Archaeologists Uncover A Trove Of Rare Inca Calculating Devices

[Potoooooooo]

http://io9.com/archaeologists-uncover-a-trove-of-rare-inca-calculating-1596906974


Archaeologists working in Peru have discovered 25 well-preserved quipus, an ancient string-based device used to solve mathematical problems and to assist in record-keeping.

Quipu (also called "khipus" or "talking knots") typically consisted of colored, spun, and plied thread or strings from llama or alpaca hair. They aided in data collection and record-keeping, including the monitoring of tax obligations, census records, calendrical information, and military organization. The cords contained numeric and other values encoded on knots in a base-10 positional system. Some quipu had as many as 2,000 cords.

Regrettably, many of these quipus were destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, making this recent find all the more precious.

 

[rjh01]

I have seen one of those. No one is sure how to interpret them.

 

[Eldarion Lathria]

How long before some nut credits this to space aliens?

Eldarion Lathria

 

[thebeave]

 

[gmbteach]

I have an interest in the Incas so I hope they can interpret what they mean.

 

[bilby]

How long before some nut credits this to space aliens?

Eldarion Lathria

Just under 11 hours.

 

[pegasus8]

Everything was cool till we showed up to kill, enslaved and tortured the Incas all in the name of god of course.

Of all the Mesoamerican cultures IMO the Incas are on top of the pyramid when it comes to technology. Thanks Potoooo because most folks do not know, refuse to know or just plain think that the Incas were all running around chewing coca leaves all day. This Quipu is amazing to say the least and just think, back in the day my Catholic ancestors, see Spaniards, would have loved to get their greedy mitts on it and burn it all in the name of a just and merciful god of course.

The Incas techniques in wax gold molds, feather presentation, textile weaving and surgical operations still confound and puzzle scholars, archeologist, anthropologists, etc., to this day. We understand how it was done, somewhat, but can not fathom its complexities to be a practical way of production and procedure.The complex intricacies of their finish products seem to be from another world. In other words a lot of this stuff was just too hard and time consuming to do today with our modern collective understanding and interpretation to be viable. The Inca artifacts give us a glimmer of what a great culture could be without the use of the wheel or service animals. Just the Inca advanced administrational logistics alone could adroitly manage its vast empire. Hence the beautiful magnificent "talking knots." It is pretty damn impressive to get fresh and even live seafood, speculative, up the mountains for the royalty to enjoy as their human relay system would be like a man made driven pony express!

And all those people who had operations on their heads and lived for years! And we think that we are so superior.

Thanks and peace

Pegasus

 

[Underseer]

Don't forget mortarless masonry, which from what I understand we still can't figure out entirely. I mean, people know how it works, but how do you go about building one of those things on purpose?

 

[bilby]

Don't forget mortarless masonry, which from what I understand we still can't figure out entirely. I mean, people know how it works, but how do you go about building one of those things on purpose?

When I was unemployed, back in the late 1980s, in Yorkshire, one of the government training courses I was offered was dry-stone walling. It is a skill, but not one that is any more difficult than being a boilermaker, or knapping flint. There is nothing mysterious about it; the claim "We still can't figure it out entirely" is simply false, but as there are few people who do have that skill today, it is close enough to the true, but banal, statement "Most people today couldn't figure it out entirely" for it to be hard to disprove. It is therefore a favourite of the woo ancient aliens crowd - but at heart is simply an appeal to ignorance.

I can't make a flint arrowhead; nor can anyone I know; therefore aliens. It is a very lazy way of thinking.

Dry stone construction was very common in rural Yorkshire, not just for walls, but for dwellings and farm buildings, for centuries; there is now quite a demand for skilled practitioners of the art, as there are few remaining master craftsmen who can repair such structures. It was a sensible building style for that part of the world, as it was in the Andes, because loose rocks were plentiful, but everything else was hard to come by.