Easter island is diametrically opposite the Indus-Valley city of Mohenjo-Dharo (Pakistan). It's name proclaims it as an earth Navel, which some authors have suggested is because of this very fact.

It has been noted in the past that the Indus valley script shares many similar symbols to 'Rongo-Rongo'.

(Click here to see a comparison of Easter Island and Indus Valley scripts)

The incised written tablets termed 'rongo-rongo' were found suspended from the roof in every hut on the arrival of the first missionary (6). On his order, the majority were burnt, while others were hidden away in secret family caves where they deteriorated and perished. Very few have survived today.

It was clearly documented by early missionaries that even the most intelligent and well informed islanders could provide the meaning for any of the signs or provide ideograms for the simplest of words. The following quotes come from Hyerdahl's excellent treaty on 'Early Man and The Ocean' (6):

'They knew each tablet to represent a specific text, but disagreed about which text belonged to which tablet. If one tablet was substituted for another in the middle of their recital, the continued the original text uninterruptedly. The text was recited with singing rather than speaking voice. They piously copied the original old tablets on new boards, and regarded them as magic objects of the greatest value'

Although there were several claims that the script had been deciphered, none have proven worthy of scrutiny. Script itself is a non-Polynesian characteristic and the search for its origin was eventually rewarded through one of its paricular characteristics, which is that it is 'arranged in boustrophedon, i.e. in a continuous serpentine band where every second line is turned upside-down. Europeans, Chinese and the Indus Valley people never wrote in boustrophedon, and the language had been forgotten by the time of the Europeans first arrival. In fact, the only place in the world where this particular style of writing can be found is in South America; Peru to be precise (6). Heine-Geldern also noted a south American provenance, said of it:

'The Cunas (of the modern Republic of Panama) today generally write on paper. But beside this, written wooden tablets also exist, and the Cuna's say that these were the original writing material. The tablets seen by Nordenskiold were intended to be hung up in the houses during celebrations. The ideograms are painted on with colours...Also the writing is in boustrophedon, and with the succession of lines running upwards from the bottom' (6)

The Cuna signs however, although continued in boustrophedon, are not upside-down on each alternate line, and are individually dissimilar to the Easter island signs. The Easter islanders themselves are specific in their tradition of the first immigrant king, Hotu Matua, having brought with him sixty-seven written tablets when he came from his home in the far-east. Heyerdahl mentions that on the arrival of the Europeans, the Indians of Lake Titicaca area still 'continued a primitive form of picture writing' (6). This conforms with the observation by Russian rongo-rongo expert J. V. Knorozov, that the only two places where 'reversed boustrophedon' occur in the world are Easter Island and ancient Peru.

Sariemento Gamboa, upon consulting as assembly of forty-two learned Inca historians recorded the following in reference to the ninth Inca 'Patchacuti Inca Yupanqui':

'...after he had well ascertained the most notable of their ancient histories he had it all painted after its order on large boards, and he placed them in the house of the sun, where the said boards, which were garnished with gold, would be like our libraries, and he appointed learned men who could understand and explain them...' (6)