Opposing Viewpoints: Five Mysterious Places and Structures in the World

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious …the fundamental emotions which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” So said by Albert Einstein. Arguably true, but how are we going to experience something mysterious for our simple and lowly selves? Thinking of our very own existence and beholding and scanning across the boundless skies inlayed with countless glorious stars are mysteries we all perhaps have pondered upon. Other many things that offer us something to profoundly ponder for life are the mysterious places and/or structures built in prehistoric times. Famous of which are well-considered below.

Easter Island

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Easter Island is part of Chile but is situated 3,600 km (2,237 mi) from mainland South America, becoming one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the world. It was discovered by European explorers more than 300 years ago in its extremely isolated geographical location-Southern Pacific Ocean.

The discovery of a vanished civilization has evoked much controversy among archeologists, the curios people and even among common folks. Those archeological human statues, called moai (shown above) are indicative of a relatively advance and complex culture that ever developed in the Neolithic society. Today part of the island, named Rap Nui National Park is preserved as one of the world’s heritage parks.

Archeologist argued that their stone-working skills and method of writing were comparatively far superior to any other Polynesian culture. For more than one thousand years, this highly developed society flourished before its eventual collapse. Why this ancient, yet remarkable civilization did went away? What drove its population to extinction? These are the concomitant questions that consequently surfaced shortly after this baffling archaeological discovery. A host of intellectuals would later offer their own line of reasoning, while the theory put forward by the American evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond has been receiving much wider audience. Diamond’s thesis can be summarized as follows: a gruesome social chaos happened in the island after a few centuries of settlement. The inhabitants went into destroying their forests, degraded the quality of agriculture of their land, exterminated their plants and caused their animals to extinction. They eventually lodged wars against each other and practiced cannibalism that eventually led to the extinction of their race. Thus, the desolation of the island when the Europeans first set foot on this tiny piece of land hundreds of years after the disappearance of the once prosperous and flourishing civilization.