The Other Rongorongo: Unearthing a Lost Script in the Solomon Islands

When we think of mysterious, undeciphered scripts from remote Pacific islands, one name instantly springs to mind: Rongorongo. The enigmatic glyphs of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) have captivated linguists, archaeologists, and adventurers for over a century. But thousands of kilometers to the west, nestled in the turquoise waters of Melanesia, another island chain holds a similar, far less famous secret. The Solomon Islands, a nation of staggering cultural and geographical diversity, is home to its own forgotten script—a pictographic system on the brink of extinction, with its last secrets held in the memories of a few remaining elders.

This isn’t a tale of Polynesian giants, but a story deeply rooted in the unique geography of the Solomon Islands. It’s a race against time to document a piece of human heritage before the currents of modernity wash it away forever.

An Archipelago of Isolation and Diversity

To understand why a unique script could arise and then vanish here, one must first understand the Solomon Islands themselves. This sovereign nation is not a single landmass but a sprawling double chain of over 900 islands, stretching across 1,500 kilometers of the South Pacific, just east of Papua New Guinea.

Physical Geography: A World Forged by Fire and Water

The Solomons are a classic product of their location on the Pacific Ring of Fire. The larger islands—Guadalcanal, Malaita, Makira, and New Georgia—are volcanic in origin, characterized by jagged mountain spines cloaked in dense, near-impenetrable rainforest. These rugged interiors have historically created natural barriers, isolating communities and fostering immense linguistic and cultural diversity. Rivers cut deep valleys through the mountains, serving as highways and lifelines for inland villages.

Surrounding these volcanic cores are countless smaller islands and low-lying coral atolls, shimmering rings of sand and palm trees that seem to float on the sapphire sea. This dramatic contrast between mountainous heights and coastal plains creates a mosaic of distinct ecosystems and human habitats. The very geography of the islands—a fragmented landscape of steep terrain and vast ocean expanses—is the perfect incubator for unique cultural developments, including language and, as it turns out, writing.

Human Geography: A Tapestry of Peoples

The capital, Honiara, on the island of Guadalcanal, is the nation’s urban hub. But the true character of the Solomon Islands lies in its rural, village-based societies. The country is a hotspot of human diversity, with a population of around 700,000 people speaking over 70 distinct languages. This incredible linguistic variety is a direct result of the archipelago’s isolating geography. For millennia, groups lived in relative separation, allowing their languages and traditions to evolve independently.

It is in one of the more remote provinces, Makira-Ulawa, that our story unfolds. Located at the southeastern end of the Solomon chain, the main island of Makira and its smaller neighbors, Ulawa and the Three Sisters Islands, have long been a distinct cultural region. It is here that whispers of a local writing system survived, long after its use had faded from daily life.

The Makira Script: A Fading Echo

For decades, the existence of a Solomon Islands script was little more than a rumor among anthropologists. Unlike Rapa Nui’s Rongorongo, which was documented (though never deciphered) in the 19th century, the Makira script remained almost completely unknown to the outside world. That began to change with the dedicated work of Russian linguists Dr. Albert Davletshin and Dr. Daria Zelenova.

Their research, beginning in the 2010s, brought this forgotten system to light. What they found was a pictographic script, a system where symbols represent objects or ideas rather than sounds. It bears a striking resemblance in function, if not form, to the famous Rongorongo. The script was used for a variety of purposes:

• Genealogies: In a culture where lineage and ancestry are paramount, the script was used to record family histories on wooden boards.
• Personal Histories: Important life events, travels, and personal narratives were inscribed as a form of memory-keeping.
• Spells and Rituals: Certain symbols held magical or spiritual significance and were used in traditional rituals.

The medium was often wood—planks, staffs, or other objects—making the parallel with Rapa Nui’s inscribed wooden tablets, known as kohau rongo-rongo, even more compelling. The symbols themselves are elegant and complex, depicting animals, plants, celestial bodies, and abstract concepts tied to the local culture and environment. Each glyph is a window into the Makiran worldview.

A Race Against the Dying Light

The tragedy of the Makira script is that its discovery has come at the eleventh hour. The researchers found that knowledge of the writing system was not just rare; it was critically endangered. Only a handful of elderly men, the last in a long line of knowledge-keepers, could still read and, to a lesser extent, write the symbols. No one was learning it anymore.

The reasons for its decline are familiar stories across the globe. The arrival of Christianity in the 20th century introduced the Latin alphabet and supplanted many traditional practices. The rise of a cash economy and migration to urban centers like Honiara eroded the village-based life where the script had meaning. Young people, connected to a globalized world, have little context for or interest in the old ways.

The work of Davletshin and Zelenova is therefore not just one of linguistic decipherment, but of urgent cultural preservation. They have been meticulously documenting the script, interviewing the last remaining experts, and creating a corpus of symbols and their meanings. Their goal is to create a complete record of the writing system before the last person who can read it passes away. It is a poignant mission: to save a language’s written form from the silence of history.

Echoes Across the Pacific

The existence of the Makira script poses fascinating questions. Is there any connection to Rapa Nui’s Rongorongo? Almost certainly not. Rapa Nui is in Polynesia, while the Solomons are in Melanesia—two distinct cultural and geographical spheres separated by thousands of kilometers of open ocean. The scripts likely represent a case of independent invention, a testament to the human impulse to record and remember, which can arise in any isolated community.

What the Makira script truly represents is a powerful reminder that the world is still full of undiscovered wonders. In an age of satellite imagery and global connectivity, the rugged, fragmented geography of a place like the Solomon Islands can still conceal ancient secrets. It challenges our perception of “writing” as something that spread from a few ancient centers. Instead, it suggests that the creation of written language may have been a far more common human innovation than we realize.

The future of the Makira script is uncertain. But as researchers race to document its final traces, they are preserving more than just a collection of symbols. They are saving a testament to the ingenuity of the Makiran people and a vital piece of the intricate human map of the Solomon Islands.