Thomas Barthel, a German researcher, suggests that the written tablets encoded religious motives, with few references to political events or genealogical information.
Based on a tradition described by father Englert, there was a tablet used as a spelling book for beginners in the study of the written language.
The Rongo Rongo writing may be classified as a conventional system of ideographic communication, half way between the pictographic writing and the phonetic (sounds) writing.
This writen language is composed of 150 basic elements, which make about 1,500 to 2,000 different compositions.
The anthropomorphic signs (signs with a human form) show different body positions, drawing from a language made of gestures and pantomimic, characteristic of the Polynesia.
To inscribe the signs on the tablets, the initiated used shark's tooth or piece of obsidian.
To read them, the Rapa Nui used a reading system known as Bustrofedón.