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A mysterious wooden artifact is kept in the archives of one of the religious orders in Rome. The strange signs carved on its surface may be the writing of a lost civilization. This is an extraordinary object, and we are only beginning to understand its true essence. Thanks to the latest technology, we are finally shedding light on it. It is one of the few artifacts found on a remote piece of land in the Pacific Ocean called Rapa Nui, or Easter Island. This strange wooden plaque is 12 inches long, 8 inches wide, and an inch thick, and every corner of it is covered in interesting markings.
There are about 120 different symbols, images of things we encounter in everyday life: birds, animals, plants, people. Are these symbols a forgotten language? What do they mean? Why did this lost civilization create it? The remote island of Rapa Nui is located 2,300 miles west of Chile in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Rapa Nui is a really small island. It's actually a speck in the ocean, only 14 miles long and 7 miles wide, but it's incredibly important.
The island's most famous inhabitants are the Moai, giant stone heads that dot the harsh landscape. There are about 900 of them, and they are scattered throughout the island. They have sparked heated debate ever since Europeans first set foot on the island: what are they and why were they created But these incredible sights are not the only mystery of the island. For 150 years, these strange symbols have also puzzled experts. They look a bit like Egyptian hieroglyphs They are a bit similar to Mayan writing, but in terms of presentation and language, it seems like something completely new, quite unique. The Mamari Tablet contains over a thousand carved signs, using
about 120 unique symbols-glyphs. They depict various objects: fish, plants, local animals. This is one of only 26 wooden relics covered with glyphs that have survived from Rapa Nui. How did it end up in the Roman Catholic archives? Recent research suggests that people first reached Rapa Nui between 1100 and 1300 AD. It was full of trees that could be used to make ropes, and the sap to make sugar and wine, as firewood or building materials.
The land was covered in ferns, and they even had at least one large crater with fresh water. And archaeological finds indicate that they ate porpoises, fish, and seabirds. The early settlers prospered for a time, and we know this because we have evidence that the population grew rapidly to at least 7,000, and at its peak, as many as 20,000 The new arrivals carved giant moai from volcanic rock. And they carved the "Mamari" sign out of Pacific rosewood. But Rapa Nui is too small an island for such a large and growing population So they used the trees at an alarming rate. And, unfortunately, they brought with them rats that eagerly ate the tree seeds
It was the perfect storm that truly led to the complete deforestation of the island. Wood had become a fairly rare material at that time So you would use any piece of this beautiful, shiny Pacific rosewood with care, and you certainly wouldn't cut off any unnecessary parts from it This rarity suggests that the tablet was very important to the local residents. The high value of wood is almost the same as writing on gold. When the first Europeans arrived on the island in 1722, they described a grassy plain without a single tree or shrub over 3 meters tall. Experts believe their arrival likely marked the beginning of the end of the Rapa Nui civilization.
It seems that after the arrival of Europeans, new moai were no longer built. And this seems to be due to the fact that Europeans brought Christianity. They converted the islanders to their faith. So their previous customs and beliefs came to be considered idolatry. This explains why the "Mamari" tablet is one of the few surviving wooden artifacts The islanders adopted Christianity. Most of these tablets were burned. And the "Mamari" tablet itself survived only because a Roman Catholic missionary took it to an archive in Europe. The Mamari tablet could give us a unique insight into the lost civilization that created it.
But is this even writing? How do we determine what is writing? One of the things we pay attention to is the way the glyphs are placed. They don't look like a random comic book. They are arranged in clear rows, directed in a certain direction, with clear repeating groups. And the structure of these lines and groups is very familiar to linguists. One of the things we've been able to figure out from these tablets is the way the writing is presented, which looks like what's called a reverse boustrophedon. In reverse boustrophedon, the first line is read, then the tablet is turned 180° to read the
next line, which is effectively turned upside down and backwards. And this is what indicates that these records are actually writing. If so, it is the only known writing system in this part of the world until the 20th century. So what is written there? For decades, experts have been trying to decipher these strange symbols, known as rongo-rongo. The first step is to try to figure out the type of writing system. There are two main possibilities: alphabets, as in English, and logograms-symbols that represent an entire word, as in Chinese.
Most alphabets have a relatively small number of characters. Even in one of the largest, the Russian one, there are only 33 of them. But the Mamari tablet contains up to 120 unique characters. That's too much for the alphabet. So could this be a logographic system One of the problems with this theory is that we only have 120 such different characters, while, for example, in Chinese there are 20,000 of them So they are not enough for them to be able to denote words. The third option is that rongo -rongo is a syllabic script, where the signs denote syllables, such as "do", "re", " mi". But there is a problem with this theory too.
Japanese katakana is a modern syllabary alphabet. It has 48 characters. With 120 characters, Rongo seems too bulky. Therefore, newer theories suggest that it may be a hybrid. There is still debate about whether the signs represent a whole word or syllables. At the moment, the prevailing theory is a combination of both options. So, some pictograms may represent a word, while others may represent sounds or parts of words. However, experts are increasingly convinced that this is indeed writing. We are learning more and more about how rongo-rongo works, but it doesn't help us decipher or translate the language.
Maybe because it's not exactly the writing we're used to today.
