Rongorongo text L

Text L of the rongorongo corpus, also known as (London) reimiro 2, is the smaller of two inscribed reimiro 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, London. Catalog # AOA 9295.

Description

A prototypical two-headed Rapanui reimiro, or ceremonial crescent-shaped gorget/epaulet, 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 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 British Museum 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
The inscription, as traced by Barthel.
Fischer
The inscription, as traced by Fischer.
  • Visible inscription
gollark: > A core proposition in economics is that voluntary exchanges benefit both parties. We show that people often deny the mutually beneficial nature of exchange, instead espousing the belief that one or both parties fail to benefit from the exchange. Across 4 studies (and 7 further studies in the Supplementary Materials), participants read about simple exchanges of goods and services, judging whether each party to the transaction was better off or worse off afterwards. These studies revealed that win–win denial is pervasive, with buyers consistently seen as less likely to benefit from transactions than sellers. Several potential psychological mechanisms underlying win–win denial are considered, with the most important influences being mercantilist theories of value (confusing wealth for money) and naïve realism (failing to observe that people do not arbitrarily enter exchanges). We argue that these results have widespread implications for politics and society.
gollark: (linking because I happened to read it recently)
gollark: But look at this: https://psyarxiv.com/efs5y/
gollark: I mean, *maybe* some behaviors make sense at population scale or in some bizarre game-theoretic way?
gollark: No, humans just act irrationally all the time for no good reason.

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.
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