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| - Since the idea was proposed by Butinov and Knorozov in the 1950s, perhaps a majority of researchers have taken the line that rongorongo is not true writing but proto-writing, an ideographic- and rebus-based mnemonic device. If this is the case, it is unlikely to ever be solved. For those who believed it to be writing, most assumed it was logographic, some that it was syllabic or a mixed system. Statistically it appears to be compatible with neither a pure logography nor a pure syllabary. The contents are unknown, and have been speculated to cover genealogy, navigation, astronomy, or agriculture. (Pozdniakov and Pozdniakov 2007)
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| abstract
| - Since the idea was proposed by Butinov and Knorozov in the 1950s, perhaps a majority of researchers have taken the line that rongorongo is not true writing but proto-writing, an ideographic- and rebus-based mnemonic device. If this is the case, it is unlikely to ever be solved. For those who believed it to be writing, most assumed it was logographic, some that it was syllabic or a mixed system. Statistically it appears to be compatible with neither a pure logography nor a pure syllabary. The contents are unknown, and have been speculated to cover genealogy, navigation, astronomy, or agriculture. (Pozdniakov and Pozdniakov 2007) Authentic rongorongo texts are written in alternating directions, a system called boustrophedon. They are mostly tablets made from irregular pieces of wood, sometimes driftwood, but the longest text is inscribed on a chieftain's staff. In the case of the tablets, the lines of text are often inscribed in shallow fluting carved into the wood. The glyphs themselves have a characteristic outline appearance. They include human, animal, plant, artifact, and geometric forms; human and animal figures with protuberances on each side of the head (possibly representing ears or eyes), such as Image:RR 200.png and Image:RR 280.png, are perhaps unique to rongorongo. Oral history suggests that only a small elite were ever literate, and that the tablets may have been considered sacred. (Fischer 1997) Some two dozen wooden objects bearing rongorongo inscriptions, some heavily weathered, burned, or otherwise damaged, were collected in the late nineteenth century and are now scattered in museums and private collections. None remain on Easter Island. The objects are now known by a single uppercase letter, such as tablet C, or by a name, such as the Mamari Tablet. All are accessible to researchers except for the fragment F, which is in a private collection, and the two tablets in the Smithsonian, R and S. (Fischer 1997)
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