5. The glyph type GD13 (named Rei by me due to the usage of Metoro) differs on several points from the wooden rei miro pectorals. First we notice the orientation: GD13 glyphs are raised upright as if they were standing on their (front) ends - not at all looking as if they were sailing on the sea.

Possibly the vertical orientation is partly due^* to a wish to save horizontal space for the glyphs in the lines of the rongorongo board. Wood was scarce on Easter Island and thoughts of economy may have influenced:

...The stone masons who went ashore and began to cut and join enormous blocks of basalt had not reached a barren and grass-covered island where they could drag their enormous monoliths about the plains at will; rather, they first had to cut down trees and clear land to get access to quarries, and to allow freedom of movement for themselves and their monuments ... (Heyerdahl 2)

... I can see no reason why not man and his animals could have succeeded to exterminate practically everything of original nature except the lichens and mosses covering the rocks and a few herbs and grasses ... (Skottsberg according to Heyerdahl 4)

... The toromiro wood was formerly the principal and indispensable material for Easter Island wood carving. Due to the general barrenness of the land at the time of the European arrival, every scrap of drift wood was collected too, but whenever toromiro was available it was preferred for all wooden artifacts, from personal ornaments and images to house frames, canoes and paddles.

The demand for this wood among the natives was so great that the forests in more recent generations have been rapidly vanishing, and partly substituted by the imported miro tahiti... Some of the keenest local wood carvers had old chunks of toromiro wood hoarded in their personal hiding-places, and a fair size root was brought from a cave and presented to the writer as a treasure ... (Heyerdahl 4)

In Rb3-103 we have a rare example of a glyph where GD13 is horizontally oriented:

The bottom part of the glyph is GD63 (ariki) and the head of the ariki (king) has taken the form of a Rei glyph.

Otherwise the GD13 glyphs as a rule are oriented vertically with the 'inside of the ship' at right.

^* By using the expression 'partly due' (to a wish to save horizontal space for the glyphs in the lines of the rongorongo board) the reader must be alerted to the impossibility of explaining everything at once. Somewhat further on the reader will learn of another reason for the vertical orientation. Most important, though, is to understand the method chosen for documenting the meanings of all the different types of glyphs and signs:

The glyph dictionary must be read in a linear order starting from GD11, continuing with GD12, GD13 etc all the way through - at the 'highest level', i.e. without going down into the details (signs, mixed glyphs etc) which are written for the reader who has read and assimilated the 'highest level'.