Rongorongo ( / ˈ r ɒ ŋ ɡ oʊ ˈ r ɒ ŋ ɡ oʊ / or / ˈ r ɒ ŋ oʊ ˈ r ɒ ŋ oʊ / ; Rapa Nui : roŋoroŋo [ ˈɾoŋoˈɾoŋo ] ) is a system of symbols discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island. These symbols look like writing or early forms of writing. Many people have tried to understand the meaning of the symbols, but no one has been able to do so successfully. Some information related to calendars and possibly family histories has been found, but the symbols themselves cannot be read. If Rongorongo is proven to be a writing system and an independent creation, it would be one of the few such systems in human history.
In the late 19th century, about 24 wooden items with Rongorongo symbols were collected. These items are now in museums and private collections, but none remain on Easter Island. Most of the items are wooden tablets made from irregular pieces of wood, sometimes driftwood. Other items include a chieftain’s staff, a statue called a tangata manu, and two ornaments called reimiro. A few rock carvings may also include short Rongorongo symbols. Oral traditions suggest that only a small group of people could read the symbols, and the tablets were considered sacred.
Authentic Rongorongo texts are written in alternating directions, a system called reverse boustrophedon. On about one-third of the tablets, the text is carved into shallow grooves in the wood. The symbols are outlines of human, animal, plant, object, and geometric shapes. Many human and animal figures, such as symbols 200 and 280, have bumps on each side of the head, which may represent eyes.
Each text is usually identified by a single uppercase letter and a name, such as Tablet C, the Mamari Tablet. The names (which can vary) may describe the object or indicate where it is kept, such as the Oar, the Snuffbox, the Small Santiago Tablet, and the Santiago Staff.
Etymology and variant names
Rongorongo is the name used today for the inscriptions. In the Rapa Nui language, "roŋoroŋo" or "rogorogo" means "to recite, to declaim, to chant out."
The original name or description of the script was said to be "kōhau motu mo roŋoroŋo," meaning "lines incised for chanting out." This was later shortened to "kōhau roŋoroŋo" or "lines [for] chanting out." Some texts had more specific names based on their content. For example, "kōhau taꞌu" ("lines of years") were records of events, "kōhau ika" ("lines of fishes") listed people who died in war (the word "ika," meaning "fish," was used in the same way as "war casualty"), and "kōhau raŋa" ("lines of fugitives") listed people who fled during wars.
Some writers believed that "taꞌu" in "kōhau taꞌu" referred to a different writing system separate from roŋoroŋo. Barthel noted that "The Islanders had another writing (called the 'taꞌu script') that recorded their annals and other non-religious matters, but this has disappeared." However, Steven Roger Fischer wrote that "the taꞌu was originally a type of roŋoroŋo inscription. In the 1880s, a group of elders created a simplified version of roŋoroŋo called 'taꞌu' to decorate carvings and increase their value. This was not a true script but an imitation." A third script, called "mama" or "vaꞌevaꞌe," described in some mid-20th-century writings, was "a geometric design created in the early 20th century."
Form and construction
The shapes of the symbols are standard designs of living things and geometric patterns, each about one centimeter tall. The wooden tablets are not regular in shape, and some have grooves (tablets B, E, G, H, O, Q, and possibly T). The symbols are carved into shallow channels that run along the length of the tablets, as shown in the image of tablet G. It is believed that the islanders used irregular or damaged pieces of wood because wood was very scarce on the island.
Most surviving texts are written on wood, except for a few carved into stone (called petroglyphs) and one on barkcloth. Traditions say the tablets were made from toromiro wood. However, in 2005, Catherine Orliac studied seven tablets (B, C, G, H, K, Q, and reimiro L) using special tools and found they were made from Pacific rosewood (Thespesia populnea), a tree known as makoꞌi in Rapanui. This tree grows in eastern Polynesia and was brought to Easter Island by early settlers. Later, in 2007, Orliac found that tablets N, P, and S were made from South African yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius), which arrived with Western explorers. Some tablets, like P and S, were made from parts of Western boats and later used as parts of a Rapanui canoe, showing the tablets had little value to the islanders by that time. Some texts, like tablet O, were carved on twisted driftwood. The scarcity of wood may have influenced the script’s structure, such as the use of many connected symbols and a style that makes analysis difficult.
William J. Thomson once reported a calabash (a type of gourd) covered with symbols like those on the tablets, but it is now lost. A fake piece of barkcloth called the Raŋitoki fragment was falsely claimed to be decorated with rongorongo writing.
