Text L of the

rongorongo Rongorongo (Rapa Nui: ) is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that appears to be writing or proto-writing. Numerous attempts at decipherment have been made, with none being successful. Although some c ...

corpus, also known as (London) ''reimiro'' 2, is the smaller of two inscribed ''

reimiro A ''reimiro'' is a crescent-shaped pectoral ornament once worn by the people of Easter Island. The name comes from the Rapanui ('stern' or 'prow') and ('boat'). Thus the crescent represents a Polynesian canoe. Each side of the ''reimiro'' ende ...

'' in London and one of two dozen surviving rongorongo texts.

Other names

L is the standard designation, from Barthel (1958). Fischer (1997) refers to it as RR21.

Location

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, London. Catalog
AOA 9295

Description

A prototypical two-headed Rapanui ''

,'' or ceremonial crescent-shaped

gorget A gorget , from the French ' meaning throat, was a band of linen wrapped around a woman's neck and head in the medieval period or the lower part of a simple chaperon hood. The term later described a steel or leather collar to protect the thro ...

epaulet Epaulette (; also spelled epaulet) is a type of ornamental shoulder piece or decoration used as insignia of rank by armed forces and other organizations. Flexible metal epaulettes (usually made from brass) are referred to as ''shoulder scales'' ...

, in excellent condition, 41.2 × 10.5 cm, made of Pacific rosewood (Orliac 2005). The two holes top center were used to hang it from clothing. A line of glyphs has been cut along the length of the bottom edge on the front. Fischer reports from her notes that

Katherine Routledge Katherine Maria Routledge (), née Pease (11 August 1866 – 13 December 1935), was an English archaeologist and anthropologist who, in 1914, initiated and carried out much of the first true survey of Easter Island. She was the second child o ...

showed a photo of this object to two Rapanui elders in July 1914. They said it was a woman's ''rei miro,'' worn five to a side.

Provenance

''Reimiro'' 2 was sold by Reverend William Sparrow Simpson, a collector who had never been to Easter Island, to the trustees of Christy Collection in January 1875. The trustees transferred it along with the rest of the Christy ethnological collection to the

in 1883. It is not known where Simpson acquired the object, but its history may be similar to that of ''rei miro'' 1. Inscribed ''reimiro'' were evidently rare: An elder told Routledge that he had never seen a ''reimiro'' with glyphs. Despite its poor provenance, there are no doubts as to its authenticity.

Text

There is one line of about 50 glyphs, ending in half a dozen ''komari'' (vulvas). Fischer makes the enigmatic comment "Any evidence in natural light of seemingly 'effaced' glyphs (palimpsests) disappears in artificial light." ;Barthel ;Fischer

Image gallery

Image:Rongorongo L rei miro 2.jpg, Visible inscription

References

* BARTHEL, Thomas S. 1958. ''Grundlagen zur Entzifferung der Osterinselschrift'' (Bases for the Decipherment of the Easter Island Script). Hamburg : Cram, de Gruyter. * FISCHER, Steven Roger. 1997. ''RongoRongo, the Easter Island Script: History, Traditions, Texts.'' Oxford and N.Y.: Oxford University Press. * ORLIAC, Catherine. 2005. "The Rongorongo Tablets from Easter Island: Botanical Identification and ¹⁴C Dating." ''Archaeology in Oceania'' 40.3.

External links

Barthel's coding of text L
{{Rongorongo Rongorongo inscriptions