(Apologies to Ivan Reitman.)
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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I don't know that a Quipu is a good example because we don't actually know how they worked or how well they documented things. The burning of Mayan and other Mesoamerican books would be better examples.
Those are also good examples - but Europeans most definitely sought to destroy any quipu they found.
Sure, I'm just saying that we don't know if they would be something readable or if they were more like a mnemonic device.
There's been some very minimal translation of the few that remain, having to do with numbers and counting. They most definitely contain information. They mean something.
This is also making me think - these words that I am typing now, are they not also mnemonic devices? The written words are not the spoken words, and neither of those are the concepts that we understand the words and phrases to represent. Words are only models of ideas, and models are by definition not as accurate as what they intend to model. Who are we to say that a series of marks on a clay tablet, or paper, or a computer screen are more accurate models of ideas than intricate series of knots in strings?