Wooden tablets discovered on Easter Island may predate the European colonization of the region, researchers revealed in early February.
Fewer than 30 wooden tablets with an undeciphered script called “Rongorongo” were found on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), four of which were removed by Catholic missionaries in 1869. according to In a study published in the journal Nature. The wooden tablets were analyzed using radiocarbon dating and one of them was found to predate European settlement on the island, the study said.
Easter Island was “discovered” by Europeans in the 1720s and completely destroyed within a few years, the authors said. Although the ancient Moai statues are still preserved, much of the island's ancient writing and culture has been lost to the violence of history.
Rongorongo is known as a systemized script only in Polynesia. It consists of pictographs carved on wooden boards and artifacts such as carved statues of Reimiro and Tangata Manu. Historians have determined that the language existed before the arrival of Europeans in the 1700s.#archaeology pic.twitter.com/L0SsdqFolz
— Archaeo – History (@archeohistories) July 26, 2021
Here's the problem. Just because this piece of wood predates European exploration of the island, doesn't mean the writing carved into it is accurate. However, the fact that the letters are not yet decipherable is significant. “If rongorongo existed before outside travelers, it could be a new and modern writing invention in human history,” the study's authors argued. (Related: Suspected arsonist causes 'irreparable' damage to Easter Island's Rapa Nui National Park)
“This is a great development,” said Rafal Wieczorek, another Rongorongo researcher who was not involved in the study. live science.
“I actually believe Rongorongo is one of the few independent writing inventions in human history, along with the Sumerian, Egyptian, and Chinese scripts,” he added. “But belief and hard data are two different things…so ideally we would like to test every tablet.”
Further research is needed to accurately determine the era in which it was written and the words themselves. But the data so far seems to suggest that there are still hidden secrets in the history of the ancient world, waiting to be revealed.