According to oral traditions, only expert scribes used wood because it was valuable, while students wrote on banana leaves. Thomas Barthel, a German researcher, believed the script began with incisions on banana leaves or their stalks using a bone stylus. He found that sap from the cuts on leaves made the symbols visible, but the leaves dried and became brittle over time. Barthel thought the fluted surface of the tablets may have been inspired by the veins on banana leaves. He noted that the height of the writing lines on tablets matches the spacing of veins on banana leaves and stems.
The rongorongo script was written in a special way: starting at the bottom left of a tablet, reading left to right, then flipping the tablet upside down to read the next line. If a tablet has an odd number of lines on one side, the second side starts at the top left, and the writing direction changes to top to bottom. Larger tablets might have been read without flipping if the reader could read upside down.
Clues like twisted symbols, squashed shapes at the end of lines, and matching passages on other tablets helped determine the writing direction.
Oral traditions say scribes used obsidian flakes or shark teeth to carve the tablets. The symbols are usually deep, smooth cuts, but some have thin, hair-like lines. Some researchers, including Barthel, believe these thin lines were made with obsidian first, then the symbols were deepened with worn shark teeth. Other tablets, like N, show signs of being carved with sharpened bone instead of shark teeth. Tablet N also has detailed work done with obsidian flakes. Some tablets appear to have been cut with steel blades, which were available after Spanish contact, but this raises questions about their authenticity.
The symbols are stylized images of humans, animals, plants, and geometric shapes, often combined into compound designs. Most symbols with heads are shown facing up, either directly forward or to the right, following the writing direction. It is unclear what meaning might be attached to symbols shown upside down or facing left. Some symbols have side projections that may represent eyes or ears. Birds, especially frigatebirds (linked to the god Makemake), are common. Other symbols resemble fish, insects, or petroglyphs found on the island.
Origin
Oral tradition says that either Hotu Matuꞌa or Tuꞌu ko Iho, the legendary leaders of Rapa Nui, brought 67 tablets from their homeland. These same leaders are also credited with bringing native plants like the toromiro. However, no homeland is likely to have had a writing tradition in Polynesia or South America. This suggests that rongorongo was developed on Rapa Nui itself. By the 1870s, few Rapanui people remained on the island, and most could not read the glyphs. This implies that only a small group, likely the ruling families and priests, were ever literate. These groups were later captured during Peruvian slaving raids or died from diseases that followed.
Little direct dating of rongorongo has been done. The clearing of forests for farming on Easter Island, and thus the first settlements, began around 1200. This means rongorongo could not have been created before the 13th century. Tablet Q (Small Saint Petersburg) is the only item carbon-dated, but it only shows it is older than 1680. Glyph 67 is thought to represent the extinct Easter Island palm, which disappeared from the island’s pollen record around 1650. This suggests the script is at least that old.
Texts A, P, and V are dated to the 18th or 19th century because they were inscribed on European oars. Orliac (2005) argues that the wood for tablet C (Mamari) came from a tree about 15 meters tall, but Easter Island had no such trees after the 17th century. Charcoal analysis shows the forest disappeared by the first half of the 17th century. Jakob Roggeveen, who discovered Easter Island in 1722, described it as "destitute of large trees." In 1770, Felipe González de Ahedo wrote that no trees were large enough to make planks wider than six inches. Forster, with James Cook’s 1774 expedition, noted that no trees on the island exceeded 10 feet in height.
These methods date the wood, not the inscriptions themselves. Pacific rosewood is not durable and likely did not survive long in Easter Island’s climate.
The tablets preserved in Rome were carbon-dated in a 2024 study published in Nature. Most dated to the 19th century, but one was securely dated to the mid-15th century. This suggests rongorongo may have been used before European contact. However, the dating refers to the wooden tablet, not the writing on it, which could be younger.
In 1770, Spain annexed Easter Island under Captain González de Ahedo. A treaty was signed by an unknown number of chiefs, who marked it with their own script (a reproduction is shown).
Some scholars suggest rongorongo may have been inspired by this visit and the treaty. They note that no explorer reported the script until 1864, and the marks on the treaty do not resemble rongorongo. These researchers propose that the idea of writing was shared through a process called trans-cultural diffusion, which inspired the Rapanui to create their own system. If true, rongorongo was developed, used, and forgotten within less than 100 years.
Examples of writing diffusion include Sequoyah’s Cherokee syllabary and Uyaquk’s Yugtun script, which involved more contact than a single treaty. The glyphs on the treaty may have been simple rongorongo, as expected for Rapanui representatives using unfamiliar tools like pens. Early explorers may not have seen the script because it was taboo, a restriction that faded as the society collapsed after Peruvian raids and epidemics. Orliac notes that Tablet C predates the Spanish visit by at least a century.
