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from the succeeded-by-Madame-Thérèse-Defarge dept.
Animal-hair cords dating to the late 1700s contain a writing system that might generate insights into how the Inca communicated, a new study suggests.
Researchers have long wondered whether some twisted and knotted cords from the Inca Empire, which ran from 1400 to 1532, represent a kind of writing about events and people. Many scholars suspect that these textile artifacts, known as khipus, mainly recorded decimal numbers in an accounting system. Yet Spanish colonial documents say that some Inca khipus contained messages that runners carried to various destinations.
Now a new twist in this knotty mystery comes from two late 18th century khipus stored in a wooden box at San Juan de Collata, a Peruvian village located high in the Andes Mountains. A total of 95 cord combinations of different colors, animal fibers and ply directions, identified among hundreds of hanging cords on these khipus, signify specific syllables, reports Sabine Hyland. Hyland, a social anthropologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, describes the khipus online April 19 in Current Anthropology.
Her findings support a story told by Collata villagers that the khipus are sacred writings of two local chiefs concerning a late 18th century rebellion against Spanish authorities.
The Collata khipus display intriguing similarities to Inca khipus, including hanging cords with nearly the same proportions of two basic ply directions, Hyland says. A better understanding of Central Andean khipus from the 1700s through the 1900s will permit a reevaluation of the earlier Inca twisted cords, she suggests.
Messages hidden in plain sight? Or should that be "plaid" site?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:03AM (20 children)
This is another example that our modern technology isn't the only solution to any given problem. We marvel at things like the pyramids, but we don't really understand how they did it. Sure, we speculate that they had so much manpower, and they might have done this or that to get the stones in place, etc, ad nauseum. And, Stonehenge baffles us - WTF did they even build it? What purpose did it serve? Now, we find that some macrame contains messages that we can't decipher.
Oh yeah - twisted extension on that line of thinking: The Chinese built their Great Wall, presumable with brute force, just plain muscle power. And, we, today, claim that we can't build a wall across our southern border - to hard, to expensive, to something or other.
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:13AM (2 children)
> ...to hard, to expensive, to something or other.
I see your problem...not enough "o's" in your rant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:33AM
Here, speak into the microphone. And, use a lot of "m's". I like those "m's"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday May 27 2017, @09:51AM
Seriously, do you expect Runaway to be racist, AND spell correctly? That is two much to axe of anne Mann!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:32AM (11 children)
Build a wall across the northern border first, please, we must stop the smuggling of maple syrup.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:36AM (10 children)
How many people have died in the syrup market? Please, find out, we need to compare it to the numbers of people who have died in the cocaine and marijuana markets coming through Mexico. Then, we need to research how many Canadians have entered the US illegally. Seriously, we need to deport all 6 or 7 or them. What's that? You say there are TWELVE of them! Out-fucking-rageous!!!
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:41AM (8 children)
You're old enough to have lived through Prohibition, aren't you? Remember how stopped people from dying due to the bootlegging market?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:49AM (7 children)
You're right - the prohibition of maple syrup needs to be repealed!
More seriously, the wall is meant to stop the steady invasion of foreign people who are unwanted in this country, as well as to stop the illicit trade in drugs. We aren't "required" by anything to accept the flood of people coming into this country. And, don't even bother with "But, we're a nation of immigrants!" At no time in history did our laws permit people to enter this nation at will, without any regard for the laws in place.
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:57AM (2 children)
Why don't you give H1B visas to Mexicans and use their indentured labor to make Bozo the Bezos even richer?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:59AM (1 child)
Uhhhh - when have I ever argued in favor of H1B? Or, any other moronic program designed to undercut the American working people? I've a better idea: you should take entire sheaths of H1B forms, and deposit them someplace like Uranus, so that no one can find them, or use them.
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @04:14AM
Well... could you, please?
For a change, if nothing else - the same droning become tiresome after some time.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Saturday May 27 2017, @10:07AM (3 children)
You are making stuff up again! *citation(s) needed*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_laws_concerning_immigration_and_naturalization_in_the_United_States
You can read, Runaway? First Immigration law, 1882. You may be confusing immigration laws with Naturalization laws, a different matter, and one you also have your caput in rectum about. So can we get back to the Inca knot records?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:04PM (2 children)
The United States Constitution was adopted on September 17, 1787. Article I, section 8, clause 4 of the Constitution expressly gives the United States Congress the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.[1]
Pursuant to this power, Congress in 1790 passed the first naturalization law for the United States, the Naturalization Act of 1790. The law enabled those who had resided in the country for two years and had kept their current state of residence for a year to apply for citizenship. However it restricted naturalization to "free white persons" of "good moral character".
