Rongorongo text D

Rongorongo (/ˈrɒŋɡoʊˈrɒŋɡoʊ/; Rapa Nui: [ˈɾoŋoˈɾoŋo]) is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be writing or proto-writing.

There are reproductions at the Padri dei Sacri Cuori in Rome (2 copies); the Musée de l'Homme, Paris; the Cinquantenaire, Brussels; and in Steven Fischer's collection in Auckland.

This tablet bore a gift of a sixteen-meter cord of human hair, perhaps a fishing line, from the recent converts of Easter Island that Father Gaspard Zumbohm and Urupano (Urban) Hina Potegiven delivered to the Bishop Jaussen of Tahiti in 1869.

The tablet was merely the spool for this gift, and its notched form suggests that it had been used as a fishing reel before that, showing how far rongorongo had fallen from its once taboo status.

It was sent to the headquarters of the Congrégation des Sacrés-Coeurs et de l'Adoration (SSCC) in Paris, where it was deposited in the Missionary Museum, either by Jaussen in 1888 or by the French navy in 1892 after his death.