Easter Island has the most petroglyphs in Polynesia. Nearly every suitable surface has carvings, including house walls and some moꞌai statues and their fallen topknots. Over 4,000 glyphs have been cataloged, some in bas-relief or sunken-relief, and some painted red and white. Designs include bird-man figures at Orongo, faces of the deity Makemake, marine animals, roosters, canoes, and over 500 komari (vulvas). Petroglyphs are often accompanied by carved divots in the rock. Some bas-relief birdmen were carved over simpler outlines and then over with komari. Though undatable, some petroglyphs are partially covered by pre-colonial buildings, suggesting they are old.
Some petroglyphs resemble rongorongo symbols, such as a double-headed frigatebird on a moꞌai topknot, which also appears on tablets. McLaughlin (2004) compares these to petroglyphs studied by Georgia Lee (1992). However, few petroglyphs show text-like sequences or ligatures, leading some to argue rongorongo is recent, possibly inspired by petroglyphs or using them as logograms. The most complex possible petroglyph rongorongo is a short sequence on a cave wall, but it may not be authentic.
Historical record
Eugène Eyraud, a religious worker from the Congrégation de Picpus, arrived on Easter Island on January 2, 1864, 24 days after leaving Valparaíso. He stayed on the island for nine months, sharing religious teachings with the people. He wrote about his time there, including his discovery of wooden tablets covered in symbols:
In every home, people had wooden tablets or sticks with strange symbols carved into them. These symbols showed animals not found on the island, and the islanders used sharp stones to make them. Each symbol had a name, but the islanders seemed uninterested in the tablets. This made Eyraud think the symbols were old writing that the people no longer understood.
Eyraud did not mention the tablets again in his report, and no one paid much attention to his discovery. He left Easter Island on October 11, 1864, very sick. In 1865, he became a priest and returned to Easter Island in 1866. He died of tuberculosis in August 1868 at age 48.
In 1868, the Bishop of Tahiti, Florentin-Étienne "Tepano" Jaussen, received a gift from new Catholic followers on Easter Island. It was a long cord of human hair wrapped around a small wooden board with symbols. Surprised by this, the bishop asked Father Hippolyte Roussel to collect the tablets and find people who could read them. Roussel found only a few, and the islanders could not agree on how to interpret the symbols.
Eyraud had seen hundreds of tablets four years earlier. What happened to the missing ones is unclear. He noted that the islanders showed little interest in them. Stéphen Chauvet wrote that:
The Bishop asked a Rapanui elder, Ouroupano Hinapote, who said he had studied the symbols and could carve them using a shark’s tooth. He claimed no one else on the island knew how to read the symbols because Peruvians had killed the wise men, and the tablets were no longer important. The islanders burned them for firewood or used them to make fishing lines. A. Pinart saw some tablets in 1877 but could not take them because the islanders used them as fishing line reels.
— Chauvet 1935:381–382
Orliac observed that a deep black mark on tablet H, about 10 centimeters long, was caused by rubbing a fire stick, showing the tablet was used for making fire. Tablets S and P were cut into pieces for a canoe, matching the story of a man named Niari who used old tablets to build a boat.
European diseases and raids by Peruvian slavers, including a major attack in 1862 and a smallpox outbreak, reduced the Rapa Nui population to fewer than 200 by the 1870s. This likely caused the loss of literacy by the time Eyraud discovered the tablets in 1864.
In 1868, Jaussen recovered only a few tablets. Three more were found by Captain Gana of the Chilean ship O'Higgins in 1870. In the 1950s, Barthel found decayed parts of six tablets in caves, but no symbols could be saved.
Of the 26 known surviving texts, only about half are in good condition and confirmed as genuine.
In 1914–1915, British archaeologist Katherine Routledge led an expedition to Rapa Nui with her husband to study the island’s art, customs, and writing. She interviewed two elderly men, Kapiera and a leper named Tomenika, who claimed to know something about rongorongo. Their answers often contradicted each other. Routledge concluded that rongorongo was not a language but a type of memory aid used by priest-scribes. The texts, she believed, were kept in special houses and were considered sacred. Later records, like those by Métraux (1940), showed that much of what Routledge noted had been forgotten, and oral traditions reflected influences from published stories.
