Rongorongo Tablet from the Ethnological Museum, Berlin
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Journal de la Société des Océanistes 135 | 2012-2 Relations internationales et régionales en Océanie Rongorongo tablet from the Ethnological Museum, Berlin Paul Horley Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jso/6695 DOI: 10.4000/jso.6695 ISSN: 1760-7256 Publisher Société des océanistes Printed version Date of publication: 31 December 2012 Number of pages: 243-256 ISBN: 978-2-85430-033-8 ISSN: 0300-953x Electronic reference Paul Horley, « Rongorongo tablet from the Ethnological Museum, Berlin », Journal de la Société des Océanistes [Online], 135 | 2012-2, Online since 18 February 2013, connection on 10 December 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/jso/6695 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/jso.6695 Journal de la société des océanistes est mis à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. Rongorongo tablet from the Ethnological Museum, Berlin by Paul HORLEY* ABSTRACT RÉSUMÉ This paper aims to improve documentation of the Cet article vise à améliorer la documentation de la rongorongo tablet VI 4878 from the Berlin Ethnologi- tablette rongorongo VI 4878 du Musée ethnologique de cal Museum. For the first time (to the best of our Berlin. Pour la première fois (à notre connaissance), knowledge), we present the detailed digital photographs nousprésentonsdesphotographiesnumériquesdétaillées of the entire artifact almost at the original scale. The de l’artefact complet à l’échelle quasi-originale. L’amé- computer enhancement of these images helped to pro- lioration de la qualité de ces images sur ordinateur a duce improved tracings that surpass the tracings contribué à produire des tracés d’un plus grand nombre de published by Adolf Bastian (1883), Thomas Barthel glyphes que ceux publiés par Adolf Bastian (1883), (1958) and Steven Fischer (1997) by the number of Thomas Barthel (1958) et Steven Fischer (1997). documented glyphs. Analysis of the parallel passages L’analyse des passages parallèles montre que la tablette shows that the Berlin tablet shares glyph sequences with de Berlin partage les séquences glyphiques de ce que so-called ‘‘Great Tradition’’ (Large Santiago/Large l’on appelle la ‘‘Grande Tradition’’ (tablettes Grand and Small St. Petersburg tablets), as well as with Aruku Santiago/tablettes du Grand et Petit Saint- Kurenga tablet. Some particular sign groups from the Pétersbourg), ainsi qu’avec celle d’Aruku Kurenga. Cer- Berlin tablet can be seen on the tablets Tahua, Echan- tains groupes particuliers de signes de la tablette de Ber- crée, the Small and the Large Washington tablets. lin se trouvent aussi sur les tablettes Tahua,Échancrée, et surlaPetiteetlaGrandetablettesdeWashington. K: Easter Island, rongorongo, Berlin tablet M- : île de Pâques, rongorongo, tablette de Berlin The rongorongo script of Easter Island (Rapa signs pronouncedly matches the Rapa Nui petro- Nui) is a unique writing system developed in glyphs (Fedorova, 1983: 45, fig. 2; Lee, 1992: 126- Polynesia. The oral traditions of the islanders 128; Macri, 1996: 184, fig. 19; Horley and Lee, « assert that Hotu-Matua, the first king, pos- 2008: 114, fig. 6), providing the evidence to sessed the knowledge of this written language, EasterIslanddevelopmentof thescript. and brought with him to the island sixty-seven The existence of inscribed objects was first tablets containing allegories, traditions, genealo- witnessed in 1864 by the first Rapa Nui missio- gical tables and proverbs relating to the land from naryEugèneEyraud(Fischer1997:12),butitwas which he had migrated » (Thomson, 1891: 514). Tepano Jaussen, the Bishop of Tahiti, who reali- However,the search of possible trans-insular ori- zed the scientific value of the discovery and gins of the script did not reveal any results started the search for the survived tablets in 1869 supporting the external origin of the script. At (ibid., 22). All known best-preserved rongorongo the same time, the iconography of rongorongo artifacts were collected in 1870; the tablets * Yuri Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, Chernivtsi, Ukraine, [email protected] Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 135, année 2012-2 244 SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES discovered afterwards were damaged to a consi- 496). All tracings of rongorongo texts shown in derabledegree. the figures were made by the author unless othe- The tablet in Collections of the Berlin Ethno- rwisenoted. logical Museum (Museum für Völkerkunde) has a special position in rongorongo corpus. It was Documentationof thetablet collected as a consequence of Geiseler’s Expedi- tion that arrived to Easter Island in 1882 onboard The first sketch of the Berlin tablet was the ship Hyäne. One of the foremost priorities of published almost upon its arrival to the Museum the Expedition, set by then-director of the (Bastian 1883: Plate 1.4); the drawing was accom- Museum für Völkerkunde Adolf Bastian, was to paniedwiththefollowingcaption: procure more information