Poneglyphs are mysterious steles with history inscribed on them in the form of ancient letters. They are scattered among the islands of the world.
There are a total of three types of Poneglyphs scattered across the world:
“Historical Poneglyphs” reveal pieces of ancient history as well as messages written by ancient people.
“Instructional Poneglyphs” contain instructions and/or clues about the locations of Historical Poneglyphs.
“Road Poneglyphs” detail a location. The combined locations detailed by all four Road Poneglyphs, allows one to locate Raftel.
Both Historical and Instructional Poneglyphs are dark blue in color, while the Road Poneglyphs are deep red in color.
Here’s the list of the characters who know (or knew) how to read Poneglyphs:
#5 – CLOVER
Professor Clover was the director of the Ohara Library, and a leading authority on archeology. He was a professor and scholar who studied poneglyphs with his fellow colleagues in the Tree of Knowledge.
As a scholar from Ohara, Professor Clover had the skills to read Poneglyphs and the exact locations of the ancient weapons. Clover stated that before the World Government was formed, the world was ruled by a Great Kingdom. But they were wiped out by a group that would one day become the World Government. However, before Clover could reveal the name, he was shot and mortally wounded. The Buster Call was then initiated and Marine ships began to assault Ohara.
Clover’s renown knowledge was so high, even Silvers Rayleigh complimented him.
#4 – NICO OLVIA
Nico Olvia was Nico Robin’s mother and an archaeologist.
As a scholar from Ohara, Olvia had the skills to read Poneglyphs, thus being one of the few people with the ability to discover the truth about the Void Century, and the exact locations of the ancient weapons. As an archaeologist, she had considerable knowledge of history.
#3 – KOZUKI ODEN
Kozuki Oden was the daimyo of Kuri in Wano Country and was Momonosuke’s father. He was the patriarch of the Kozuki Family 20 years ago until he was executed by Kurozumi Orochi.
As a descendant of the Kozuki Family, Oden inherited from his ancestors the knowledge and skill to read Poneglyphs and write its ancient language and was the last member of the family with the skill as he failed to pass on the philological knowledge to his son before he was murdered by the Beast Pirates. He also had the ability to hear the “Voice of All Things”.
#2 – GOL D. ROGER
Gol D. Roger was a legendary pirate who was known as the Pirate King, captain of the Roger Pirates, and owner of the legendary treasure known as “One Piece”.
Roger was also able to understand the meaning of the characters written on the Poneglyphs, as well as write in the same language. However, he was not like the Ohara scholars who used their intellect to study the Poneglyphs, so he could not exactly “read” them. According to Rayleigh, Roger could interpret the Poneglyphs because he had the ability to “hear the voice of all things”.
#1 – NICO ROBIN
At a young age, Robin acquired a bounty of 79,000,000 Berries for having the ability to read Poneglyphs, which told of the Void Century. Her ability to read the Poneglyphs are by far her most dangerous quality, and the World Government considers her a huge threat because of this.
In the current storyline Nico Robin is the only person alive who can read the language written on poneglyph tablets.
