Editing Boustrophedon (section)

== Reverse boustrophedon ==
[[File:Reverse boustrophedon.png|thumb|left|285px|Schematic of reverse boustrophedon text, in the fashion of rongorongo, but using the Latin alphabet]]
[[File:Rongorongo reversible glyphs.jpg|thumb|[[Rongorongo]] tablet highlighting a few glyphs symmetrical through a 180° rotation (''reverse boustrophedon'')]]

The wooden boards and other incised artefacts of [[Rapa Nui]] also bear a boustrophedonic script called [[Rongorongo]], which remains undeciphered. In Rongorongo, the text in alternate lines was rotated 180 degrees rather than mirrored; this is termed ''reverse boustrophedon.''<ref>{{cite web |last=Smithfield |first=Brad |date=September 7, 2016 |title=Rongorongo-Hieroglyphs written with shark teeth from Easter Island, remain indecipherable |website=The Vintage News |url=https://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/09/07/hieroglyphs-written-shark-teeth-easter-island-remain-undeciphered-2/}}</ref>

The reader begins at the bottom left-hand corner of a tablet, reads a line from left to right, then rotates the tablet 180 degrees to continue on the next line from left to right again. When reading one line, the lines above and below it appear upside down. However, the writing continues onto the second side of the tablet at the point where it finishes off the first, so if the first side has an odd number of lines, the second will start at the ''upper'' left-hand corner, and the direction of writing shifts to top to bottom. Larger tablets and staves may have been read without turning, if the reader were able to read upside-down.

The Hungarian folklorist {{ill|Sebestyén Gyula|hu|Sebestyén Gyula (folklorista)}}(1864–1946) writes that ancient boustrophedon writing resembles how the Hungarian rovás-sticks of [[Old Hungarian script]] were made by shepherds. A notcher would hold the wooden stick in their left hand, cutting the letters with their right hand from right to left. When the first side was complete, they would flip the stick over vertically and start to notch the opposite side in the same manner. When unfolded horizontally (as in the case of the stone-cut boustrophedon inscriptions), the final result is writing which starts from right to left, and continues from left to right in the next row, with letters turned upside down. Sebestyén suggests that the ancient boustrophedon writings were copied from such wooden sticks with cut letters, applied for [[epigraphic]] inscriptions (not recognizing the real meaning of the original wooden type).<ref>{{cite book |last=Sebestyén |first=Gyula |year=1915 |title=A magyar rovásírás hiteles emlékei |location=Budapest |isbn=9786155242106 |pages=22, 137–138, 160}}</ref>