Could solving the riddle of Khipu one day lead to Inca treasure?

[Crow]

Hello All

Here is a though provoking question just we thought we had seen it all.

Could solving the riddle of Khipu one day lead to Inca treasure?

Well perhaps one day the riddle will be solved...

The mystery surrounding a cryptic string-based communication system used by ancient Incan administrators may at last be unravelling, thanks to computer analysis of hundreds of different knotted bundles. The discovery provides a tantalising glimpse of bureaucracy in the Andean empire and may, for the first time, also reveal an Incan word written in string.
Woven from cotton, llama or alpaca wool, the mysterious string bundles - known as Khipu - consist of a single strand from which dangle up to thousands of subsidiary strings, each featuring a bewildering array of knots. Of the 600 or so Khipu that have been found, most date from between 1400 AD and 1500 AD. However, a few are thought to be about 1000 years old.


Spanish colonial documents suggest that Khipu were in some way used to keep records and communicate messages. Yet how the cords were used to convey useful information has puzzled generations of experts.
Now, anthropologist Gary Urton and mathematician Carrie Brezine at Harvard University, Massachusetts, US, think they may have begun unravelling the knotty code. The pair built a searchable database containing key information about Khipu strings, such as the number and position of subsidiary strings and the number and position of knots tied in them.


The pair then used this database to search for similarities between 21 Khipus discovered in 1956 at the key Incan administrative base of Puruchuco, near modern day Lima in Peru. Superficial similarities suggested that the Khipu could be connected but the database revealed a crucial mathematical bond - the data represented by subsidiary strands on some of Khipu could be combined to create the strands found on more complex ones.
This suggests the Khipu were used to collate information from different parts of the empire, which stretched for more than 5500 kilometres. Brezine used the mathematical software package Mathematica to scour the database for other mathematical links - and found several.


"Local accountants would forward information on accomplished tasks upward through the hierarchy, with information at each successive level representing the summation of accounts from the levels below," Urton says. "This communication was used to record the information deemed most important to the state, which often included accounting and other data related to censuses, finances and the military."
And Urton and Brezine go a step further. Given that the Puruchuco strings may represent collations of data different regions, they suggest that a characteristic figure-of-eight knot found on all of the 21 Puruchuco strings may represent the place itself. If so, it would be the first word to ever be extracted from an Incan Khipu.


Completely deciphering the Khipu may never be possible, Urton says, but further analysis of the Khipu database might reveal other details of life. New archaeological discoveries could also throw up some more surprises.

Many years ago an friend of mine in Cuzco Peru told me his father a former policeman in Cuzco was offered a Khipu by an ancient native street vendor who came in from the surrounding hills of Cuzco. He hesitated because of his position but swears to his dying day that the Khipu looked very ancient. The old women claimed that it was passed down through her family and it allegedly led to a treasure cave in the mountains. The old policeman had seen many of the trinkets in his day being peddled by street hawkers and this one he deeply regretted not buying. By the time he decided to buy it she had disappeared into the crowds of the Plaza.

Anyway regardless of the above story it would be tantalizing indeed that the clues to a great Inca treasure can be recorded on series of knots on a piece of string. If only we knew how to solve the mystery of the Khipu?

Crow

[h=3][/h]

 

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[Crow]

Hello Again

Here is one interpenetration of some of the knots.


An additional khipu board came to light recently in the Andean city of Ayacucho. While researching ceramics from the Ayacucho area, Di Hu, a graduate student of Christine Hastorf at UC Berkeley, encountered this second khipu board in a storage room. Covered with three layers of paper, each of which contains writing, this khipu board has plain white cords, occasionally exhibiting blotches of red paint. Hyland’s analysis of the features of this khipu board will greatly expand our understanding of how khipu boards varied throughout the Andes.





In the early Spanish colonial period The Spaniards tried to master this knot lanuage and learned some of the meanings. hence knot boards. However they are very rare and it seems the khipu had varied meanings in different parts of the Andes. That even Khipu was not totally understood by all tribes under the influence of the Inca empire.

Crow

 

[Crow]

Hello all

The early Spanish was I believe were quite intrigued with this strange system of writing and accounting very alien from our own western concepts. As you can see in early writing about it below.



As you can see Early perceptions of the Khilu was for Astrology among other things?



Guaman Poma in his book gives a good description of the Khilu description in Nueva Coronica Y buen Gobierno

Crow

 

[Paes]

On a lighter string the science of patterns is highly advanced and if big data analyzers such as search engines or stock market companies use machines they use, the mystery could be solved sooner and so the treasure.