The Naturalization Act of 1795 increased the residency requirement to five years residence and added a requirement to give a three years notice of intention to apply for citizenship, and the Naturalization Act of 1798 further increased the residency requirement to 14 years and required five years notice of intent to apply for citizenship.
_________________
Aristarchus, you poor boob, you should have translated that to Greek before you jumped on it. The first paragraph of your own link puts the lie to your statement. Yeah, "naturalization" - you can't be a citizen unless you're naturalized, right? Despite the last part of the last sentence. Oh, wait, you thought that wikipedia is an authoritative source? Don't we all know better than that?
Want some more interesting stuff on immigration?
http://www.shmoop.com/early-american-immigration/benjamin-franklin.html [shmoop.com]
http://www.scpr.org/blogs/multiamerican/2010/09/02/7846/quote-of-the-moment-circa-1751-a-founding-father-o/ [scpr.org]
First, it was the Germans, then it was the Greeks, then the Poles, now it's EVERYONE!
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Saturday May 27 2017, @06:22PM (1 child)
Notice that I am not the one who cannot spell "too"!
Runaway, do try and keep up. Naturalization is becoming a citizen. But that is not what you said, you said America has never allow free immigration, and my response is that this, as per usual, if just plain false. Wrong. Not a fact. People could freely immigrate to the United states from it's founding unit the 1882 act. There were several laws concerning naturalization, but these did not prevent free immigration. And after 1882, almost all legislation restricting immigration were quite explicitly racist. The quota system for Eastern Europeans, like Polacks, was extremely so. And gradually they have all been determined to be unconstitutional. And the latest reform on these matters has been held up by the Republicans and useful yokels like yourself for over a decade.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 27 2017, @06:52PM
"explicitly racist"
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:54AM
FYI:
-- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38573558 [bbc.com]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday May 27 2017, @04:16AM
Why, you want to keep the khipus out?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday May 27 2017, @07:55AM (3 children)
I don't think anyone is arguing it's actually impossible. It's just an awful lot of capital to waste on a project that will cause more harm than good. China's Great Wall was ever very effective as border control, and it certainly was not solid militarily, it's been overrun many times, and in fact historically it was valuable primarily for the fact that it was a functioning *road* - essentially a fortified road for its length, which made it much safer for both military and civilian merchants to pass to and from the west. Of course today its only value is cultural, as a source of pride and magnet for tourism.
I haven't heard anyone talking about a border wall proposing it take the form of a raised roadway, and I don't expect anything of cultural value is in the cards either. We can be sure it would help little if any with border control among other reasons because the border is already effectively walled for the most part - in some places electronically, in some physically. The 'low-hanging fruit' of this approach has already been taken, the places where a physical wall makes sense already have them, there isn't much to be gained by building a physical wall across miles of open desert that are already electronically monitored and where the natural hazards are more deterrence than anything the authorities can threaten anyway.
Other than disrupting the migration of wildlife and wasting even more taxpayer funds, what's the point?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:07PM
Well - then you could see it from space. Or, your great-grandchildren will be able to see it. ;^)
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:11PM (1 child)
> haven't heard anyone talking about a border wall proposing it take the form of a raised roadway,
Then you missed this recent story -- https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/04/16/1832223 [soylentnews.org] "Creative Proposals for "the Trump Wall" -- Hyperloop Along the Border and Others"
Main link in the SN article http://www.businessinsider.com/design-trumps-border-wall-hyperloop-2017-4 [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday May 27 2017, @04:50PM
Lol. Sure. Power it with cold fusion and waste eggshells while you're at it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:35AM
but hate Inka Cola, nasty.
Peruvian potato FTW!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by black6host on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:40AM (2 children)
We've always had the power to communicate, in ways that others now don't understand. Yes, they'll unravel it. The old stuff. So, when you're afraid about the government taking away your rights to communicate freely and securely, just remember that mankind has had a way of working against any such blocks. Ok, maybe you have to think positive for this to make sense :) Let's keep up the good fight!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 27 2017, @02:42AM
Yes, they'll unravel it.
I see what you did there.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday May 27 2017, @04:24AM
So high the level of division in USian social life, I don't know anymore what's the good fight (one in a bar with lotsa blows and windows broken by flying chairs?) or who actually feels the need to communicate something/anything - it's echo chamber against echo chamber.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by DmT on Saturday May 27 2017, @10:17AM
Now imagine some aliens come along ... and we can't even understand our own species ... what hope do we have to understand them?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 28 2017, @12:05AM
Am I the only on who watched The Mysterious Cities of Gold in the 80's or did you guys all skip the mini documentary that was on at the end of each episode? I don't even live on your continent ffs; http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0122356/ [imdb.com]