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The rongorongo corpus is preserved on twenty-six wooden objects, each identified by a single-letter code in Thomas Barthel's nomenclature system.

They are oblong tablets, except for item I (Santiago Staff), which is a chieftain's baton, items J and L (Reimiro 1 and 2), which are breast ornaments, and item X (Tangata Manu), a sculpture of a man with a bird's head. Item Y is a snuff box assembled from three pieces of a wooden tablet, each cut in two, lengthwise.

Item E (Tablet Keiti) was destroyed in a fire at Louvain Catholic University and only a copy remains.

Length, width and thickness are expressed in millimetres. The number of lines of signs is given for each side; thus on the Tahua tablet: eight lines on each side; on the Great Vienna Tablet: nine lines on one side, no writing on the other. The number of signs should be taken as very approximate, as there is no consensus between authors as to what constitutes a single sign or a compound sign, and whether compound signs should be counted as one or as the number of their main elements.

Links lead to tracings or transliterations of the texts on each object, produced from Barthel's "Corpus Inscriptionum Paschalis Insulae". Links to photographs are in square brackets. All links are local.

When this site opened, in March 1999, the corpus was presented in the form of the hieroglyphic texts (tracings) separate from their transliterations. Later, it seemed advisable to change the layout so that transliterations would appear under the corresponding hieroglyphic signs. That proved a tedious task. It was then partly automated, so that what took half a day now takes only an hour or so. This page provides an explanation of the layout.