Archaeologists find 25 quipus at Inca site in Peru (Photo: Andina/Hector Vinces)
Posted on 06/28/2014 1:47:12 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Quipus where used as a form of record-keeping in Inca society, which had no written language.
A set of twenty-five well-preserved quipus were found in the archaeological complex of Incahuasi, south of Lima, Alejandro Chu, archaeologist in charge of the site reported on Tuesday.
Chu told Andina News Agency that this is a major finding as the quipus were found in warehouses or kallancas and not in a funerary context, as most discoveries in the past, “what makes us believe they were used for administrative purposes”.
According to the Peruvian archaeologist, these objects, used by the Inca empire and previous societies in the Andean region, have different sizes the longest measures 3 meters and they have multiple knotted strings of different colors.
Incahuasi or Inca house, located 29.5 kilometers south to the Cañete-Lunahuana highway- is the most important and strategic city built by the Incas in the valley of Lunahuana.
Quipus
With no written language, the Inca devised a tool for recording the movement of people and goods. A quipu is essentially a group of wool and cotton strings tied together.
The strings are dyed in many different colors, and they are joined together in many different manners and they have a wide variety and number of knots tied in them. Together the type of wool, the colors, the knots and the joins hold information that was once readable by several South American societies.
Many of these quipus were destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, but approximately 200 of them dating no earlier than about 650 AD have been found.
Although archaeologists do not all agree about the function of the knotted strings, one fairly compelling argument is that the quipu was a method of record keeping.
(Excerpt) Read more at peruthisweek.com ...
Archaeologists find 25 quipus at Inca site in Peru (Photo: Andina/Hector Vinces)
An early Computer? :-)
(I bet it gets the InterNET)
While many cultures used “knot” accounting like this, one commonality was that they had no tolerance for anyone messing with the knots. Usually the punishment was death.
Which kind of makes you contemplate the current IRS scandal.
The Incans were amazing stone cutters. Macchu picchu is a bucket-list trip indeed. The Conquistadors and the Spanish administers that followed wiped out the entire Incan Civilization. No written history = gone forever. Bummer.
First iteration of the Affordable Care Act sign up web page??
Somewhere in that stored data is the lost Aztec/Inca/Mayan recipe for Long Pig.
Muslims want to rediscover it.
Maybe the IRS liars are actually Incas...leaving no record behind.
IRS to back up emails with quipus.
“Really, it’s a form of hard copy”, says IRS Head.
The megalithic walls built there have that perfect fit because the workers slid them back and forth against each other. Since the stones were basically of the same hardness, the wore each other smooth, leaving that “no knife blade between them” look. Pretty smart.
Oh....so no mummies, huh? Bummer.
Good grief. Instead of studying these pieces of old string, anthropologists should be studying why the Incas were knotting strings to communicate something, while in Europe, intellectual giants such as Plato and Aristotle had been dead for almost a thousand years.
The Romans had constructed majestic Rome on the way to conquering Europe and vast swaths of Asia and Africa about 1300 years before these knotted strings were made. Why were the indigenous people of the Americas still subsisting in Stone Age cultures, while those in China and Italy were light years ahead of them? Inquiring minds should want to know.
And....In the U.S. continued to do so well into the 1890s. ( My grandmother was born in 1894).
After all if you don't put in on a piece of paper, it isn't writing.
Is it really possible for a handful of Europeans to wipe out a culture? I doubt it. The people themselves were offered a better, more rational, and more humane worldview and embraced it willingly.
I really enjoy the tv shows about ancient cultures. A few are going overboard with the ETs helping them though. I do not know what to think about that especially the one the other night about finding an ancient computer and electricity in the pyramids. I need proof.
Interesting.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
