Ghost of a flea

Inca knot-writing may be a form of binary

The Inca are a satisfying anomaly for those of us teaching theories of the development of civilization. A system of writing is included in most systems for distinguishing a civilization from some other form of social organization. The Inca empire governed millions - possibly tens of millions - of people, displayed advanced skills in science, engineering and public planning and maintained whole castes of artisans producing fine art for trade. Yet the Inca did have a written language.

Quipu (or khipu) are a record-keeping system using knotted-string which have long been thought to take the place of writing for administrative, and particularly accounting, tasks. The ability to intepret quipu was lost along with the quipucamac specialists wiped out by smallpox and war at the time of the Spanish conquest. Harvard University anthropologist Gary Urton now believes he has found a "Rosetta stone" for quipu in his claim they could have stored information in binary code:

This could mean the code used by the makers allowed them to convey some 1,536 separate units of information, comparable to the estimated 1,000 to 1,500 Sumerian cuneiform signs, and double the number of signs in the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians and the Maya of Central America.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at June 23, 2003 10:50 AM