Editing Rongorongo (section)

===Writing media===
[[Image:Rongorongo K-v London (edge).jpg|thumb|right|To maximize space, the text wraps around the edge of tablet '''K'''.]]
Except for a few possible glyphs cut in stone (see [[#Petroglyphs|petroglyphs]]), and [[Rongorongo text Ragitoki|one possibility]] on [[barkcloth]], all surviving secure texts are inscribed in wood. According to tradition, the tablets were made of [[toromiro]] wood. However, [[Catherine Orliac]] (2005b) examined seven objects (tablets '''B''', '''C''', '''G''', '''H''', '''K''', '''Q''', and {{lang|rap|reimiro}} '''L''') with [[Comparison microscope|stereo optical]] and [[scanning electron microscope]]s and determined that all were instead made from [[Thespesia populnea|Pacific rosewood (''Thespesia populnea'')]]; the same identification had been made for tablet '''M''' in 1934. This {{convert|15|m|-1|adj=on|sp=us}} tree, known as "Pacific rosewood" for its color and called {{lang|rap|mako{{saltillo}}i}} in Rapanui, is used for sacred groves and carvings throughout eastern Polynesia and was evidently brought to Easter Island by the first settlers.<ref>Skjølsvold 1994, as cited in Orliac 2005b</ref> However, not all the wood was native: Orliac (2007) established that tablets '''N''', '''P''', and '''S''' were made of [[Podocarpus latifolius|South African yellowwood (''Podocarpus latifolius'')]] and therefore that the wood had arrived with Western contact. Fischer describes '''P''' as "a damaged and reshapen European or American oar", as are '''A''' (which is [[Fraxinus excelsior|European ash, ''Fraxinus excelsior'']]) and '''V'''; notes that wood from the wreck of a Western boat was said to have been used for many tablets; and that both '''P''' and '''S''' had been recycled as planking for a Rapanui driftwood canoe, suggesting that by that time the tablets had little value to the islanders as texts.<ref>Fischer 1997:483</ref> Several texts, including '''O''', are carved on gnarled [[driftwood]].<ref>Fischer 1997:497</ref> The fact that the islanders were reduced to inscribing driftwood, and were regardless extremely economical in their use of wood, may have had consequences for the structure of the script, such as the abundance of [[Typographic ligature|ligatures]] and potentially a [[Telegraphese|telegraphic style]] of writing that would complicate textual analysis.<ref>Fischer 1997:382–383; see also [[decipherment of rongorongo]]</ref>

[[File:Red Banana leaf veins.jpg|thumb|left|Rongorongo tablets may have been influenced by writing on [[banana leaf|banana leaves]] like this one.]]

[[Decipherment of rongorongo#Thomson|William J. Thomson]] reported a [[calabash]], now lost, that had been found in a tomb and was "covered with hieroglyphics similar to those found on the incised tablets." During the early missionary period that began in 1864, it was reported that women wore [[Tapa cloth|bark cloth]] decorated with "symbols"; [[Rongorongo text Ragitoki|a fragment]] of one of these survives, and appears to be rongorongo.<ref>{{ cite journal | author = Guy, Jacques B. M. | author-link = Jacques Guy | year = 1992 | title = À propos des mois de l'ancien calendrier pascuan (On the months of the old Easter Island calendar) | journal = Journal de la Société des Océanistes | volume = 94 | issue = 1 | pages = 119–125 | doi=10.3406/jso.1992.2611}} {{in lang|fr}}</ref>

Oral tradition holds that, because of the great value of wood, only expert scribes used it, while pupils wrote on [[banana leaf|banana leaves]]. German [[ethnologist]] [[Thomas Barthel]] believed that carving on wood was a secondary development in the evolution of the script based on an earlier stage of incising banana leaves or the sheaths of the banana trunk with a bone stylus, and that the medium of leaves was retained not only for lessons but to plan and compose the texts of the wooden tablets.<ref>Barthel 1971:1168</ref> He found experimentally that the glyphs were quite visible on banana leaves due to the sap that emerged from the cuts and dried on the surface. However, when the leaves themselves dried they became brittle and would not have survived for long.<ref>Fischer 1997:386</ref>

Barthel speculated that the banana leaf might even have served as a prototype for the tablets, with the fluted surface of the tablets an emulation of the veined structure of a leaf:
{{Blockquote|text=Practical experiments with the material available on [Easter Island] have proved that the above-mentioned parts of the banana tree are not only an ideal writing material, but that in particular a direct correspondence exists between the height of the lines of writing and the distance between the veins on the leaves and stems of the banana tree. The classical inscriptions can be arranged in two groups according to the height of the lines (10–12{{nbsp}}mm ''vs.'' 15{{nbsp}}mm); this corresponds to the natural disposition of the veins on the banana stem (on average 10{{nbsp}}mm in the lower part of a medium-sized tree) or on the banana leaf ([...] maximum{{nbsp}}15mm).|source=Barthel 1971:1169}}
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|2=[[Image:Rongo-rongo script.jpg|thumb|left|A closeup of the verso of the Small Santiago Tablet, showing parts of lines 3 (bottom) to 7 (top). The glyphs of lines 3, 5, and 7 are right-side up, while those of lines 4 and 6 are up-side down.]]
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