In 1864, missionaries recorded Rapa Nui’s Rongorongo glyphs on wooden tablets. 162 years later, the writing system remains undeciphered despite generations of scholarly study

A wooden tablet carrying the mysterious Rongorongo script may be much older than previously thought. Radiocarbon testing found that one tablet from Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, was made from wood felled between 1493 and 1509. That is more than 200 years before Europeans first arrived on the island in the 1720s.

The finding does not prove that Rongorongo was created before European contact. But researchers say it gives important support to the idea that the islanders may have developed the writing system independently.

Could Rongorongo have existed before Europeans arrived?

Rongorongo is one of the great mysteries of Rapa Nui. The script was first documented by Europeans in 1864, when missionary Eugene Eyraud described wooden tablets and staffs covered with what he called “sorts of hieroglyphic characters.”


The writing system was no longer in use by the end of the 19th century and has never been deciphered.

Only around two dozen, or fewer than 30, objects carrying Rongorongo inscriptions survive today. They are held in collections around the world.

A recent study by researchers connected to the ERC INSCRIBE and ERC Resolution projects examined four Rongorongo tablets kept in Rome. The objects were taken from Rapa Nui during the 19th century.

Three were made from wood felled during the 18th or 19th centuries. The fourth was different.

Radiocarbon dating placed the felling of its wood between 1493 and 1509. That puts the material more than two centuries before European arrival.

The researchers also identified the wood as Podocarpus latifolius, a species native to southeastern Africa and South America that has never grown on Rapa Nui. They believe the wood may have reached the island as driftwood.

What makes the ancient tablet so unusual?

There is still an important question surrounding the dating. The wood could have been much older when someone carved the Rongorongo inscription into it. In theory, the tablet might have been made from old wood stored for a long period.

Silvia Ferrara, a philologist at the University of Bologna and lead author of the research, considers that possibility less likely because it would mean the wood had been kept for more than 200 years before the inscription was made.

The researchers instead believe the engraving and the wood are more likely to be close in age. Even so, the study does not offer conclusive proof that Rongorongo existed before European contact.

The argument becomes more interesting because the glyphs do not resemble European letters. Researchers say the closest known parallels are motifs found in ancient rock art on Rapa Nui itself.

Ferrara told Live Science that this supports the idea that the islanders could have developed the script independently. “Historically speaking,” says Ferrara, “if you borrow a writing system, then you keep it as close to the original as possible.”

The script itself remains difficult to understand. Researchers still do not know exactly what kind of writing system Rongorongo was. It could have been a fully developed writing system or something closer to proto-writing. That uncertainty has kept the mystery alive for more than a century.



The latest research, published in Scientific Reports, does not decipher a single Rongorongo glyph. Instead, it adds an important piece to the story of when the script may have emerged.

If future testing confirms that Rongorongo existed before Europeans reached Rapa Nui, it could become one of only a small number of writing systems believed to have developed independently, alongside those associated with the Sumerians, Egyptians and Chinese.

Rafal Wieczorek, a chemist at the University of Warsaw who was not involved in the study, described the results to Live Science as “a great development.”

He said, “I actually believe that rongorongo is one of the very few independent inventions of writing in human history, like the writing of the Sumerians, the Egyptians and the Chinese.”

But he also stressed the need for more evidence: “But belief is a different thing than hard data … so ideally, we would like to test all the tablets.”

Source: World Archaeology

FAQs

How old is the Rongorongo tablet?
Its wood dates to between 1493 and 1509.

Has Rongorongo been deciphered?
No. The script remains undeciphered.