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The Incas of South America have fascinated experts for years. The Incan Empire absorbed a large part of western South America from 1438 through 1533. They were a vibrant civilization, left monumental architecture, invented new technologies, and had ways to mobilize people and resources, but they were missing one thing—a written language. Most cultures have a system of writing, which is a defining attribute of a complex civilization, so archeologists studying the Incas have been stumped for years. Now, National Geographic Channel (NGC) may have new answers in Ancient X-Files II: Decoding the Incas.
While no traces of a written Incan language have been discovered, historianshave always been fascinated with their khipus, which are a series of knotted threads on a line. These knots are nothing like the ones Boy Scouts tie, though. Instead, khipus consist of individual strings that hang down from horizontalcords. They were originally thought to be counting devices like abacuses. One investigator took a look at 450 of the 600 khipus left in existence and came up with a new theory. She examined them with a multi-spectral scanner and now believes that they are three-dimensional systems for record keeping. Also, a growing number of experts agree that some of the khipus tell stories about Incan history. If this is true, then the Incas would have had a written language very different from that of any other society in the world. The decoding of the riddle of the khipus would be a breakthrough of epic proportions. Check out NGC this month to see for yourself.
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