The Inca Used Knots to Tell Stories

https://lithub.com/how-the-inca-used-knots-to-tell-stories/

82 39 4 years ago

peter-m80• 4 years ago

Tl;dr?

tough• 4 years ago

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robinsoh4• 4 years ago

It breaks my heart that till today we don't know how Inca (or possibly their predecessor civilization) constructed Sacsayhuaman and Machu Picchu. It is still unclear exactly how they achieved those structures. We're talking about 140 tonne rocks being put together to form those structures and assembled without mortar in such a way that one can't slip a piece of paper in between rocks.

When the Conquistadors encountered the structures, they had no idea how they were being made or put together. They pulled them apart and used the pulled apart chunks with mortar to build cathedrals that mostly fell apart every time there was a tectonic movement. So much knowledge in those khipus burnt by religious fanatics.

We use cement concrete which is a massive source of CO2 production. If we could have somehow preserved the knowledge of how those structures were built instead of burning their knowledge, and killing their stone masons and scientists, we could have had a very different modern world today.

ekorz• 4 years ago

Fret not! It’s not all forgotten. We know how to make structures with fine masonry techniques; it’s just not economical to build modern structures with these labor-intensive and high-skill methods. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca_architecture and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashlar

openfuture• 4 years ago

Fret not! we anyway need to find an economic system that makes these methods economical again (or die trying).

robinsoh4• 4 years ago

it’s just not economical to build modern structures with these labor-intensive and high-skill methods.

Do you find that explanation convincing?

astrieanna• 4 years ago

I think we do know a little of it. They used limestone and an acid -- so the touching surfaces of the rock were softened, which is how they conformed so closely and precisely to each other.

Hani13372• 4 years ago

They also used salvia when they were out of acid

bsder2• 4 years ago

If we could have somehow preserved the knowledge

Most of the stuff from the ancient would is quite easy to reproduce--throw hordes of people at it. The ancient world didn't have some fantastically superior knowledge.

I forget the magician, but he stated something along the lines of "Magic is simply being willing to devote to accomplishing a task an amount of time and preparation that any rational person would regard as insanity."

Sadly, when the ancient world couldn't support throwing hordes of people at the problems, it collapsed.

bluefirebrand• 4 years ago

throw hordes of people at it

The other key is that the hordes of people should be expendable.

Imagine what our GDP would be like if companies were still allowed to work us all to death!

Oh wait.

robinsoh4• 4 years ago

Most of the stuff from the ancient would is quite easy to reproduce--throw hordes of people at it. The ancient world didn't have some fantastically superior knowledge.

I don't find this type of explanation convincing at all. If your claim was true, then just look at the fact that we still can't reproduce such structures today. I would allege the type of sentiment and thinking your paragraph is representing borders on arrogance. I'm reminded of the story of the illiterate Roman soldier w ho murdered Archimedes and said that man was just drawing circles in the sand.

We are a violent illiterate people who murdered Incan Archimedes and their khippus and since we can't understand their science we try to put down their structures as 'throw hordes of people'.

29athrowaway2• 4 years ago

Sacsayhuaman is not the most mysterious place in terms of construction techniques.

https://www.geopolymer.org/news/geopolymer-in-south-american...

userbinator• 4 years ago

We're talking about 140 tonne rocks being put together to form those structures and assembled without mortar in such a way that one can't slip a piece of paper in between rocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapping#Two-piece_lapping

As the other comment here says, this isn't a mystery. It's just extremely labour-intensive.

robinsoh4• 4 years ago

As the other comment here says, this isn't a mystery. It's just extremely labour-intensive.

And as I said there, I don't find that kind of blaise response as convincing or substantial. Labour intensive way of lifting and lapping 140 tonne rocks?

almog• 4 years ago

I wonder if this was what inspired Patrick Rothfuss to introduce "Yillish Knots" to Kingkiller Chronicles.

stevenwoo• 4 years ago

This mentions the professor Upton and his database but left out interesting story about the undergrad student who deciphered one for one correspondence between khipu and Spanish records and helped compile the database. The fact that most khipu were destroyed by the Spanish is a terrible loss. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931972-600-we-thoug...

