          National Geographic Photo of the Day: Easter Island

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Photo of the Day   December 8, 2006    PREVIOUS [4]   |  NEXT [5]
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Easter Island, 1979 Photograph by Gordon Gahan Giant stone moai stand
on Easter Island&#039s stony slopes. Earlier explorers believed the
stone statues were worshipped as gods by native Polynesians, but
Captain James Cook and his men speculated in 1774 that they were
constructed to honor ancestors, a view still held by many today.

(Text adapted from and photograph from the National Geographic book
Voyages to Paradise: Exploring in the Wake of Captain Cook, 1981)
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