WHY IS IT CALLED EASTER ISLAND?
The speck in the Pacific has other names, including Te Pito o Te Henua (the navel of the world) and Mata Ki Te Rangi (the eyes that look up to the sky). It has also become known as Rapa Nui, after the people who lived there and carved, around a millennium ago, its instantly recognisable giant stone heads. But the island’s most often used name was devised by Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen, the European who discovered it on 5 April 1722. Knowing he had found something unique, he decided to name the island after that momentous day – which happened to be Easter Sunday.
NOT JUST A PRETTY FACE Many of the 887 moai statues have bodies; some even have legs