29athrowaway2• 4 years ago

They also got rid of everyone that spoke Qhapac Simi, creating another unsolvable historic mystery.

stakkur• 4 years ago

I don't normally defer to Wikipedia, but on this topic the Wikipedia entry is far more informatative and less slanted towards trying to make them about 'narrative stories':

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

ghotli• 4 years ago

I had the same reaction. The narrative story bit would be different from how I've seen it presented in other sources.

Also, there was at least at one time a surviving example of a Quipu in the Seattle Art Museum. I had known about them but to be surprised by one in person was really something and I look back on it fondly

libraryatnight• 4 years ago

Thank you, I found myself interested in the Quipu and frustrated with the article.

canjobear• 4 years ago

Khipu don't require us to rethink writing. They are most likely an accounting/tabulation system, the same as other early forms of writing as found for example in Sumer.

JPLeRouzic• 4 years ago

It reminds me of the Lukasa which was used in the Congo river basin around the XVII century. But indeed it use a fundamentally different principle than Quipu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lukasa_(Luba)

The Lukasa performs many mnemonic functions, and although all memory cards share some common information, certain types of memory cards are used to communicate specialized or elite-specific data.

It uses multicolored beads, shells and bits of metal, or are incised or embossed with carved symbols.

a9h74j2• 4 years ago

A four-word story: Knot now; knot ever.

a9h74j2• 4 years ago

Rewrite: Hence the title of that sweeping historical drama, that international blockbuster, that perennial Incan favorite: Knot Now; Knot Ever

blowski• 4 years ago

This is part of the story in the 80s children’s tv classic “The Mysterious Cities of Gold”.

Hani13372• 4 years ago

I think it's wrong to think they encoded data like a stylesheet, I think they encoded information through arborescence and fractal charts. Big difference if you're thinking of understanding their data structure. First idea that popped into my mind was that these are perfect to keep track of genealogy across generations and multiple families.

Maursault• 4 years ago

I can't not go all over the place here to make two small points. But in summary, author has tunnel vision, and with repetition, wasted column inches. Should have said more with less.

I find pre-european contact N & S American civilizations fascinating, but with my casual interest I can only reliably name three off-hand, Maya, Aztec and Inca. There are piles more: Norte Chico, Cahokia, Zapotec, Toltec, Olmec, Chimor, Mixtec, Moche, Mississippian, Puebloan, Totonac, Teotihuacan, Huastec, Purépecha, Izapa, Mazatec, Muisca, and all the other distinct Native American cultures. I don't think there is an exhaustive list. Author could have spared a sentence here or there to help place the Incas for us, to give us more than we already knew by the first few paragraphs.

The practice of mnemonic knotting is ancient. I believe artifacts have been found all over the world related to primitive civilizations going back to the Paleolithic, and I am pretty sure there are some famous ones of medieval European origins that are on display in some Irish museum(s). But my search fu is not strong, and all I can recall is reading something (I think) Christopher Tolkien wrote about what his father's "lays" actually were: the writing is his father's translation from (allegedly, obviously that's fiction, but we play along) a physical "lay," which is a product of mnemonic knotting. J.R.R Tolkien's lays were, in origin, in universe, these long textile-like things that may look like embroidery or a banner to any not already knowing what it is, which is mnemonic knotting. And although Tolkien's lays are fiction, lays are real things. I just can't produce a link to an image of one, but I have seen such images. And my point here is: was the author unaware of the very long history of mnemonic knotting? Perhaps they might have said, "like the famous [such and such] on display at the [blah blah blah] that gives a full account of [8 generations of a large and successful pre-Roman family in Scotland, or whatever]."

tl;dr The author is cuckoo for quipu.

ncmncm• 4 years ago

In the time when quipus were in use, there was exactly one Inka. We don't use whatever word they used to refer to everybody else, who were all his personal property, and now, incorrectly, call them all Incas.

The Ottomans had a similar system: everybody was the slave of Suleiman.

A similar conceit was common in the old world.

It is painfully evident that the people Pizarro subjugated were not who built any of the most impressive megalithic works. You can easily distinguish the crude repair work they did on them, long afterward. (They are doubtless descendants of the builders.)

stolenmerch• 4 years ago

Gary Urton's book, "Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records" [0] is a great introduction to this topic. After reading this I was reminded how not all writing systems can easily be encoded in utf-8, à la Awesome Falsehoods. [1]

[0] https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/urtsig

[1] https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood

The Inca Used Knots to Tell Stories

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