首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Quipus are the mysterious bundles of colored and knotted threads that served as the Inca empire’s means of recording information
Quipus are the mysterious bundles of colored and knotted threads that served as the Inca empire’s means of recording information
admin
2017-03-15
21
问题
Quipus are the mysterious bundles of colored and knotted threads that served as the Inca empire’s means of recording information. The code of the quipus has long since been forgotten, and the only major advance in understanding them was the insight, made in 1923, that the knots were used to represent numbers. The quantity and positioning of the knots, at least in certain quipus, is agreed to represent a decimal system.
A new and possibly significant advance in deciphering the quipu system may now have been gained by two Harvard researchers, Gary Urton and Carrie J. Brezine. They believe they may have decoded the first word—a place name—to be found in a quipu (pronounced KWEE-poo), and have also identified what some of the many numbers in the quipu records may be referring to.
Though a single word would be just the first step in a very long road, it would open the possibility of discovering a whole new level of meaning in the quipus. It could also resolve a longstanding controversy by establishing that quipus included a writing system and were not just personal mnemonic devices understood only by the person who made them, as some scholars have maintained.
That in turn would help explain the "Inca paradox," that among states of large size and administrative complexity the Inca empire stands out as the only one that apparently did not invent writing. The paradox would be resolved if indeed the quipu encodes a writing system as well as numbers.
The Harvard researchers also have ideas about the nature of the item being so carefully tallied in the quipus under study: units of labor, like an ancient time log. The Inca empire, which lasted from about 1450 to 1532, depended on tribute levied in the form of a labor tax. Because of the importance of the tax for building the imperial roads and other public works, both the requisition and delivery of the labor days owed in tax were likely to have been carefully recorded by the Inca bureaucrats. Quipus were used both by high officials to issue instructions and by lower officials to report what they had done. It is easy to imagine a diligent accountant wanting to compare the outgoing quipu, or a copy of it, with the incoming response quipu.
Since the quipu could represent instructions sent to the ruler of Puruchuco from the provincial governor, or accounting records sent from Puruchuco to the governor, it would have been useful for the records to carry a tag identifying the place they referred to. As it happens, all the quipu in the two top summarizing layers carry an initial set of knots designating three ones, as if 1-1-1 designated the place name for Puruchuco. The lowest level quipus do not carry this ZIP code, perhaps because they never left Puruchuco and so didn’t need one. If this interpretation is accepted by other scholars, it would be the first meaning beyond the number system to be identified in quipus, Dr. Urton said.
Galen Brokaw, a quipu expert at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said it was plausible to suggest the numbers being tallied in many quipu referred to the labor tax. Dr. Urton’s identification of 1-1-1 as a place name would, if confirmed, be "a substantive contribution to understanding how quipu worked," Dr. Brokaw said. The proposal is fascinating, he said, but hard to verify because the provenance of most quipu is unknown.
Only 700 or so quipus have been preserved, since the Spanish destroyed them as a matter of policy. About two-thirds are clearly numerical records, with knots placed in a series of levels, each corresponding to a power of 10. But scholars have been baffled by the nature of the remaining third, which embody some different meaning.
Those who believe the nonnumerical quipus were just personal mnemonic devices cite a 17th-century Jesuit chronicler who reported that each quipu maker could understand only his own quipu, not those of others. But the chronicler may have been misinformed, Dr. Urton wrote in his book Signs of the Inka Khipu, because his report was made 70 years after the Spanish authorities in Lima had condemned quipu as idolatrous in a decree of 1583 and had ordered them burned.
Dr. Urton believes that the Puruchuco hierarchy of quipus would have been made by different people and hence show information passing between them via quipu. This would be a significant finding, if true, since it points to the quipu encoding generally understood signs, not a personal set of signs.
All of the following are true EXCEPT that______.
选项
A、researchers still have divergent views about the nature of quipus
B、Spanish invaders once devastated the civilization of the Inca Empire
C、some Christians did researches on quipus about 400 years ago
D、the Puruchuco quipus unfold the hierarchy in the ancient Inca society
答案
D
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/TCSO777K
本试题收录于:
NAETI高级口译笔试题库外语翻译证书(NAETI)分类
0
NAETI高级口译笔试
外语翻译证书(NAETI)
相关试题推荐
Although"namingrights"haveproliferatedinAmericanhighereducationforthepastseveraldecades,thephenomenonhasrecentl
Itisirrationalfortheparentsto________allthehopesontheirchildren.
Everyautumn,retailershirelargenumbersofseasonalworkerstohandletherushofholidaybusiness.Then,afterthenewyear
Seekingtoframehisnewadministrationasonewithafirmfocusonclosingthegapbetweenchildrenfromaffluentandpoorfami
A、Theyallowittomaneuvereffectivelyinasmallareas.B、Theyallowittoswimquicklyoverlongdistances.C、Dorsalandpect
A、Asymphony.B、SomeCD’s.C、Adramashowdisc.D、Hisclassnotes.B
创新犹如竹笋。竹笋要在地底下生长许多年,然后像幼苗一样把头一抬,飞速窜高。
中华文明是世界古代文明中始终没有中断、连续五千多年发展至今的文明。中华民族在漫长历史发展中形成的独具特色的文化传统,深深影响了古代中国,也深深影响着当代中国。现时代中国强调的以人为本、与时俱进、社会和谐、和平发展,既有着中华文明的深厚根基,又体现了时代发展
Sydneyislocatedin__________.
Sydneyislocatedin______.
随机试题
首先考虑的诊断如果使用干扰素,最初2周内最常见的反应是
取供试品约1g,精密称定,应选用的天平是
下列哪项不可归属积聚范围的病证()
从估价角度看,房地产开发商应获得的利润要与其自有资金应得的利息分开。()
检验及鉴定大型设备是否合格,一般要经过试运转及( )方能进行判断。
某外商投资企业由外国投资者并购境内企业设立,注册资本600万美元,其中外国投资者以现金出资120万美元。下列有关该外国投资者出资期限的表述中,符合外国投资者并购境内企业有关规定的是()。
巴塞尔协议规定的核心资本充足率不小于()。
根据_________定律所制作的测量主观感觉的心理量表,是_________量表。()
TOTAL命令的功能是______。
WhenIgottothemuseum,Ifoundit______withpeople.
最新回复
(
0
)