ArtFire

The script featured on these earrings is Rongo-rongo. The earrings are 3/4" wide and just under 1" long, with a colorful patina produced by exposure to high heat. They are hung on hypoallergenic niobium earwires and accented with small red clay beads from Africa.

Examples of Rongo-rongo were discovered on Easter Island in the 19th century. Although oral tradition would date the early use of the script to as early as 300 AD, the oldest surviving examples seem to date from the 13th century or later. Since, with the exception of a few petroglyphs, all existing texts are inscribed on pieces of wood, attempts to date the texts have focused on dating the wood. Some examples have been found to be inscribed on wood from European oars, which would date them no earlier than the 18th century. By the 1870's however, it appeared that there was no one who could read the script, and except for part of one tablet which concerns a lunar calendar, attempts to decipher the script have been unsuccessful.

I-311

As I reached the pictures in the "New Scientist" article I knew I had stumbled on what I had been looking for. Bronze has a feeling of antiquity about it that seems suited to fragments of text, and I wanted to incorporate script into the pieces I was making, but in all the texts I was looking at the meaning had to be considered. Here were "Eight Scripts That Still Can't Be Read", and they were both enormously varied and visually intriguing. From the organic feel of Linear A to the impossible precision of Rongo-rongo, from the almost familiar pictures of Olmec, Proto-Elamite, and the Phaistos Disc to the abstract lines and squiggles of Meroitic, all were visually and intellectually engaging in a different way than known text could be. They say something, but they are more cultural artifact than simple text. Even if one turns out to be a warehouse inventory I won't be disappointed because their meaning goes beyond their translation. So here is my "Undeciphered Texts" collection.

bronze, clay beads, niobium