Decipherment of rongorongo

Tablet B Aruku kurenga, verso. One of four texts which provided the Jaussen list, the first attempt at decipherment. Made of Pacific rosewood, mid nineteenth century, Easter Island.
(Collection of the SS.CC., Rome)

There have been numerous attempts to decipher the rongorongo script of Easter Island since its discovery in the late nineteenth century. As with most undeciphered scripts, many of the proposals have been fanciful. Apart from a portion of one tablet which has been shown to deal with a lunar calendar, none of the texts are understood, and even the calendar cannot actually be read. There are three serious obstacles to decipherment: the small number of remaining texts, comprising only 15,000 legible glyphs; the lack of context in which to interpret the texts, such as illustrations or parallels to texts which can be read; and the fact that the modern Rapanui language is heavily mixed with Tahitian and is unlikely to closely reflect the language of the tablets—especially if they record a specialized register such as incantations—while the few remaining examples of the old language are heavily restricted in genre and may not correspond well to the tablets either.^[1]

Since a proposal by Butinov and Knorozov in the 1950s, the majority of philologists, linguists, and cultural historians have taken the line that rongorongo was not true writing but proto-writing, that is, an ideographic- and rebus-based mnemonic device.^{[note 1]} This skepticism is justified not only by the failure of the numerous attempts at decipherment, but by the extreme rarity of independent writing systems around the world. If it is the case that rongorongo is proto-writing, then it is unlikely to ever be deciphered.^[2] Of those who have attempted to decipher rongorongo as a true writing system, the vast majority have assumed it was logographic, a few that it was syllabic or mixed. Statistically it appears to have been compatible with neither a pure logography nor a pure syllabary.^[3] The topic of the texts is unknown; various investigators have speculated they cover genealogy, navigation, astronomy, or agriculture. Oral history suggests that only a small elite were ever literate, and that the tablets were considered sacred.^[4]

George A. Steel

George A. Steel (April 22, 1846 – June 20, 1918) was an American politician and businessman in the state of Oregon. A native of Ohio, he moved to Oregon in 1862 where he became postmaster of Portland and helped build a railroad line among other business ventures. A Republican, he served in the Oregon State Senate and as Oregon State Treasurer.

• Early years

George Steel was born on April 22, 1846, to William and Elizabeth Lawrie Steel in the village of Stafford in the southeastern portion of Ohio.^[1] In 1862, he sailed to the Isthmus of Panama and then traveled on a ship captained by J.D. Merryman to Portland, Oregon.^[2][3] There he first worked at a commission house as a clerk before working in the same position for the post office in Portland in 1865.^[4] He then worked for the Oregon Iron Works followed by the Ladd & Tilton bank for four years as an accountant.^[4] On February 18, 1869, Steel married Eva Pope, daughter of Charles Pope.^[4]

Steel formed a partnership in the book and stationary business with Joseph K. Gill to operate Gill & Steel, a predecessor to the J. K. Gill Company, in 1870.^[1][4] The next year they bought part of the Harris & Holman business and later bought out Bancroft & Morse, with Bancroft joining the partnership.^[2] Steel bought out his partners, but went bankrupt and sold off the assets.^[2][3] The rest of Steel’s family, which included brother William Gladstone Steel, moved to Oregon in 1872.^[1] Steel continued to work with Gill until 1878, and became the postmaster for Portland in 1881.^[1]

In the meantime he was a special agent for the United States Post Office Department (predecessor to the United States Postal Service) from 1877 to 1879, and from that year to 1880 as a deputy collector at for Customs at the city’s harbor.^[4] He served as postmaster until 1885, and was again postmaster from 1889 to 1894.^[1] While still postmaster he went into business with his brother James to form G. A. Steel & Company to sell fire insurance.^[4] Steel continued with this venture after leaving the post office and later incorporated the Metropolitan Railway Company with his brother.^[4] The railroad was an electric line that opened in January 1890 and initially ran from Portland to Fulton Park.^[4] Later named the Eastside Electric Railway, the line extended to Oregon City, but went bankrupt in 1898.^[5]

• Political career

In 1870, he won election to his first public office, Treasurer of Multnomah County, serving two years.^[2] He then was elected as chairman of the Oregon Republican Party’s state central committee in 1876.^[6] Steel remained chairman until 1878 when he became the secretary for the committee.^[6]

Steel was elected to the Oregon State Senate in 1886 to represent District 20 in Multnomah County.^[7] He served one, four-year term in the legislature spanning two legislative sessions.^[8] He returned to the post of chairman for the state central committee in 1894, serving until 1896, ^[6] and then began service on the Republican National Committee in 1900.^[9] He remained on that committee in 1902 and 1904.^[10][11] In 1906, he was elected as the Oregon State Treasurer and served a single four-year term in office from January 15, 1907 to January 3, 1911.^[12]

• Later years and legacy

Steel and his wife had two children and were members of the First Congregational Church in Portland.^[1][4] George A. Steel died on June 20, 1918, at the age of 72.^[1] Steel named an area south of Portland as Stafford after his hometown, which also lends its name to Stafford Road in that same area.^[13]

Germanium

Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is a lustrous, hard, greyish-white metalloid in the carbon group, chemically similar to its group neighbors tin and silicon. Germanium has five naturally occurring isotopes ranging in atomic mass number from 70 to 76. It forms a large number of organometallic compounds, including tetraethylgermane and isobutylgermane. Because few minerals contain it in large concentration, germanium was discovered relatively late despite the fact that it is relatively abundant in the Earth's crust. In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev predicted its existence and some of its properties based on its position on his periodic table and called the element ekasilicon. Nearly two decades later, in 1886, Clemens Winkler found it in the mineral argyrodite. Winkler found that experimental observations agreed with Mendeleev's predictions and named the element after his country, Germany. Germanium is an important semiconductor material used in transistors and various other electronic devices. Its major end uses are fiber-optic systems and infrared optics, but is also used for polymerization catalysts, in electronics and in solar electric applications. Germanium is mined primarily from sphalerite, though it is also recovered from silver, lead, and copper ores. Some germanium compounds, such as germanium chloride and germane, can irritate the eyes, skin, lungs, and throat.

Because few minerals contain it in large concentration, germanium was discovered comparatively late despite the fact that it is relatively abundant in the Earth's crust. In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev predicted its existence and some of its properties based on its position on his periodic table and called the element ekasilicon. Nearly two decades later, in 1886, Clemens Winkler found it in the mineral argyrodite. Winkler found that experimental observations agreed with Mendeleev's predictions and named the element after his country, Germany.

Germanium is an important semiconductor material used in transistors and various other electronic devices. Its major end uses are fiber-optic systems and infrared optics, but it is also used for polymerization catalysts, in electronics and in solar electric applications. Germanium is mined primarily from sphalerite, though it is also recovered from silver, lead, and copper ores. Some germanium compounds, such as germanium chloride and germane, can irritate the eyes, skin, lungs, and throat.