 

[Crow]

Hello Paes

Indeed Science may one day understand the Riddle of the khipu. I can only imagine the stories these intriguing system of writing could tell. Perhaps key to lost treasure even?

Crow

 

[old digger]

Quite interesting! My father did translation work out in Africa.

Is it possible that this photo shows some type of census taking. The string with the knots alongside the written names/?, refer to number in that said family?

 

[Crow]

Hello Old Digger

Quite possible? My Guess is that it was an early attempt by the Spanish to understand the riddle of the knots, a translation book so speak? Each type of Knot represents a word. And where each knot hangs there are a Spanish translation of the meaning of the knot.

A mystery all the same.

Crow

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Fascinating Crow, Gentlemen. Perhaps they are a modification from Ancient Chinese writing. Vertical column going to the left. Decending or ascending.

crude example ->For example an individual letter, or equivalent, could be represented by a certain type of knot, say made with a right hand pass, and it' place in the particular string by a modification of it, say a right or left hand. pass opposite of the letter designation one, plus an initial mod. for qualifying which string in the series, if needed, alrhough the ones that I have seen are sequentially constructed physically...

Further configuration of it for which string. easily accomplished when one knows the code, language, and and sequence.

Say a right turn knot for alphabetical designation with a left turn for it's position on the string, Presumably the string is already attached to something basically immovable Could be a very simple code IF,

Any presumable de coded examples yet ?

C t
R h
U i <-- 9 passes in English followed by X passes in the left direction
D s
E
i <--X passes to the left etc. Since it is presumable a simple language it
E s
X
a a

Don Jose de La Mancha




Ya blew it Crow,, now I won't rest until I know how or why If possible..

 

[Crow]

Hello Don Jose

It could well be? Your guess as good any?

I have too much eye candy to concentrate too much at the moment. Anyway we will be slipping anchor. That Kanacka has posted. We are short on time as want to make Palmerston then cook islands for christmas and Tahiti for new year. See ya in a week or so.

Crow.

 

[Oroblanco]

Fascinating - please do continue!

 

[Corporate Investigations]

Hello Crow

You can eye all the candy you want but your not getting any of the sweets.

It is quite amazing that the Inca culture so similar to us in some respects have such a totally different and Alien way of writing? It slowly goes against the grain of some defusionist theories. That and not having any concept of the wheel. I think the more we marvel at the pre Colombian cultures we tend to want to associate them with the old World. My guess it was an early attempt by priests to understand the Khipu. This discovery of text associated with khipu Knots could just be the Rosetta stone in Solving the riddle of Khipu?

Corp

 

[Oroblanco]

Hello Crow

You can eye all the candy you want but your not getting any of the sweets.

It is quite amazing that the Inca culture so similar to us in some respects have such a totally different and Alien way of writing? It slowly goes against the grain of some defusionist theories. That and not having any concept of the wheel. I think the more we marvel at the pre Colombian cultures we tend to want to associate them with the old World. My guess it was an early attempt by priests to understand the Khipu. This discovery of text associated with khipu Knots could just be the Rosetta stone in Solving the riddle of Khipu?

Corp

Hola amigo Corp - and I realize your post was directed to our mutual friend Crow, just would respectfully disagree on the diffusionist point. It is a mistake to think that such diffusion must be all or nothing, massive or zero; cross-oceanic contacts were taking place in ancient times but not fleets of ships more like sporadic and sometimes accidental. I don't wish to hijack the thread but if you are interested in it, will suggest just a few products which prove that contact was happening - sweet potatoes, bottle gourds, cotton, and chickens. The Isolation theory never addresses these things, all Amerindian ancestors supposedly came trooping across the Arctic which had a continent-wide, two-mile-thick glacier, and were entirely hunter-gatherers. They did not bring along chickens and sweet potatoes while hunting mammoths. Recent DNA studies now show that some Amerindians have European ancestry, specifically those in Haplogroup X. If you would like to read a clear description of the Americas coastlines written by an ancient Greek circa 350 BC, check out Plato's Timaeus. In describing the location of Atlantis he also includes the "true continent" that "rims the whole of the western ocean" along with the islands used like stepping stones to reach them, namely the British isles, Orkneys, Iceland, Greenland. So many people get caught up in hunting Atlantis that they miss that accurate description of the Americas, written centuries before Christ by a man whom should not have known according to our historians favorite Isolation theory. The thing is, for the Isolation theory to hold true, there must not be any evidence of contact prior to Columbus (or Leif Eriksson) and in reality there is a considerable amount, even whole shipwrecks, chickens etc. The fact that many things were not exchanged, like the wheel, really helps point up that the wheel and draft animals (oxen and horses, mules) are very much intertwined for cultural adaptations; without the draft animals the wheel is not that important and vice-versa. Too many historians are worried about hidden racist agendas, which is not the right way to approach history.

