Text O of the rongorongo

Rongorongo

Rongorongo is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto-writing. It cannot be read despite numerous attempts at decipherment. Although some calendrical and what might prove to be genealogical information has been identified, not even...

corpus, the Berlin tablet, is one of two dozen surviving rongorongo texts.

Other names

O is the standard designation, from Barthel

Thomas Barthel

Thomas Sylvester Barthel was a German ethnologist and epigrapher who is best known for cataloguing the undeciphered rongorongo script of Easter Island....

 (1958). Fischer (1997) refers to it as RR22.

It is also known as the Boomerang because of its bent shape.

Location

Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. Catalog # VI 4878 (Inventory # I 3/83).

Physical description

A fluted piece of gnarled driftwood

Driftwood

Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea or river by the action of winds, tides, waves or man. It is a form of marine debris or tidewrack....

, 103 × 12.5/10 × 5.2 cm, this is the most massive rongorongo artifact to survive, as well as the most fragile. It was heavily weathered before inscription, and later it was burnt in five places and lay on side b in damp soil, probably in a cave. Fischer (1997) reports that bits flake off upon handling, and in parts even the fluting is no longer distinguishable.

Fischer (1997) believes that it was once a 'marvelous' piece, a fluted version of the Santiago Staff

Rongorongo text I

Text I of the rongorongo corpus, also known as the Santiago Staff, is the longest of the two dozen surviving rongorongo texts. Statistical analysis suggests that its contents are distinct.-Other names:...

.

Provenance

In 1882 an archaeological expedition aboard the SMS Hyäne visited Easter Island, and captain Wilhelm Geiseler purchased two tablets. The purchase had been arranged by Schlubach, the German consul in Valparaíso

Valparaíso

Valparaíso is a city and commune of Chile, center of its third largest conurbation and one of the country's most important seaports and an increasing cultural center in the Southwest Pacific hemisphere. The city is the capital of the Valparaíso Province and the Valparaíso Region...

, at the request of Adolf Bastian

Adolf Bastian

Adolf Bastian was a 19th century polymath best remembered for his contributions to the development of ethnography and the development of anthropology as a discipline...

, the director of the Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin. The tablets were given to the uncle of Schlubach's wife, Alexander Salmon, Jr

Alexander Salmon, Jr

Alexander Ariipaea Vehiaitipare Salmon Jr. was the English-Jewish-Tahitian co-owner of the Maison Brander plantations on Tahiti and de facto ruler of Easter Island from 1878 till its cession to Chile in 1888.-Family:...

, who then shipped three tablets, M, N, and O, to Schlubach. When Schlubach returned to Hamburg in 1883, he sent just this one tablet to Bastian.

Text

There are seven visible lines of glyphs on side a, with traces of eleven or twelve (if the edge was used) altogether; on side b there are traces of fluting for thirteen lines, or perhaps fourteen if the edge was used.

No glyphs can be identified on side b (Fischer 1997:497). On side a, Fischer counts ~ 187 glyphs from personal examination and an 1883 sketch by Bastian, many of which cannot be reliably identified. He estimates the original text held 1,200 to 1,300 glyphs. He hopes that a 'substantial amount' of text may be recovered through computer enhancement.

Fischer

Part of side a, as traced by Fischer. The lines have been rearranged to reflect English reading order: Oa5 at top, Oa9 at bottom. (The first two legible lines are missing from this image.)

Barthel