Introduction

The purpose of this website is to serve as a resource for the study of the Rongorongo (the kohau motu mo rongorongo), a writing system which flourished (briefly?) on Easter Island. Despite occasional claims to the contrary, it remains undeciphered. For those interested in learning more about the basics and history of this system, I recommend Wikipedia, or Part I of Rongorongo by S. Fischer (Oxford University Press).

The Corpus

While the number of items containing inscriptions was at one time quite extensive, only 25 items with inscriptions are known to remain today. These items are distributed in museums across the world, and many are extremely fragile. The texts of these items have been made accessible to us through the work of Thomas Barthel in his dissertation “Grundlagen zur Entzifferung der Osterinselschrift,” as well as Fischer’s book. These works are some of the primary sources for the material found on this site. (Copyright notice.)

Previously the most reliable online resource for material relating to rongorongo, was the website rongorongo.org. This site was discontinued, however a copy of the site (last update 2005/02/27) can be found here.

A schematic map of how this site was developed and how the information of the parts link up.

A link to the XML pages.

A link to the Fischer svg pages.

A new section with a discussion of errors in the corpus.

The Musée du Quai Branly displays a section of Tablet Q (verso, lines 3 & 4). This tablet contains part of the parallel text. The museum contains only one original item (the Snuff Box), but the largest collection of reproduced items all in one place.

Quai Branly Click for larger image.