CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- For centuries, the mighty Incan empire has confounded researchers.
The Incas controlled territory up and down the spine of South America, with a sophisticated system of tributes and distribution that kept millions fed through the seasons. They built irrigation systems and stone temples in the clouds.
And yet they had no writing. For scholars, this has been like trying to imagine how the Romans could have administered their vast empire without written Latin.
Now, after more than a decade of fieldwork and research, a professor at Harvard University believes he has uncovered a language of binary code recorded in knotted strings -- a writing system unlike virtually any other.
The strings are found on "khipus," ancient Incan objects that look something like mops. About 600 khipus survive in museums and private collections, and archaeologists have long known that the elaborately knotted strings of some khipus recorded numbers like an abacus. Harvard's Gary Urton said the khipus contain a wealth of overlooked information hidden in their construction details, such as the way the knots are tied -- and that these could be the building blocks of a lost writing system that records the history, myths and poetry of the Incas.
The theory has Incan scholars abuzz. The discovery of true Incan writing would revolutionize their field the same way that deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphics or Mayan glyphs lifted a veil from those civilizations. But it also has broader interest because the khipus could constitute what is, to Western eyes, an unorthodox writing system, using knots and strings in three dimensions instead of markings on a flat expanse of paper, clay or stone.
"What makes this work so interesting is that what is being expressed is being conceptualized in such a different way than we conceptualize," said Sabine MacCormack, a historian of the Romans and the Incas and a professor at the University of Notre Dame.
The only way to prove Urton's theory correct would be to translate the khipus, which no one has yet done. In his new book, he proposes a new method for transcribing the knotted strings which he believes could lead to breakthroughs. And his work, funded in part by a genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation, has helped fuel a resurgence of scholarly interest in khipus. Later this month, the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art in Santiago is opening the world's first exhibit dedicated to the khipu.
Want to learn more?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/129602_inca05.html
The Incas controlled territory up and down the spine of South America, with a sophisticated system of tributes and distribution that kept millions fed through the seasons. They built irrigation systems and stone temples in the clouds.
And yet they had no writing. For scholars, this has been like trying to imagine how the Romans could have administered their vast empire without written Latin.
Now, after more than a decade of fieldwork and research, a professor at Harvard University believes he has uncovered a language of binary code recorded in knotted strings -- a writing system unlike virtually any other.
The strings are found on "khipus," ancient Incan objects that look something like mops. About 600 khipus survive in museums and private collections, and archaeologists have long known that the elaborately knotted strings of some khipus recorded numbers like an abacus. Harvard's Gary Urton said the khipus contain a wealth of overlooked information hidden in their construction details, such as the way the knots are tied -- and that these could be the building blocks of a lost writing system that records the history, myths and poetry of the Incas.
The theory has Incan scholars abuzz. The discovery of true Incan writing would revolutionize their field the same way that deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphics or Mayan glyphs lifted a veil from those civilizations. But it also has broader interest because the khipus could constitute what is, to Western eyes, an unorthodox writing system, using knots and strings in three dimensions instead of markings on a flat expanse of paper, clay or stone.
"What makes this work so interesting is that what is being expressed is being conceptualized in such a different way than we conceptualize," said Sabine MacCormack, a historian of the Romans and the Incas and a professor at the University of Notre Dame.
The only way to prove Urton's theory correct would be to translate the khipus, which no one has yet done. In his new book, he proposes a new method for transcribing the knotted strings which he believes could lead to breakthroughs. And his work, funded in part by a genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation, has helped fuel a resurgence of scholarly interest in khipus. Later this month, the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art in Santiago is opening the world's first exhibit dedicated to the khipu.
Want to learn more?
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/129602_inca05.html