{"it":{"id":"W17A02","kind":"artifact","sub":"Authenticated","name":"Rongorongo text I (Santiago Staff)","place":"Ica","mat":"wood (species unknown)","dims":"L 126 cm (Fischer) / 126.6 cm (Bettocchi); diam 5.7-6.4 cm","loc":"Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Santiago","acc":"Catalog 5.499 (316); Barthel I; Fischer RR10","find":"Acquired on Easter Island; commander of the O'Higgins asked islanders its significance…","flag":"genuine (Rapa Nui)","src":[191,498,565],"lat":-14.065,"lon":-75.729,"tags":[],"sum":"The Santiago Staff, about 126 cm long, is covered in rongorongo, the longest surviving text in the script.","why":"It may be one of the few writing systems humans invented from nothing, and its longest text is still unread.","nfacts":4,"nsrc":3,"yt":"Run sign statistics on the staff.","rel":["W17A01"],"hook":"The Santiago Staff carries about 2,320 rongorongo glyphs, and no one can read a line of them."},"S":{"191":["Wikipedia Rongorongo text I","https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rongorongo_text_I&oldid=1376616655"],"498":["Wikipedia: Rongorongo text I","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rongorongo_text_I"],"565":["Rongorongo corpus: Santiago Staff (text I)","https://www.kohaumotu.org/rongorongo_org/corpus/i.html"]},"rec":{"id":"W17A02","alias":[],"ms":[{"a":"length","v":"126","u":"cm","unc":"","by":"Fischer","yr":"","m":"published description","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W17M007","s":["W17S06"],"c":"Wikipedia Rongorongo text I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rongorongo_text_I&oldid=1376616655"},{"a":"length","v":"126.6","u":"cm","unc":"","by":"Bettocchi","yr":"","m":"published description","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W17M008","s":["W17S06"],"c":"Wikipedia Rongorongo text I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rongorongo_text_I&oldid=1376616655"},{"a":"diameter (ends)","v":"5.7; 6.4","u":"cm","unc":"","by":"Fischer","yr":"","m":"published description","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W17M009","s":["W17S06"],"c":"Wikipedia Rongorongo text I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rongorongo_text_I&oldid=1376616655"},{"a":"circumference (ends)","v":"17.1; 20.0","u":"cm","unc":"","by":"Bettocchi","yr":"","m":"published description","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W17M010","s":["W17S06"],"c":"Wikipedia Rongorongo text I","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rongorongo_text_I&oldid=1376616655"}],"lab":[{"k":"Materials","v":"wood, species unknown","b":"S","s":["W17S06"],"url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rongorongo_text_I&oldid=1376616655"}],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[],"dat":[],"aa":[],"ac":[],"me":[],"ci":[],"cq":[],"sd":[],"art":{"claimed_anomaly":"Longest undeciphered rongorongo text","mainstream_reading":"Longest of ~two dozen texts; contents statistically distinct","provenance_flag":"genuine (Rapa Nui)","current_location":"Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Santiago","find_circumstances":"Acquired on Easter Island; commander of the O'Higgins asked islanders its significance (Philippi 1875)","claimant":"fringe decipherment lore","status":"unresolved","dimensions":"L 126 cm (Fischer) / 126.6 cm (Bettocchi); diam 5.7-6.4 cm","material":"wood (species unknown)","date":"","culture":"","museum_accession":"Catalog 5.499 (316); Barthel I; Fischer RR10","b":"S","s":["W17S06"]},"sub":[],"src":[{"id":"W17S06","t":"Wikipedia Rongorongo text I","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rongorongo_text_I&oldid=1376616655"},{"id":null,"t":"Wikipedia: Rongorongo text I","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rongorongo_text_I"},{"id":"S2566","t":"Rongorongo corpus: Santiago Staff (text I)","u":"https://www.kohaumotu.org/rongorongo_org/corpus/i.html"},{"id":"VW17A02-4","t":"The invention of writing on Rapa Nui (Easter Island). New radiocarbon dates on the Rongorongo script | Scientific Reports","u":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-53063-7"}],"sum":"A wooden staff 126 cm long, kept at the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santiago, Chile, carries about 2,320 glyphs by Steven Roger Fischer's count. It is the longest of fewer than 30 surviving inscribed objects in rongorongo, the script of Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, and the only inscribed staff left.\n\nIt left the island in 1870, presented to officers of the Chilean corvette O'Higgins by the French colonist Dutrou-Bornier, who said it had belonged to a chief. A year earlier, in 1869, missionaries gathered four inscribed objects, now in Rome, and sent them to Tepano Jaussen, the Bishop of Tahiti.\n\nThe hard question is age. In 2024 a team led by Silvia Ferrara radiocarbon-dated four tablets in Rome. Three came out in the 19th century, but one, Tablet D or \"Échancrée\", dated to 1493 to 1509 cal AD, centuries before Europeans reached the island in the 1720s. Its wood, Podocarpus latifolia, never grew on Rapa Nui. If that early date holds, rongorongo may be one of the very few independent inventions of writing.\n\nFischer read the staff as procreation chants, with lines such as \"all the birds copulated with the fish\", and noted one sign recurring 564 times. Other specialists, including Jacques Guy, reject that reading, and no decipherment has won general support. Some still suspect the script began only after islanders saw European writing.\n\nA script invented in isolation would be one of history's rare events. The staff still holds its text, unread.","qs":["If one tablet predates European contact, does that settle whether rongorongo was invented on Rapa Nui, or could it have been carved later on old wood?","Fischer saw creation chants in the staff's repeated signs. What would a convincing decipherment need to show?","An isolated island may have invented writing on its own, and no one can read it. What do you think it says?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/Barthel_I.png/1280px-Barthel_I.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barthel_I.png","title":"Barthel I.png","lic":"Public domain","licurl":"","by":"Unknown authorUnknown author","cap":"Barthel's tracing of rongorongo text I"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Barthel_I_reordered.png/1280px-Barthel_I_reordered.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barthel_I_reordered.png","title":"Barthel I reordered.png","lic":"Public domain","licurl":"","by":"Unknown authorUnknown author","cap":"Barthel's tracing of rongorongo text I. Lines ordered per Barthel and Horley (2011)"},{"src":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Rongorongo_I_Santiago_Staff_%28color%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rongorongo_I_Santiago_Staff_(color).jpg","title":"Rongorongo I Santiago Staff (color).jpg","lic":"Public domain","licurl":"","by":"Unknown authorUnknown author","cap":"Closeup of the Santiago staff (Rongorongo text I). One of 26 rongorongo objects that may be authentic."}]},"img":null,"md":null,"hh":[{"v":"L 126 cm","h":"Recorded dimensions: L 126 cm (Fischer) / 126.6 cm (Bettocchi); diam 5.7-6.4 cm","s":[263]},{"v":"Wood","h":"Made of: Wood (species unknown)","s":[263]}],"hs":{"263":["Wikipedia Rongorongo text I","https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rongorongo_text_I&oldid=1376616655"]},"lh":{"s":"img/h/W17A02.webp","w":1280,"h":279,"o":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/Barthel_I.png/1280px-Barthel_I.png?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail"}}