Une Nouvelle Découverte sur l'île de Pâques Pourrait Réécrire l'Histoire

Sympa

Avez-vous entendu parler de la dernière info venant de l'Île de Pâques ? Apparemment, ils sont tombés sur quelque chose qui pourrait complètement bouleverser ce que nous savons de l'histoire ! C'est comme si c'était tiré d'un film d'aventure, n'est-ce pas ? La rumeur dit qu'ils ont trouvé des artefacts anciens enfouis profondément sous terre, et ils ne ressemblent à rien de ce que nous avons vu auparavant. Les gens s'interrogent sur la possibilité que cette découverte révèle de nouvelles perspectives sur le passé mystérieux de l'île, comme qui a construit ces énormes statues de pierre et pourquoi. Tout le monde est sur le qui-vive, attendant de voir quels secrets ces artefacts pourraient dévoiler !  Animation créée par Sympa. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Musique par Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com   Pour ne rien perdre de Sympa, abonnez-vous!: https://goo.gl/6E4Xna​ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nos réseaux sociaux : Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sympasympacom/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sympa.officiel/  Stock de fichiers (photos, vidéos et autres): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Si tu en veux encore plus, fais un tour ici:  http://sympa-sympa.com

Transcript

00:00Welcome to Rapa Nui, better known as Easter Island.

00:04It is a tiny point in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean,

00:07located at 3,500 km from the Chilean coast.

00:10This island is especially famous for its imposing Moai statues.

00:14This place also houses one of the most enigmatic writing systems in the world,

00:18known as Rongorongo.

00:20We have created 27 small wooden tablets carrying this script.

00:24For years, historians have debated the authenticity and history of the latter.

00:29And now, we may be about to unravel their mystery.

00:34Man set foot on this island for the first time in the 12th century.

00:38For many decades, it was inhabited by the Rapa Nui people,

00:42relatively isolated at the heart of the Pacific Ocean

00:45until the eruption of the Europeans in the 1720s.

00:48With them came a multitude of challenges,

00:51drastically reducing the indigenous population to a fraction of what it was.

00:55Subsequently, in the 19th century,

00:57the missionary Eugène Hérault visited the island

01:00and carved out wooden tablets decorated with complex symbols.

01:03He described them as extraordinary

01:05and claimed that there were hundreds of them scattered throughout the island,

01:09present in every home.

01:11But alas, not all have survived to this day.

01:14Only 27 of them have been preserved.

01:16Some were eroded by time, burned or otherwise damaged.

01:21Today, they are scattered around the world,

01:24exhibited in museums and preserved in private collections.

01:28Some remains of this language have been brought back to Tahiti and then to Europe,

01:32leaving nothing on Easter Island itself.

01:35The four sacred tablets ended up in a Catholic congregation in Rome.

01:39It was the same ones that participated in this recent discovery.

01:45For years, historians have wondered

01:47whether this writing system was developed independently by the inhabitants of the island

01:51or whether it was borrowed from the Europeans.

01:53To elucidate this mystery, they used carbon-14 dating.

01:57All organic materials, such as wood, coal and others,

02:01contain a tiny amount of a radioactive form of carbon called carbon-14.

02:07At the end of their life, they stop absorbing carbon-14

02:11and the present quantity begins to disintegrate over time.

02:15By measuring the amount of carbon-14 left in a sample,

02:18we can estimate its age.

02:20This method allowed us to determine the age of many fossils and artifacts.

02:24This is how we studied the age of certain Rongo-Rongo tablets.

02:28Three of them had been made from trees grown in the 18th or 19th century,

02:34corresponding to the arrival of the Europeans.

02:36However, one of them is prior to their first visit to the island.

02:43Two elements suggest that the Rapanui people

02:45themselves created the Rongo-Rongo writing system.

02:48First of all, it presents distinct characteristics of European languages.

02:52Its decoding is a difficult task, with more than 400 unique glyphs,

02:56none resembling a known writing system.

02:59Many attempts have been made to unravel the secrets,

03:03without success so far.

03:05Secondly, one of the tablets seems to date back to the 15th century,

03:08before the arrival of the Europeans.

03:10However, the dating to radiocarbon only informs us

03:13about the period when the wood of the tablet was cut,

03:16and not on the period when the writing was engraved on it.

03:19And since we only have one tablet as a reference,

03:22we do not have enough evidence to affirm anything.

03:27On the other hand, why would the inhabitants of the island

03:30have kept cut wood for more than 200 years?

03:33Just to catch it one fine day and write on it.

03:36Anthropologists and historians suggest that the thing is plausible.

03:40The scarcity of resources could have pushed the islands

03:43to recycle old floating wood,

03:45which could date back several centuries

03:47before the appearance of writing itself.

03:49This phenomenon is known in archaeology

03:51under the name of the problem of old wood.