Corpus
There are 26 rongorongo texts, each labeled with a letter of the alphabet. These texts are written on wooden objects, such as tablets, and include between 2 and 2,320 simple symbols or parts of more complex symbols, totaling over 15,000 symbols. Most of the objects are long, flat wooden tablets. Exceptions include I, a staff possibly used by a chieftain called the Santiago Staff; J and L, which are carved on pectoral ornaments worn by leaders; X, which is on parts of a statue called a tangata manu; and Y, a European snuff box made from pieces of a rongorongo tablet. These items were valued works of art and were given individual names, like jade ornaments in New Zealand. Two tablets, C and S, have known histories before European missionaries arrived, but others may be just as old. Some short symbols or groups of symbols may also be rongorongo.
Barthel labeled 24 texts he believed were genuine with letters of the alphabet. Two more texts have been added to the list since then. Each side of a tablet is marked with "r" (recto) or "v" (verso) if the reading order is known, followed by the line number. For example, Pr2 refers to item P, the Great Saint Petersburg Tablet, recto side, second line. If the reading order is unclear, sides are labeled "a" and "b." The six sides of the Snuff Box are labeled a to f. Most publications use Barthel's system, though a book by Fischer uses a different numbering method.
Simple symbols have been found on some stone and wooden items, but many are believed to be forgeries made for early tourists. Some of the 26 wooden texts are questionable due to unclear origins (X, Y, Z), poor craftsmanship (F, K, V, W, Y, Z), or being carved with a steel blade (K, V, Y). These may be real but should not be trusted for early attempts to decode the script. Text Z is not boustrophedon, a style of writing that goes back and forth, which is common in forgeries, but it might be a palimpsest, a text written over an older, now unreadable one.
Other short, unrecorded texts may be rongorongo. Fischer noted that some statues have rongorongo or similar symbols on their crowns. For example, a compound symbol is found on a moꞌai pakapaka statue. Many human skulls have the "fish" symbol (700), which might mean "war casualty" or "fish." Some tattoos recorded by early visitors might be single rongorongo symbols, but they are hard to confirm because they are isolated and pictorial. In 2018, an ink-on-barkcloth piece from 1869, called the "Raŋitoki fragment," was found and considered possibly genuine.
Barthel’s 1958 work remains the most complete reference to rongorongo. He assigned three-digit numbers to each symbol or group of similar symbols he thought were variations. The first digit (hundreds place) ranges from 0 to 7 and helps classify the symbol’s head or overall shape. The other digits help identify details, such as arms, legs, or wings. For example, symbols 206, 306, 406, 506, and 606 all have a downward-pointing wing or arm on the left and a raised hand with four fingers on the right.
Barthel’s system has some inconsistencies, but it is the only effective way to categorize rongorongo symbols. He claimed there were 120 unique symbols, with the rest being variations or combinations. This was not published, but other scholars, like Pozdniakov & Pozdniakov (2007), found similar numbers.
For nearly a century, only a few rongorongo texts were published. In 1875, Rudolf Philippi, director of the Chilean National Museum, published the Santiago Staff. In 1892, Carroll published part of the Oar. Most texts remained unknown to researchers until 1958, when Barthel published detailed drawings of almost all known texts in his book Grundlagen zur Entzifferung der Osterinselschrift ("Bases for the Decipherment of the Easter Island Script"). This work is still the main reference for rongorongo. Barthel’s drawings were copied from rubbings, ensuring accuracy.
Fischer (1997) published new drawings that include symbols scored with obsidian but not finished with a shark tooth,
Decipherment
Rongorongo is a script that has not yet been fully understood. Many people have made imaginative ideas about what it might mean, but only a small part of one tablet is known to relate to a lunar calendar on Rapa Nui and possibly a family history. Most of the writings remain unclear. There are three major challenges to understanding rongorongo, assuming it is true writing: the limited number of remaining texts, the lack of visual clues or context to help interpret them, and the difficulty in studying the Old Rapa Nui language, which is not well known today because modern Rapa Nui has been greatly influenced by Tahitian.
Most experts believe rongorongo is not true writing but a simpler system, such as a tool to help remember information about family, dances, navigation, stars, or farming. For example, the Atlas of Languages states, "It was probably used as a memory aid or for decorative purposes, not for recording the Rapanui language of the islanders." If this is true, it may never be fully understood. Those who think it is writing debate whether it is based on pictures or sounds, but it seems to fit neither style completely.
Computer encoding
The Unicode Consortium once temporarily assigned the range 1CA80–1CDBF on the Supplementary Multilingual Plane for the rongorongo script. However, this temporary assignment was later removed. A proposal to include the script in the encoding was created by Michael Everson.