[HN Gopher] The Inca Used Knots to Tell Stories
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The Inca Used Knots to Tell Stories
Author : bryanrasmussen
Score : 65 points
Date : 2022-03-19 14:16 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lithub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lithub.com)
| canjobear wrote:
| 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.
| Maursault wrote:
| 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,
| Purepecha, 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.
| [deleted]
| fit2rule wrote:
| Hani1337 wrote:
| 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.
| JPLeRouzic wrote:
| 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.
| a9h74j wrote:
| A four-word story: Knot now; knot ever.
| almog wrote:
| I wonder if this was what inspired Patrick Rothfuss to introduce
| "Yillish Knots" to Kingkiller Chronicles.
| stakkur wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
| blowski wrote:
| This is part of the story in the 80s children's tv classic "The
| Mysterious Cities of Gold".
| robinsoh wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Fret not! we anyway need to find an economic system that
| makes these methods economical again (or die trying).
| [deleted]
| taeric wrote:
| Uh... An underclass that isn't as valued as royalty can
| easily get you this. Otherwise, there maybe isn't value in
| stuff like this?
| fit2rule wrote:
| tablespoon wrote:
| > Uh... An underclass that isn't as valued as royalty can
| easily get you this. Otherwise, there maybe isn't value
| in stuff like this?
|
| That's one way. Another is a (theoretical) advanced
| society that directs its surplus value into creating art
| rather than consumerism or oligarchical capital
| accumulation.
| pcmoney wrote:
| Isnt art just consumerism with extra steps?
| kozd wrote:
| Seems that taxing negative externalities like carbon
| emissions would be good start
| taeric wrote:
| What makes you so sure that modern building doesn't have
| better numbers there?
| [deleted]
| bsder wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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.
| bsder wrote:
| > The other key is that the hordes of people should be
| expendable.
|
| Except that they really weren't.
|
| The Egyptian pyramids, for example, had an entire support
| ecosystem around it--guilds, hospitals, lodging,
| everything. The people working on building the pyramids
| were probably slightly better off than the average person.
| userbinator wrote:
| _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.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Sacsayhuaman is not the most mysterious place in terms of
| construction techniques.
|
| https://www.geopolymer.org/news/geopolymer-in-south-american...
| astrieanna wrote:
| 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.
| Hani1337 wrote:
| They also used salvia when they were out of acid
| peter-m80 wrote:
| Tl;dr?
| tough wrote:
| ____ _.-' _.---..__ .-'____i-+'_.-'
| .__ .-'_.---.._i'.-'____.--' .__""--:
| .'__..--"_.' "" '.'. __ ""-: :.___..--"
| .---._____i.i--""__ ...___:
| :________.-"""-.______..--"" ...____:
| '.______.-"""-.__.-' '-.___.'
| stevenwoo wrote:
| 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...
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| They also got rid of everyone that spoke Qhapac Simi, creating
| another unsolvable historic mystery.
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