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canopic jug writes:

The NewScientist has an update on the work to interpret the Inca khipus, or chains of knots, which are known to have been used for accounting. Now it is looking likely that the khipus were a full writing system containing narratives, but that they must be read through sense of touch not just vision.

Under strict supervision, Hyland set about photographing the cords, reviewing the manuscripts and taking notes. Each khipu had hundreds of pendant cords, and they were more colourful and complex than anything she had ever seen. It was clear the various animal fibres used could only be identified by touch. The villagers told her the khipus were the "language of animals" and insisted that the different fibres have significance.

Her analysis eventually revealed that the pendants came in 95 different combinations of colour, fibre type and direction of ply. That is within the range of symbols typically found in syllabic writing systems, where a set of signs (say, the letters C-A-T) aligns with the sound of speech (the word "cat"). "I thought 'Woah, could this be a syllabic writing system?'," says Hyland. She has since hypothesised that the khipus contain a combination of phonetic symbols and ideographic ones, where a symbol represents a whole word.

Earlier this year, Hyland even managed to read a little of the khipus. When deciphering anything, one of the most important steps is to work out what information might be repeated in different places, she says. Because the Collata khipus were thought to be letters, they probably encoded senders and recipients. That is where Hyland started. She knew from the villagers that the primary cord of one of the khipus contained ribbons representing the insignia of one of two clan leaders.

Earlier in SN:
Harvard Student Helps Crack Mystery of Inca Code (2018)
Twisted Textile Cords May Contain Clues to Inca Messages (2017)

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