03:54In addition, the tablet seems to be very well preserved.

03:57It has been maintained to protect it from insects

03:59that damage the wood and humidity.

04:02This is why it has survived over the centuries.

04:04Whatever is written on it,

04:06it is likely that this is of great importance

04:09for the people of Rapa Nui.

04:11All this is pure conjecture.

04:13Scientists remain prudently optimistic.

04:16They consider the possibility that the Rongorongo

04:18is one of the rare examples of independent writing,

04:22like those of the Sumerians or Egyptians.

04:25But we need more evidence.

04:28In Rapa Nui language,

04:30rogorogo translates as recited or declared.

04:34Not everyone could write,

04:36only a few people sorted on the fly.

04:39It is likely that only the elite of the island of Pak,

04:41mainly men,

04:42possessed the knowledge of this written language.

04:45After the colonization,

04:46none of them survived.

04:48And we are now faced with the task

04:50of deciphering these inscriptions.

04:52First of all,

04:53researchers fail to agree

04:55on the nature of this scriptural system.

04:57We can't even confirm

04:59if it's their native language.

05:00And when we don't even know

05:02if it's a primitive form of writing

05:04or an entirely developed system.

05:08In the 90s,

05:10a linguist named Stephen Roger Fisher

05:12thought he had decrypted the structure of the Rongorongo.

05:15According to him,

05:16these tablets were called cosmogonies.

05:18Cosmogonies are stories

05:20that expose the genesis of the universe

05:22as well as the emergence of natural phenomena.

05:25They are often rooted

05:27in ancient traditions and cultures,

05:29such as those found in Eastern Polynesia.

05:33The tablets could potentially address subjects

05:35such as the origins of the world,

05:37the source of all existence,

05:39and the formation of various elements of nature,

05:42such as stars or mountains.

05:44This would also explain

05:46why only an educated elite could write.

05:49Fisher advanced that the Rongorongo

05:51was a combination of logographic and semasiographic systems,

05:54which implies that some symbols

05:56represented spoken words,

05:58while others denoted ideas or concepts.

06:01However,

06:02deciphering them would be extremely complex

06:04and would require a deep understanding of the context,

06:08because these symbols acted more like clues

06:11than as complete expressions.

06:13However,

06:14other linguists contested his proposals,

06:16arguing that there were gaps

06:18in the way he formulated his theory.

06:20Alas,

06:21Fisher was not able to corroborate his hypothesis.

06:26It is possible that these inscriptions

06:28are only drawings.

06:29When we examine the tablets,

06:31some figures seem familiar.

06:33Human beings,

06:34animals,

06:35plants

06:36and geometric shapes.

06:37We recognize birds,

06:39one of them resembling a frigate.

06:41A species associated with the god Mekmek

06:43by the inhabitants of Rapanui.

06:45There are also fish,

06:46millipedes,

06:47or at least these glyphs look like them.

06:49Could it be that these inscriptions

06:51are only art

06:52or a form of decoration?

06:53Maybe,

06:54but there are some problems.

06:56The glyphs exhibit a high level of complexity

06:58and structure.

06:59In addition,

07:00they retain a coherent style.

07:02For example,

07:03several symbols depict

07:04what seems to be a human with a raised hand.

07:06The only variation being the different heads represented.

07:09As if it were not complicated enough,

07:11this style of singular writing

07:13also uses a system called

07:15inverted Boustrophedon.

07:16This means that each alternate line is inverted,

07:19creating a pattern like no other.

07:21We do not know why they opted for this practice

07:24consisting of turning the tablet after each line.

07:26All this suggests that they had set up a system

07:29and an organization behind these symbols.

07:31In addition,

07:32it seems that they used these tablets

07:34on a daily basis for practical purposes.

07:38But there is hope for the future.

07:40Recent technological progress,

07:42such as AI

07:43and other computer programs,

07:45could assist our understanding of ancient languages.

07:48We have already undertaken the development of algorithms

07:51that could help us to unravel other mysteries,

07:53such as that of the Voynich manuscript.

07:55Universities have even organized

07:57the Vesuvius Challenge,

07:59an automatic learning contest

08:01which, in 2023,

08:02solved the riddle of the ancient Herculaneum scrolls.

08:05These scrolls were buried under volcanic mud

08:08after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

08:11Due to their extreme fragility,

08:13deciphering these scrolls

08:15would have been a difficult task.

08:17But thanks to digitization and automatic learning,

08:20this enterprise has become much more accessible.

08:23These scrolls have a rich history.

08:25They probably belonged to the personal library

08:28of an Epicurean philosopher named Philodemus.

08:30They contain information of great value

08:32on Greek philosophy and Latin literature.

08:35If we decipher more,

08:37we will learn more about the rich history

08:39of the Roman Empire.

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