A fluted tablet in poor condition, 44 × 9 × 2.3 cm, made out of a crooked piece of Pacific rosewood (Orliac 2005).
The verso has been burnt in spots, the center has been eroded off, and Fischer reports that a large area has been lost since Barthel transcribed it in the 1950s.
The Small St Petersburg tablet was obtained by Russian anthropologist Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai in July 1871 on Tahiti while on board the Vityaz.
On 30 December 1888, the day before his death, both tablets to the Russian Geographical Society of St Petersburg, which permanently lent them to the museum in 1891.
Since many of these appear on the same lines, Fischer believes one served in part, directly or indirectly, as the model for the others, and that they may have had a common geographic origin.