Rongorongo of Rapa Nui
Rongorongo de Rapa Nui
- Date
- before 1860 (datación incierta) · confidence low
- Place
- Hanga Roa, Easter Island, Valparaíso, Chile
- Credited to
- Rapa Nui
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
A corpus of about 26 wooden inscriptions with glyphs representing figures and signs, discovered by missionaries in 1864 and undeciphered. If it is writing, it would be one of the few systems developed independently in Oceania.
It is disputed whether it is full writing or a mnemonic system, and whether it predates European arrival (1722) or was inspired by contact with the Spanish signatures of 1770; almost no radiocarbon dates exist (one tablet gives a date in the 15th-16th centuries).
What it led to
- attempts at decipherment (Barthel, Fischer, Pozdniakov)
- debate on writing as an independent invention
- an example of lost knowledge after the slave raids of 1862-63