4 ms·

I wonder what enabled the Inca to imagine all of these things, from bridges to quipos to an enormous empire - and then to develop the culture, the skills, the t

• crooked-v 2y ago
  They had quipu (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu) as fairly extensive civil records. The Spanish colonizers destroyed most of them out of a belief they were religious objects.
• madhadron 2y ago
  > I wonder what enabled the Inca to imagine all of these things... Probably the same way as the Chinese, Romans, Persians, Hittites, Assyrians, Olmec, Mexica, and all the other large scale political polities of the world. > How do you even spread those ideas across such a wide area without literacy? Most of the world has been illiterate for most of history. Even after the invention of writing, most practical knowledge was orally transmitted. Writing was for warehouse records so you could prove that the peasants really did owe you that ox.
  • mmooss 2y ago
    Then how was it done? Do you disagree with the article about these issues? And why be dismissive?
    • antiraza 2y ago
      I'm not certain I understand where the problem is? Trades are learned by apprenticeship. Knowledge is learned by oral transmission. As the previous commenter said, this has been normal for most of history, and frankly is still the case many places around the world. Literacy is _new_. Even when literacy was emerging, it was likely that a mason or a carpenter was not of a literate class and they learned the same way generations before them did: apprenticeship and oral knowledge transmission.
      • mmooss 2y ago
        We're talking about adminstering and leading large-scale empires, which is enough of a difficulty, and doing it in the special circumstances of the Incas. And as part of that, developing and advancing these technologies and all the precursors to it - culture, education, skills, technology itself, and political support for it, all on that large scale. If you think that's easy or normal, consider that it is hardly ever done. Few accomplish what the Incas did, much less with their challenges (see the OP regarding those). For an example, look at China in the mid-to-late 19th century, a place with far more advantages, as they tried to adopt technology. Edit: From the OP: "... they managed to create the largest empire ever seen in the Americas – a sprawling two-million-sq-km civilisation that extended across parts of modern-day Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina – encompassing as many as 12 million people and 100 languages. It was roughly 10 times the size of the Aztec Empire and had twice its population. Remarkably, the Inca managed to forge this vast society without the wheel, the arch, money, iron or steel tools, draft animals capable of ploughing fields or even a written language."
        • alephnerd 2y ago
          They used Quipu to catalog most administrative information (taxes, census, military, etc) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu Quipu's are actually pretty cool - it's basically a proto-flamegraph and could even potentially be used alphabetically, but we wouldn't really know as there just aren't that many left after the brutal Spanish invasion of the Inca empire and the subsequent inquisition.
          • mmooss 2y ago
            Yes I'm aware of them - and they add to my wonder: Why were the Inca so innovative? As I understand them, quipu did not transmit words, so how do you communicate, for example, rope bridge construction and maintenance information over great distances and time.
            • krisoft 2y ago
    • krisoft 2y ago
      > Then how was it done? madhadron's comment answers your question. Which part are you not understanding? > Do you disagree with the article about these issues? What issues? What is there to disagree? The article clearly describe how it was done. There is no disagreement between the article and madhadron's comment. > And why be dismissive? They are not dismissive.
    • MagicMoonlight 2y ago
      The king says they want a pyramid. The middle managers get you all in for a stand up and tell you they need those blocks ready by the end of the quarter. You make the blocks. The transport team move the blocks to the site. The block laying team complain your blocks aren’t good enough and you have an argument about block standards. 20,000 people are put to death. The pyramid is completed.
      • mmooss 2y ago
        It's odd that so many on HN don't see that it doesn't happen. 99.99% of societies don't manage anything like that, and the Inca did it in unique ways with relatively very limited technology.
• alganet 2y ago
  Why not? Humans did a lot of impressive things before writing all over the planet. Oral tradition is powerful, even for today's technological standards.
• mark336 2y ago
  I am Peruvian, it was just a lot of hard work. The culture was already there. Quechua was there before the Inca. Their was organization before Inca, as there were tribes which were organized. The Inca just took them over and re-organized. The Inca were also geniuses. They just figured it out.
  • mmooss 2y ago
    Thanks for your perspective. > it was just a lot of hard work If that was true, then many would have done it instead of only one. > Their was organization before Inca, as there were tribes which were organized. The Inca just took them over and re-organized. Organizing a small scale is commonplace; everyone does it. It's the large scale that only the Inca managed. > The Inca were also geniuses. Must have been! But in what way? And it can't just be one person; you need a whole culture (especially with limited communication, the Inca depedended on locals everywhere understanding the concepts, methods, etc.) - what was special about that culture? Where did it come from?
    • mark336 2y ago
      Well first they were visionaries and then they worked hard. One step at a time, they took over tribes and they had vision and they developed a system for their territories The Inca was a tribe so it wasn't one person.
      • mmooss 2y ago
        I guess, but that leaves almost every question unanswered. What was their vision? Why did they have the vision and not others? Lots of people have visions; how were they able to apply theirs and so successfully? What was their system? etc.
• Unbefleckt 2y ago
  The quipo scholars were literate, it was just terribly inefficient system compared to physical representations of language we are familiar with. It still beats having no records at all though, Shows just how powerful preserving and passing knowledge is.
• m0llusk 2y ago
  That is a complex question that is not well understood. There actually was a kind of writing system in the form of knotted strings. These were considered sacred objects and invaders destroyed as many of these as they could, the result being an almost total break with the previous sacred order.
  • mmooss 2y ago
    The knotted strings are the quipus that some comments are talking about. They were for accounting, not words.
• vharuck 2y ago
  It can be surprising to learn what civilisations accomplished before inventing a writing system for their language. I was amazed when I found out that Japanese didn't have a writing system until the 4th century AD despite 600+ years of agricultural empires and Shintoism. And even then, their writing system was just adapting Chinese characters nobles had to learn so they could deal with mainland Asians. They used the symbols that either meant the same thing as their words or sounded similar. (I'm probably getting some of that wrong or not clarifying enough, and am eager to learn from those who'd correct me.)