Rongorongo Tablets
Easter Island’s wooden tablets covered in undeciphered glyphs, discovered in the 1860s, might hold crucial information about the civilization’s collapse. Twenty-seven tablets survive, carved with images of fish, birds, and crescents arranged in rows. Scholars believe they were read in reverse boustrophedon style between 1200-1700 AD. No islanders could translate them when European missionaries arrived, suggesting a catastrophic loss of knowledge. Environmental destruction and disease likely contributed to the cultural breakdown.
