People first began to study these characters from 1864 to 1886, when they tried to classify these symbols or compare them with other complete characters and ancient Indian characters. These decoding attempts are divided into three stages, each of which is related to a figure symbolizing the history of Easter Island and a specific wooden slip.

1866 When the French merchant ship "tampico" was moored outside Easter Island, there were about 1000 residents on the island. The captain of this ship is Dutrou Bornier, accompanied by the missionary Gaspar Zambo.

Two years later, Dutrou Bornier settled on the island, married the queen of the island, Coretto Kuaplun, or, more accurately, kidnapped the queen and formed a group with a mixed-race man named John Brand.

1868, Father Zambo decided to return to Valparaiso. When he passed through Tahiti, the residents of the island asked him to bring a gift to Bishop Josan to show his respect. This gift is a huge ball made of 100 meter long braid. When the gift was opened, a piece of wood with strange symbols was displayed in front of the bishop.

Lupano Sinaport, an elderly Islander of the Missionary Association, explained that it was written in slate, which is a kind of wooden slip that records the oldest tradition on the island. But since the old man who knew the secrets of these symbols died, no one can explain them. The Bishop wrote to Father Shipo Park Jung Su Russell, a missionary who stayed on the island, asking him to do his best to find these wooden slips and give them to him.

Russell sent him six dollars with a note saying that the symbols on it probably didn't mean anything, and the islanders didn't know their meaning. Anyone who claimed to know their meaning was a liar.

But the Bishop was convinced that this was an important discovery. He finally found a man who could untie these wooden slips in a plantation in Tahiti, Metrau Tao Orr. As soon as the Bishop gave him a wooden slip with geometric, human and animal designs on it, he began to sing religious hymns, apparently reading those symbols, turning the wooden slip over at the end of each line from bottom to top, from left to right, and then reading the next line.

This is a variant called "Niu Geng's Turn Writing", which literally means to change the direction like Niu Gengdi, similar to some ancient Greek inscriptions, and write the lines backwards. Unfortunately, no matter which woodwind is played to him, the man sings the same song. Finally, the old man admitted that no one on the island could read these symbols.

1870, when ignacio Garner, the captain of Vo Ekins, Chile, arrived at Easter Island, Dutrou Bornier gave him a walking stick engraved with symbols, which experts thought was the best existing slate writing sample.

Ghana gave this crutch, together with two wooden slips engraved with symbols, to Rudolf Filipi, a scholar at the Natural History Museum, and explained that Easter islanders were so awed by these symbols that it was obviously extremely sacred to them. Filipi immediately sent the plaster model of the wooden slips to experts all over the world. But all the experts consulted can't find the answers to these mysterious symbols.