12. The Inca - Cities in the Cloud
Fall of Civilizations Podcast
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The Sources of the Incas
The inca never developed a written language, and so kept no written records. They recorded their extensive epic poetry in rope knots known as kipus. Kipu used knots of different sizes, positions and colors to represent different information. And these could be decoded by people initiated in their art - called kipu camayok. The kepo have never been deciphered in modern times, and it's unclear how much information they actually incoded. In the years since the fall of inca society, the knowledge of how to read the kipu has been lost.
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