about the inscribed tablets and, if possible, to acquire some of them « [...] by a kind donation of Mr. Schlubach (earlier (Fischer, 1997: 78-79, also 581: note 18). The [living] in Valparaiso), the Ethnological division of the principal Geiseler’s informant on Rapa Nui, Royal Museum (by negotiation of the Anthropol[ogi- Alexander Paea Salmon, negotiated with the cal] Soc[iety] in March of [18]83) deposited a collec- islanders about rongorongo artifacts and was able tion piece of very weathered wood, of which some of to locate several tablets. As the owners refused to already visible signs are copied in their places, while the rest [of inscription] may become clearer only after sell the inscribed artifacts to the Expedition prior preparation. » members, Salmon promised to buy the tablets after departure of Hyäne and to send them to The adapted version of this drawing is repro- ff Gustav Gode roy, the German Imperial Consul duced in fig. 1. The inscription survived in short at Tahiti, for further shipment to Berlin. Salmon segments clustered around a large knothole and managed to acquire two inscribed tablets but sent four fragments located almost at the opposite them to Valparaiso to Heinrich August Schlu- end of the tablet. The drawing published by bach, the German Consul, who was the husband Bastian is quite difficult to interpret as it shows of Salmon’sniece. many glyphic forms unusual to rongorongo, One of these tablets was sent to Bastian and which has two possible causes: erosion of tablet arrived to Berlin on April 27, 1883 (Fischer 1997: surface and unfamiliarity of the draftsman with 80). It was deposited to the Ethnological the signs of rongorongo script. The general esti- Museum under the catalog number VI 4878 mation of glyph number recorded by Bastian (ibid., 496). This artifact is usually referred in the overcomes 180, surpassing 90 elements docu- literature as ‘‘Tablet O’’ / ‘‘the Berlin tablet’’ (Bar- mented by Barthel (1958: 28) and approaching thel, 1958: 27), ‘‘RR22’’ (Fischer, 1997: 494). It 187 glyphs documented by Fischer (1997: 496). was also nicknamed ‘‘the boomerang’’ due to its particularshape(Imbelloni,1951:101). The photographs of the Berlin tablet were Once the Berlin tablet « had to be one of the first published by José Imbelloni (1951: Plates most marvelous rongorongo inscriptions ever 8a, general view and 8b, close-up) with the produced [...] like the ‘‘Santiago staff’’ [...] its description: entire text probably ran contiguously without blank edges in some 26 lines » (Fischer, 1997: « The tablet from Museum für Völkerkunde of Ber- 497). However, it underwent significant erosion lin [...] is a large and relatively narrow piece of wood, intensively curved simulating the shape of a boome- due to the action of the elements, which erased rang, with the dimensions of: 1.03m long and more or the majority of its glyphs. This poor preservation less 0.13[m] wide. Almost all the surface is rot and state became a considerable obstacle for proper weathered, in particular the face that bears inscrip- documentationof theBerlintablet,makingitone tion; [once it] was, as suggested by its aspect, a plank of the ‘‘marginal artifacts’’ in rongorongo studies. of a boat. Its worst conservation state erased the major This paper is aimed to improve the situation, pro- part of the signs ... but it is still possible to distinguish viding the high-quality digital photographs of quite a large number of them, in segments; they have the entire artifact with new tracings based on covered the whole length of the tablet arranged in 7 computer-enhancedimagesof thetablet. superimposed lines [...] A simple calculation deduced ff For the sake of uniformity, the paper uses Bar- from the capacity of a single section allows to a irm that [the tablet] should have contained a total of 1,260 thel’s nomenclature to address the inscribed arti- glyphs, and it is really a pity that such an important facts, lines and individual rongorongo signs. text founds itself useless for the science [...] This arti- Taking into account that Fischer recorded sign fact was never published. Prof. W.Krickeberg, director traces for two lines before the first line documen- of the Berlin Museum, has kindly supplied me with 4 ted by Barthel, it was decided to use Fischer’s line photographs (1 of the general view and the rest corres- numbering for this artifact (Fischer, 1997: 495- ponding to 3 sections of its length) and I have thought RONGORONGO TABLET FROM THE ETHNOLOGICAL MUSEUM, BERLIN 245 F 1. ¢ First published drawing of the Berlin tablet (after Bastian, 1883: Plate 1.4): top ¢ general view of the tablet; bottom ¢ line-by-line transcription accompanied with line numbers according to Fischer (1997: 495-496). F 2. ¢ Comparison of the Berlin tablet (O) with the Large St. Petersburg (P) and Large Washington (S) tablets; the two latter artifacts feature boreholes (drawn not to scale) at their top edges and sides used to pass lashing cords. to reproduce them completely, but the difficulty to Steven Fischer studied the Berlin tablet in discern the signs caused me to give up.