The Small St Petersburg tablet was obtained by Russian anthropologist
Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai in July 1871 on Tahiti while on board the
Vityaz. He may have bought it from one of the indentured Rapanui at the Brander plantation. On 30 December 1888, the day before his death, both tablets to the
Russian Geographical Society of St Petersburg, which permanently lent them to the museum in 1891. Orliac (2005)
carbon dated the wood to sometime after 1680 CE, though we cannot be sure the text dates from that period. ==Contents==