Hello.
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Difficulties in deciphering Rongorongo script of Easter Island
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(1) The symbols are complex and baffling.
(2) There are only 25 surviving inscriptions.
(3) When the first attempts to decipher them were made in the 1870s,
native islanders were, for the most part, unable to assist in
deciphering them.
(4) The script is totally unique and unrelated to any other known script.
sources:
"Rongorongo--which means 'chants' or 'recitations' in the language of
Rapanui, the modern name for Easter Island--is a tougher proposition
than Etruscan to decipher. Although the language of the inscriptions
is probably similar to Rapanui, a Polynesian language, the signs are
complex and baffling; there are only some twenty-five surviving
inscriptions (though some are quite long), written on wood with a
shark's tooth or obsidian flake; and there are no contiguous
historical cultures, like that of ancient Greece and Rome, to provide
helpful clues.
The age of rongorongo is also puzzling. Rapanui legend has it that
the writing was brought to the island by boat from Polynesia when the
island was settled, but it could be as recent as the late eighteenth
century. The first European visitors to the island, a Dutch fleet
which landed in 1722, saw no evidence of writing.
...
Despite the efforts of the bishop of Tahiti in the 1870s, no islander
could be found to read the writing meaningfully; and ever since then
scholars have been at odds on how to interpret the inscriptions."
From:
Deciphering history: Andrew Robinson looks at some linguistic puzzles
still facing historians.
History Today, August, 2002, by Andrew Robinson
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1373/8_52/90164034/p5/article.jhtml?term=
RONGORONGO
The Easter Island Tablets
by Jacques B.M. Guy
http://www.netaxs.com/%7Etrance/rongo2.html
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Progress made in deciphering Rongorongo script of Easter Island
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1868
Tepano Jaussen, Bishop of Tahiti, receives a small board covered in
hieroglyphs as a gift from native Easter Islanders. Jaussen locates a
laborer from Easter Island named Metoro who claims to be able to read
the script. Metoro's reading makes little sense, but Jaussen takes
copious notes as Metoro chants the script.
See:
JAUSSEN LIST
http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/jaussen.html
1940
Three students in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) Russia, discover that
three known tablets contain substantially the same script with only
slight variations.
See:
COMPARISON OF RONGO RONGO TABLETS
http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/hpqa.html
1956
Two Russian researchers, Nikolai Butinov and Yuri Knorozov, propose
that a sequence of characters on one of the tablets represents a
genealogy. See:
"A Genealogy on the Small Santiago Tablet?"
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8389/geneal.htm
1958-1965
German cryptologist Thomas Barthel partially deciphers one tablet and
shows that it contains a lunar calendar.
see:
The Lunar Calendar of Tablet Mamari
http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/mamari.html
1995-1997
Researcher Steven Roger Fischer claims to have deciphered the script.
He publishes his work in several journals and produces two books on
the subject. Fischer's work receives much publicity.
See:
Easter Island's Rongorongo Script by Steven Roger Fischer, Ph.D.
http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/fischer.html
Rongorongo: The Easter Island Script: History, Traditions, Texts
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0198237103/
Glyphbreaker by Steven Roger Fischer
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0387982418/
1996-present
Several critics reject Fischer's claimed decipherment.
See:
'Fischer's Folly: A Letter to "New Scientist" '
http://www.parascope.com/articles/1296/easter5.htm
Easter Island Hieroglyphics: The Rights & Wrongs of Reading Rongorongo
by Jacques B.M. Guy
http://www.parascope.com/articles/1296/easter.htm
RONGORONGO
The Easter Island Tablets
by Jacques B.M. Guy
http://www.netaxs.com/%7Etrance/rongo2.html
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More information:
"The Rongorongo of Easter Island"
http://www.rongorongo.org/
RONGORONGO, Easter Island Writing
http://www.openweb.ru/rongo/
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search strategy:
rongor script, "easter island"
script, deciphered, "easter island"
rongorongo, script
I hope this helps. |
