The Minoans, considered by many as the first European civilisation, flourished in the islands of the Aegean in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE before eventually disappearing around 1100 BC.  A sophisticated people, both artistically and technologically, they are described as the first literate society in Europe, having left behind an unmatched legacy of unique art and architecture, incredible labyrinth-like palace complexes and fine artefacts. Their mercantile culture led to their presiding over a vast trade network and the grandeur of their civilisation is immortalised in the myth of King Minos and the Minotaur trapped beneath his palace at Knossos. But despite an extended period of cultural growth, Minoan civilisation is abruptly ended around 1550 BC as a result of a powerful explosive event.

Hundreds of years ago, sea-faring people called the Rapa Nui flourished on a small island at the easternmost edge of the Polynesian Islands – the Easter Island. When Europeans explorers first arrived in 1722, they found a tropical paradise, a land safeguarded by mysterious stone figures known as the moai. Hundreds of these statues dot the land to this day, facing inwards on the island, as if protecting its people.

Scholars and archaeologists have spent centuries sifting through discoveries, trying to solve the mystery of the Rapa Nui. They soon discovered that the outbreak of a major conflict had devastating effects for the population on the Easter Island. Suddenly after, the Rapa Nui further succumbed to a series of deadly events that saw the entire social order of the island collapse and their culture, lost to history.