incan empire

The world heritage nomination of the Qhapaq Ñan (pronounced ca-pac NYAN in the Quechua language of the Incas) is extremely complicated, involving evaluations of 137 sections of the network embodying 273 components, including temples, funerary towers, fortresses and wayside inns, covering about 435 miles of the original 20,000. Only those 435 miles would be designated.

The road system began forming as trails as early as 1000 B.C., Professor Urton at Harvard said, and was developed into a complex network by the Incas in the 15th century A.D., so it was in use for nearly 2,500 years, 3,000 if calculated to the present day.

The Incas, who underwent a spectacular rise to found the largest pre-Columbian empire in South America, expanded these routes into the road network to unite their territory through Cuzco and serve a population of 40,000 spread over thousands of miles, the monuments council evaluation found. Runners carried administrative reports in the form of knotted ropes — the Incas had no written language — traders bought and sold gold and copper, seashells, weapons, feathers, wood, cocoa and textiles, and fresh fish from the Pacific.

After the conquistadors arrived from the north in 1526, they used the roads to subdue the Incas, driving them into remote mountain territories.

“The road network was the life giving support to the Inca Empire integrated into the Andean landscape,” the researchers said.

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A set of twenty-five well-preserved quipus were found in the archaeological complex of Incahuasi, south of Lima, Alejandro Chu, archaeologist in charge of the site reported on Tuesday.

Chu told Andina News Agency that this is a major finding as the quipus were found in warehouses or kallancas and not in a funerary context, as most discoveries in the past, “what makes us believe they were used for administrative purposes”.

With no written language, the Inca devised a tool for recording the movement of people and goods. A quipu is essentially a group of wool and cotton strings tied together.

The strings are dyed in many different colors, and they are joined together in many different manners and they have a wide variety and number of knots tied in them. Together the type of wool, the colors, the knots and the joins hold information that was once readable by several South American societies.

Many of these quipus were destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, but approximately 200 of them dating no earlier than about 650 AD have been found.

Although archaeologists do not all agree about the function of the knotted strings, one fairly compelling argument is that the quipu was a method of record keeping.

* translation: it’s a language, but not as eurocentric civilization knows/understands/acknowledges it, modern objects of mystery the result of the near complete and instant cultural erasure of the Americas by invading treasure seeking hordes. Here’s a few they didn’t burn.

Archaeologists find 25 quipus at Inca site in Peru – http://www.peruthisweek.com/news-archaeologists-find-25-quipus-at-inca-site-in-peru-103338

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