1 00:00:02,040 --> 00:00:06,880 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain 2 00:00:06,920 --> 00:00:10,280 Speaker 1: stuff lauring vogebam here. During the Bronze Age, the Inca 3 00:00:10,360 --> 00:00:13,920 Speaker 1: built the largest pre Columbian empire in the Americas, extending 4 00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:16,759 Speaker 1: along the west coast of South America from Bolivia to Chile. 5 00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:19,680 Speaker 1: They not only thrived in the harsh climate and dry 6 00:00:19,720 --> 00:00:22,479 Speaker 1: steep slopes of the High Andes, they also served up 7 00:00:22,520 --> 00:00:25,000 Speaker 1: a master class in technical road building that would have 8 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:27,800 Speaker 1: made the Romans quake in their sandals. Thanka created a 9 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:31,480 Speaker 1: twenty five thousand mile highway system that's about forty kilometers, 10 00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:35,440 Speaker 1: complete with rope bridges across treacherous mountain chasms. They also 11 00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:39,040 Speaker 1: engineered millions of acres of high altitude terraced farmland and 12 00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:41,760 Speaker 1: constructed an earthquake proof citadel on top of a craggy 13 00:00:41,760 --> 00:00:44,440 Speaker 1: mountain peak one point five miles that's two point four 14 00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:47,199 Speaker 1: kilometers above sea level. They even figured out how to 15 00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:51,680 Speaker 1: freeze dry potatoes. But unlike the neighboring Maya and Aztecs, 16 00:00:51,720 --> 00:00:55,160 Speaker 1: and the ancient Mesopotamians, Chinese, and Egyptians, the Inca never 17 00:00:55,200 --> 00:00:58,640 Speaker 1: developed a system of writing. What they did have were kipou, 18 00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:01,800 Speaker 1: or knotted lengths of cord made from lama or alpaco 19 00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:05,080 Speaker 1: wool or cotton. They hung in rows like a curtain, 20 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:08,080 Speaker 1: from a thicker central rope, which was sometimes coiled up 21 00:01:08,120 --> 00:01:11,960 Speaker 1: to resemble a string mop. These bundles were often color coded, 22 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:14,960 Speaker 1: although most surviving keepu are now our uniform camel color 23 00:01:15,280 --> 00:01:18,840 Speaker 1: and could contain just a few strings or hundreds. When 24 00:01:18,840 --> 00:01:21,720 Speaker 1: the Spanish arrived and wiped out the entire Incas civilization, 25 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:25,920 Speaker 1: they found keepu everywhere, but destroyed many of them. In 26 00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:29,400 Speaker 1: the nineteen twenties, a science historian named Leland Locke, studying 27 00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:31,679 Speaker 1: the keepu at the American Museum of Natural History in 28 00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:35,520 Speaker 1: New York City, discovered the knots and the keepu represented numbers, 29 00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:38,559 Speaker 1: and the bundles of textiles were most likely record keeping 30 00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:42,200 Speaker 1: devices similar to advocacies, probably used to hold census data 31 00:01:42,480 --> 00:01:44,959 Speaker 1: or to keep track of the contents of storehouses or 32 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,200 Speaker 1: how many llamas were paid as tribute. He realized that 33 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:50,160 Speaker 1: the height of a knot and its position on its 34 00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:54,520 Speaker 1: cord civilized units tens, hundreds, thousands, and so on, and 35 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:56,880 Speaker 1: the position of a string off the main rope could 36 00:01:56,920 --> 00:02:00,760 Speaker 1: denote things like specific people or villages. But even after 37 00:02:00,840 --> 00:02:03,120 Speaker 1: Locke cracked the code, he noticed that some of the 38 00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:06,360 Speaker 1: keep who he studied seemed to be anomalies. He figured 39 00:02:06,400 --> 00:02:10,840 Speaker 1: these were used for ceremonial purposes. There are, however, anecdotal 40 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:14,560 Speaker 1: clues that entire narratives could be passed along through KEEPU. 41 00:02:14,639 --> 00:02:18,639 Speaker 1: A one seventeenth century Spanish conquistador reported meeting an incoman 42 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:21,000 Speaker 1: on the road who carried keep that he said, told 43 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:23,520 Speaker 1: of all the deeds of the Spanish and Peru, good 44 00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:27,000 Speaker 1: and bad. Keep you couriers reportedly ran all over the 45 00:02:27,040 --> 00:02:31,400 Speaker 1: Incan Empire, the cords looped over their shoulders. But finding 46 00:02:31,480 --> 00:02:34,760 Speaker 1: living people now who can help researchers unravel the secret 47 00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:37,959 Speaker 1: of the knots has proved very difficult, if not impossible, 48 00:02:38,760 --> 00:02:41,120 Speaker 1: so keep Bleu research has made slow progress in the 49 00:02:41,160 --> 00:02:45,480 Speaker 1: past century. Since the early nineteen nineties, Harvard anthropologist named 50 00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:48,400 Speaker 1: Gary Urton has been working to decipher what, if anything, 51 00:02:48,600 --> 00:02:50,760 Speaker 1: the keep boos that don't fit the normal mold of 52 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:54,079 Speaker 1: accounting devices might mean collecting a database of over nine 53 00:02:54,160 --> 00:02:57,959 Speaker 1: hundred CEBU. In the process, Burton has discovered that beyond 54 00:02:58,040 --> 00:03:00,200 Speaker 1: the position and height of the knots, there are other 55 00:03:00,280 --> 00:03:03,680 Speaker 1: factors to take into consideration when reading a keepu, the 56 00:03:03,720 --> 00:03:06,160 Speaker 1: color of the string, the direction the knots are twisted, 57 00:03:06,200 --> 00:03:09,840 Speaker 1: and the type of knots used. Through cross referencing keepu 58 00:03:09,919 --> 00:03:12,800 Speaker 1: in the Harvard collection with Spanish documents from the exact 59 00:03:12,880 --> 00:03:15,800 Speaker 1: time and location in Peru where they originated, he has 60 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:18,359 Speaker 1: recently been able to prove that the direction the knots 61 00:03:18,360 --> 00:03:21,760 Speaker 1: are tied in could denote which clans individuals belonged to. 62 00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:26,160 Speaker 1: Another researcher named Sabine Highland at St. Andrew's University in 63 00:03:26,160 --> 00:03:29,519 Speaker 1: Scotland has recently found that some keepu still exist within 64 00:03:29,639 --> 00:03:32,640 Speaker 1: villages in the Andes. The locals there have shared some 65 00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:36,360 Speaker 1: new information about them, for instance, that the different materials 66 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:39,680 Speaker 1: used in the strings is significant, and their understanding is 67 00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:42,040 Speaker 1: that the devices were used to tell stories of warfare. 68 00:03:42,720 --> 00:03:46,360 Speaker 1: Highland also reports evidence of phonetic symbols in the strings. 69 00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:50,320 Speaker 1: It could be for all their ingenuity, the Incas never 70 00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:53,280 Speaker 1: learned to use symbolic written language, but it looks like 71 00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:55,040 Speaker 1: they may have been just a little more creative with 72 00:03:55,040 --> 00:04:03,680 Speaker 1: their storytelling than any other major civilization to date. Today's 73 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:06,480 Speaker 1: episode was written by Jesselin Shields and produced by Tyler Clang. 74 00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:08,960 Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other historical topics. 75 00:04:09,040 --> 00:04:22,719 Speaker 1: Visit our home planet, how stuff works dot com.