Rongorongo text P
Encyclopedia
Text P 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 larger of two tablets in St Petersburg and therefore also known as the Great or Large St Petersburg tablet, is one of two dozen surviving rongorongo texts, and one of three recording the so-called 'Great Tradition'.

Other names

P 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 RR18.

Location

Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, St Petersburg. Catalog # 403/13-2.

There are reproductions in the Musée de l'Homme
Musée de l'Homme
The Musée de l'Homme was created in 1937 by Paul Rivet for the 1937 Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. It is the descendant of the Musée d'Ethnographie du Trocadéro, founded in 1878...

,
Paris; the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin; and the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...

, New York.

Physical description

A well preserved unfluted tablet with a "panhandle
Panhandle
A panhandle is an informal geographic term for an elongated arm-like protrusion of a geo-political entity, such as a subnational entity or a sovereign state.-Term:...

", 63 × 15 or 10 × 2 cm, made of Podocarpus latifolius
Podocarpus latifolius
Podocarpus latifolius is a large evergreen tree up to 35 m high and 3 m trunk diameter, in the conifer family Podocarpaceae; it is the type species of the genus Podocarpus....

wood (Orliac 2007). There are traces of clay on the tablet, but it does not obscure the glyphs as in tablet Q. Eight lashing holes have been bored along the long edge and another at the end.

Provenance

Fischer (1997) believes that the Large Santiago tablet was likely found by Father Roussel
Hippolyte Roussel
Hippolyte Roussel was a French priest and missionary to Polynesia, a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.In 1854 he was sent to evangelize in the Tuamotus and Mangareva in the Gambier Islands...

 in early 1870, perhaps in Taura Renga house at ‘Orongo
Orongo
‘Orongo is a stone village and ceremonial centre at the southwestern tip of Rapa Nui . The first half of the ceremonial village's 53 stone masonry houses were investigated and restored in 1974 by American archaeologist William Mulloy...

. It was given to the O'Higgins in that year to forward it via 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...

 to Bishop Jaussen
Florentin-Étienne Jaussen
Monsignor Florentin-Étienne Jaussen was the first bishop of Tahiti and the man who brought the rongorongo script of Easter Island to the world's attention. In the 1860s Bishop Jaussen was responsible for ending the slave raids on Easter Island.Jaussen was born in Rocles, France...

 in Tahiti. Jaussen presented this piece to the young Russian anthropologist Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai
Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai
Nicholay Miklouho-Maclay was a Russian ethnologist, anthropologist and biologist of Ukrainian, German and Polish descent.- Ancestry and early years :...

 when the latter visited the Ha‘apape Mission from the Vityaz on 24 July 1871. On 30 December 1888, the day before his death, Miklukho-Maklai gave his collection, with both St Petersburg tablets, to the Russian Geographical Society
Russian Geographical Society
The Russian Geographical Society is a learned society, founded on 6 August 1845 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.-Imperial Geographical Society:Prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, it was known as the Imperial Russian Geographical Society....

 in St Petersburg, which permanently lent them to the museum in 1891.

The nine lashing holes suggest that P had been made into a plank for a canoe, perhaps the same canoe as tablet S
Rongorongo text S
Text S of the rongorongo corpus, the larger of two tablets in Washington and therefore also known as the Great or Large Washington tablet, is one of two dozen surviving rongorongo texts.-Other names:...

. Fischer believes it had probably been initially made from "a damaged and reshapen European or American oar", like tablets A
Rongorongo text A
Text A of the rongorongo corpus, also known as Tahua, is one of two dozen surviving rongorongo texts.-Other names:A is the standard designation, from Barthel...

and V
Rongorongo text V
Text V of the rongorongo corpus, the Honolulu oar, also known as Honolulu tablet 3 or Honolulu 3622, may be one of two dozen surviving rongorongo texts.-Other names:...

.

Contents

Barthel (1958) called tablets H
Rongorongo text H
Text H of the rongorongo corpus, the larger of two tablets located in Santiago and therefore also known as the Great or Large Santiago tablet, is one of two dozen surviving rongorongo texts, and one of three recording the so-called 'Great Tradition'.-Other names:H is the standard designation, from...

, P, and Q the "Grand Tradition" because of their extensive paraphrased sequences. Since many of these appear on the same lines, Fischer believes one served in part, directly or indirectly, as the model for the others, and that they may have had a common geographic origin.

Text

There are eleven lines on each side for a total of ~ 1,540 glyphs. Line v2 was carved into an existing indentation. A hair-line has been cut along the narrow end with what Fischer believes to have been obsidian. The reading order of the parallel texts H, P, and Q is well established.

Because of the odd number of lines on the recto, the verso starts at the indentation on the top. Fischer reports that several glyphs were traced out with an obsidian flake, without being finished with a shark tooth.

Barthel
Fischer

External links

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