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Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is the remotest inhabited island on Earth, 1,298 miles from its nearest populated neighbor. According to oral traditions, tablets with rongorongo, the only indigenous writing system to develop in Oceania before the 20th century, were brought there by the first settlers, who arrived between the years 800 and 1200, probably from the Marquesas or Gambier islands, which are now part of French Polynesia.

It is believed that the rongorongo script was developed on Easter Island some time after the Spanish visit in 1770, possibly inspired by a written document of annexation given to the islanders to sign. However, from the 1860s the islanders began to lose the ability to read it, and no inhabitant of Easter Island is able to read it today.