The fragmentary text W 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, also known as Honolulu tablet 4 or Honolulu 445, is one of two dozen surviving rongorongo texts.

Other names

W 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 RR14.

Location

Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu. Catalog # B.00445.

Physical description

A small corroded fragment, 6.7 × 2.3 × 0.7 cm, of unknown wood, not fluted.

Provenance

Lieutenant F. M. Symonds of the USS Mohican

USS Mohican (1883)

The second USS Mohican was a steam sloop of war in the United States Navy. She was named for the Mohican tribe.-Construction:Mohican was laid down by Mare Island Navy Yard, California, 4 September 1872, funded with the repair money allocated for the first ; launched 27 December 1883; sponsored by...

acquired this fragment in 1886 while surveying Easter Island. He does not appear to have reported it, and later that year gave it to a Mrs Walter M. Gifford (the Bishop Museum writes "Giffard") of Honolulu. The Gifford family donated it to the Bishop Museum in 1914 (Fischer 1997).

Text

Some fourteen "very small, chubby glyphs" are visible on the four lines of side a, of which only three are complete. Side b is unknown since the fragment is kept in a protective glass case, and evidently no one has ever investigated the reverse (Fischer 1997).