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I just happen to be reading Clive Cussler's Inca Gold (1994) where they use computers to decode a quipu cord from scratch in about an hour and a half. I'd love
by flocial 8y ago
I just happen to be reading Clive Cussler's Inca Gold (1994) where they use computers to decode a quipu cord from scratch in about an hour and a half. I'd love to see the spreadsheet used for the initial insight.
- Latteland 8y agoThis is truly brilliant work. There must be other clever potential rosetta stone potential as the smart people in the article figured out.
- tragomaskhalos 8y agoI actually love these kind of trashy archeology-themed books, where the brilliant linguist decyphers the ancient writing system over his/her lunchbreak, but it's rather spoiled by the inconvenient fact that the actual process - mountains of data, years of slog - is so unsexy by comparison. Plus, there is never a Rosetta Stone (that would make it too easy!), whereas almost every real-world decipherment has needed something like one. The only exception I can think of is Linear B; I've always thought it'd be a fascinating exercise to repeat Ventris' painstaking cataloguing and cross-referencing on a computer to see if his breakthrough could be repeated more quickly, or automatically.