A wooden tablet engraved with “RongoRongo” characters, the indecipherable Easter Island writing, has been discovered to date from a period before the arrival of Europeans, strengthening the hypothesis that this writing system may have been developed independently.
Easter Island writing could be older than thought
According to recent research published in the journal Scientific Reports, the wood of one of the four RongoRongo tablets preserved in a collection in Rome dates back to a period between 1493 and 1509, more than two centuries before Jacob Roggeveen, navigator Dutchman, arrived at Easter Island and baptized it with that name in 1722.
Dr. Silvia Ferrara, lead author of the study and a philologist at the University of Bologna in Italy, said these findings support the theory that the RongoRongo was an original development of the inhabitants of Rapa Nui, rather than an influence from the European writing that they may have witnessed.
Rapa Nui, located almost 3,800 kilometers from the coast of Chile, was colonized between the years 1150 and 1280 by human groups from other Polynesian islands. Although Europeans arrived in the 18th century, it was not until 1864 that the existence of Rapa Nui writing based on glyphs was recognized, which is now found on just 27 wooden objects distributed among various museums and institutions around the world. These tablets were collected by Catholic missionaries in 1869 and sent to the bishop of Tahiti, who transported them to Europe.
Radiocarbon dating
Radiocarbon dating carried out on small samples of the four Rongo Rongo tablets found in the possession of a congregation of Catholic nuns in Rome indicates that three of them were made from trees felled in the 18th or 19th centuries. However, the radiocarbon date of the fourth suggests that it comes from a tree felled in the 15th century, before the arrival of Europeans to Rapa Nui, suggesting that the Rongo Rongo script was already in use at that time.
The four Rongo Rongo tablets in Rome were collected on Rapa Nui in the 19th century by Roman Catholic missionaries. Only two others had been radiocarbon dated before this latest study.
Dr. Ferrara noted that the inscription on the oldest tablet was probably made around the same time the wood was obtained, as the possibility that the wood was stored for more than 200 years before use seems unlikely.
Rapa Nui writing, a unique system in the world
Additionally, the new analysis indicates that the wood on the oldest tablet does not come from a tree species native to Rapa Nui, suggesting it could have been a piece of driftwood.
Rapa Nui is known for its archaeological mysteries, such as the moai, the gigantic stone statues representing ancestors, and the Rongo Rongo has been the subject of many unsuccessful attempts to decipher it. More than 400 different glyphs have been recognized among the approximately 15,000 characters that have survived, and none correspond to any other known writing system.
Rafal Wieczorek, a chemist at the University of Warsaw who was not involved in the most recent study but who has researched other RongoRongo tablets, said that although these findings are not conclusive, they are a strong indication of a writing system that may have been independently created.
Source: LiveScience