Rongorongo Script: Carving Techniques and Scribal Corrections

Studies of three original rongorongo tablets (Tahua, Aruku Kurenga and Mamari) revealed clear traces of two-stage carving (pre-incising with an obsidian flake and contour enhancement with a shark tooth). Most probably, the texts were written in short fragments with shark-tooth engraving applied before passing to the next fragment. Additional multiple engraving sessions might been performed for finished inscription, aiming to enhance glyph contours. Despite laborious and timeconsuming writing technology, the scribes display extremely high professional level, making only a few errors and corrections in the studied inscriptions totaling to about 4,000 glyphs. These errors usually consist in preterm writing of a passage, re-insertion of omitted symbols (even on the edge of the tablet) and palimpsest corrections. Pronounced shape variation of signs entering inline repetitive fragments seems indicative of direct on-tablet composition of the text without any draft inscriptions. Corrections and parallel passages suggest allography of glyphs 133 and 067, which by analogy may imply allography of signs 055b and 068 in Barthel’s notation.