthropologist who, in 1914, initiated and carried out much of the first true survey of Easter Island. She was the second child o ...

in 1914 and both

William Mulloy William Thomas Mulloy Jr. (May 3, 1917 – March 25, 1978) was an American anthropologist. While his early research established him as a formidable scholar and skillful fieldwork supervisor in the province of Plains Indians, North American Plains ...

and

Thor Heyerdahl Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany and geography. Heyerdahl is notable for his ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000&nb ...

in the 1950s, and both of its ahus have been restored.

Popular culture

Anakena was used as one of the film locations for the 1994 Kevin Reynolds film ''

''.

External links

PBS Nova: Anakena

References

{{Authority control Geography of Easter Island Archaeological sites in Chile Archaeological sites in Easter Island Outdoor sculptures Megalithic monuments Beaches of Chile Tourist attractions in Valparaíso Region Landforms of Valparaíso Region Landforms of Easter Island Beaches of Oceania