Rongorongo
Rongorongo is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto-writing. The objects are mostly tablets shaped from irregular pieces of wood, sometimes driftwood, but include a chieftain’s staff, a bird-man statuette, and two reimiro ornaments. In the Rapa Nui language it means ‘to recite, to declaim, to chant out’
About Rongorongo in brief
Rongorongo is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto-writing. Numerous attempts at decipherment have been made, none successfully. The objects are mostly tablets shaped from irregular pieces of wood, sometimes driftwood, but include a chieftain’s staff, a bird-man statuette, and two reimiro ornaments. Oral history suggests that only a small elite was ever literate and that the tablets were sacred. In the Rapa Nui language it means ‘to recite, to declaim, to chant out’ In the 1880s, a group of elders invented a derivative’script’ called taꞌu with which to decorate carvings in order to increase their trading value. It is a primitive imitation of rongsorongo. The forms of the glyphs are standardized contours of living organisms and geometric designs about one centimeter high. In a third of the tablets, the lines of text are inscribed in shallow fluting carved into the wood. The glyphs themselves are outlines of human, animal, plant, artifact and geometric forms. Many of the human and animal figures, such as glyphs 200 and 280, have characteristic protuberances on each side of the head, possibly representing eyes. The texts are written in alternating directions, a system called reverse boustrophedon. The original name—or perhaps description—of the script is said to have been kohau motu mo rongoronga, ‘lines incised for chanting out’ There are also said to be more specific names for the texts based on their topic.
The names may be descriptive or indicate where the object is kept, as in the Oar, the Snuffbox, the Small Santiago Tablet, and the Santiago Staff. All surviving surviving texts are in wood rather than stone due to the scarcity of wood on the island. According to tradition, tablets were made of toromliac wood. However, Oracliac examined seven objects and determined that all were instead made from Pacific rosewood ; the same identification had been made for tablet M in 1934. This 15-meter tree, known as makoi in Rapanui, is used for sacred groves and groves throughout eastern Polynesia and was evidently brought to the island by the first settlers, not the native Orliacli Nacli, who had not yet established that the wood was not native to the region and had used it for other purposes. The tablets are thought that irregular and often blemished Pieces of wood were used in their entirety rather than squared off squared off stone. Except for a few possible glyphs in a few texts, all surviving texts in wood are inscribed with the word ‘Mamari’ or ‘Makari’ Some authors have understood the ta달u to refer to a separate form of writing distinct from rong orongo. An alleged third script, the mama or va�OOeva�oe described in some mid-twentieth-century publications, was an early twentieth-century geometric invention.
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This page is based on the article Rongorongo published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 31, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