Sorry for getting off on a tangent there - please do continue.
Oroblanco

 

[Corporate Investigations]

Hello Oro

Indeed in some respects I could not agree more about the concept of all or nothing being a mistake. But at the same time both supporters of either theory have their flaws. Me personally I have not seen evidence comprehensively settle that question either way however so interesting. It is a fascinating topic worthy of its own thread. As do the mystery of Khipu is worthy of its own.

If the Khipu can one day be understood. Then perhaps many of Pre-Colombian mystery's will be unlocked and others created? The khipu is a System of syllables that seems to be word association rather than an alphabet system. Thus there would by perhaps many thousands of words associated each of different knots. This perhaps suggest that perhaps the Khipu was sacred writing only known to Priests as such. And Yet even today some Inca still have vague ideas of their ancient system shows originally the Khipu was better known around various classes of Inca for communication. How much for everyday use is not known?

One thing we know by the Guma Poma is there was uses by the Inca of khipu

For accounting.



For records administration.



One other point of interest Inca account appears to be based on the representation of the number 5 , 3, 2, 1

Definitely a subject worthy of further study.

Corp

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Tis tis mi luv, you beat me to it in that I was going to suggest word associations or symbolic functions which in turn means a possible different association for each message, i.E. a variable function for each knot. even if it is of the same physical construction.

I now need to study this. Ya started something Crow, now ya have to finish it.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Corporate Investigations]

Hello Don Jose

It is the usual ploy of the unholy trio. They drop you into intriguing stories and just when you think you figured it all out they drop another teaser in the mix. Such as my experience with my employers you ya never really know what their up to and really doing?

However all the mystery and intrigue falls aside when the old bank balance once every 3 months gets a very big boost. One tends to go with the flow and not ask too much questions.

Corp.

 

[Corporate Investigations]

Hello Everybody

Here is more on the khipu also spelt as Quipus

Quipucamayocs in the Quechua language khipu kamayuq, meaning "khipu-authority"), the accountants of Tawantinsuyu, created and deciphered the quipu knots. Quipucamayocs could carry out basic arithmetic operations, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They kept track of Mita. The Mita was as form a form of taxation. Yes even the Incas had Tax.

The quipucamayocs also tracked the type of labor being performed, maintained a record of economic output, and ran a census that inclueded everyone from infants to "old blind men over 80" and everything in between. The system was also used to keep track of the calendar. According to the native writer in the 18th century, Guaman Poma, claimed quipucamayocs could "read" the quipus with their eyes closed. Quipucamayocs were from a class of older males, fifty to sixty years old.

They of course was not the only members of Inca society to use quipus. Inca historians used quipus when telling the Spanish about Tahuantinsuyu history (It should be noted whether they only recorded important numbers or actually contained the story itself is still unknown). Members of the ruling class were usually taught to read quipus in the Inca equivalent of a university.

Inca University was called the yacha-huasi (literally meaning, "house of teaching"), in the third year of schooling, for the higher classes who would eventually become the bureaucracy of the Inca Empire.

Even today parts of the Inca culture is little like our own even if the Khipu system itself seems so alien a language to us.

Corp

 

[Crow]

Hello Corp

I might of kicked off this topic but your have pick up the ball and ran with it.

Facinating follow up post as usual. I can see why old hardluck recruited you. Always a pleasure to leave things in your capable hands.

Crow

 

[Corporate Investigations]

Hello Crow

The pleasure is all mine. Its not every day one gets a insight into a group of extrodinary men who have a deep insight into history and an unquenchable passion for treasure legends.

Corp

 

[Loke]

@Corp
Amy (is it?) - let me just say that it is a pleasure to read your posts - eloquent doesn't even describe it, and more impressive - the amount of research that obviously has gone before you post. I bow to you, ma'am!

 

[Corporate Investigations]

Hello Loke,

I am flattered but I feel the real complements should go the raggedy bunch of misfits who call themselves the unholy trio. Affectionately coined by non other Don Jose tropical; tramp a legend himself. You would be like me be utterly amazed at the amazing data base of documents, journals, books, charts, private letters, news paper clipping journals pertaining to many different treasure legends from all around the world. I am continually opening folders and blown away by the contents inside. Part of my Job is index the data collected over many decades. Thousands and thousands of pages.

Corp