Wait a sec, I need to make a Quipu.
Posted: Wed Feb 29, 2012 5:31 am
The ancient Incas used quipus (pronounced "key-poos"), memory banks made of strings and knots, for storing numbers. Until recently, the oldest-known quipus dated from about A.D. 650. However, in 2005, a quipu from the Peruvian coastal city of Caral was dated to about 5,000 years ago.
The Incas had a complex civilization with a common state religion and a common language. Although they did NOT have writing, they kept extensive records encoded by a logical-numerological system on the quipus, which varied in complexity from three to around a thousand cords. Unfortunately, when the Spanish came to South America, they saw the strange quipus and thought they were the works of "El Diablo". The spanish destroyed thousands of them in the name of their god, and today only about 600 quipus remains.
