Latest news with #Incas
The Age
3 days ago
- The Age
Luxury lodge in one of the harshest environments on Earth reopens
Northern Chile's Tierra Atacama has just reopened after a year-long, $US20 million ($32 million) transformation. All the work at the legendary luxurious hotel was designed to preserve its close connection to the local community, descendants of the Incas and Aymaras with living heritage that dates back 10,000 years. Built in the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama, amid the driest non-polar desert on Earth, the lodge was conceived by Miguel Purcell, an Olympic skier and mountaineer. Tierra Atacama opened in 2008 with a mission to keep its environmental impact low while offering guests extraordinary experiences in one of the planet's most amazing landscapes. The 32-room retreat was built around a centuries-old cattle corral using traditional methods. It was filled with a curation of culturally relevant art, objects and materials, and each room was set with views of the Licancabur Volcano. The Purcell family went on to create Tierra Hotels, and now has two sister properties in the region under its umbrella. In 2022, it sold a majority shareholding in the company to Baillie Lodges. Founded by James and Hayley Baillie, Baillie Lodges owns and runs some of the world's most esteemed luxury adventure properties, including Longitude 131° at Uluru-Kata Tjuta, Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island in South Australia and Silky Oaks Lodge in Queensland. Internationally it owns Huka Lodge in New Zealand and Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge on Canada's Vancouver Island. The fit is so strong that Purcell remains involved in the property and actually led the redesign project in person. He was joined by Tierra Atacama's original Chilean architects – Rodrigo Searle and Matias Gonzalez – who again used the surrounding environment as the starting point for design. Interior designer Carolina Delpiano, who has been responsible for the original interiors at all the Tierra properties since their inception, also took part. Chilean landscape architect Teresa Moller preserved the original walls and native vegetation while integrating changes to the built environment into the existing gardens and setting. Where possible, local tradespeople and artisans were employed to realise the vision.
Sydney Morning Herald
3 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Luxury lodge in one of the harshest environments on Earth reopens
Northern Chile's Tierra Atacama has just reopened after a year-long, $US20 million ($32 million) transformation. All the work at the legendary luxurious hotel was designed to preserve its close connection to the local community, descendants of the Incas and Aymaras with living heritage that dates back 10,000 years. Built in the oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama, amid the driest non-polar desert on Earth, the lodge was conceived by Miguel Purcell, an Olympic skier and mountaineer. Tierra Atacama opened in 2008 with a mission to keep its environmental impact low while offering guests extraordinary experiences in one of the planet's most amazing landscapes. The 32-room retreat was built around a centuries-old cattle corral using traditional methods. It was filled with a curation of culturally relevant art, objects and materials, and each room was set with views of the Licancabur Volcano. The Purcell family went on to create Tierra Hotels, and now has two sister properties in the region under its umbrella. In 2022, it sold a majority shareholding in the company to Baillie Lodges. Founded by James and Hayley Baillie, Baillie Lodges owns and runs some of the world's most esteemed luxury adventure properties, including Longitude 131° at Uluru-Kata Tjuta, Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island in South Australia and Silky Oaks Lodge in Queensland. Internationally it owns Huka Lodge in New Zealand and Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge on Canada's Vancouver Island. The fit is so strong that Purcell remains involved in the property and actually led the redesign project in person. He was joined by Tierra Atacama's original Chilean architects – Rodrigo Searle and Matias Gonzalez – who again used the surrounding environment as the starting point for design. Interior designer Carolina Delpiano, who has been responsible for the original interiors at all the Tierra properties since their inception, also took part. Chilean landscape architect Teresa Moller preserved the original walls and native vegetation while integrating changes to the built environment into the existing gardens and setting. Where possible, local tradespeople and artisans were employed to realise the vision.
RTÉ News
3 days ago
- Science
- RTÉ News
7 things you probably didn't know about the humble spud
Analysis: some lesser-known biological, cultural and scientific facts about the vegetable most closely associated with this island (1) The South America connection The Incas of South America cultivated around 250 different species of potato. Today, in most parts of the world, we cultivate just one species – Solanum tuberosum - and it is the third most consumed food crop in the world, after rice and wheat, with over 300 million metric tons being produced globally every year. In South America, over 4,000 different varieties of potato are grown and they are very well adapted to their native region. Many of the most important potato pests and diseases are also native to South America. The Potato Cyst Nematodes and the late blight causal agent Phytophthora infestans are two of the most significant threats to potato production and global food security to originate in South America. The good news is that many potato varieties in South America show some resistance to these pests and diseases so are potential sources of genetic resistance which can be used for breeding new resistant varieties. (2) Spuds and sex Potato is one of the most important vegetatively propagated crops in the world. New plants are usually grown from a potato tuber (or piece of one) called a "seed potato". They are not seeds at all, of course, as they are not the product of sexual reproduction. New plants grown from these "seeds" are genetically identical to the parent plant. This means that potato varieties, such as Golden Wonder and Kerr's Pink, can be maintained in the absence of genetic diversity. From RTÉ Radio 1's Mooney Goes Wild, Eanna ni Lamhna pays homage to the variety of Irish potatoes Potatoes do produce real seeds via their flowers and varieties can produce berries that contain hundreds of seeds. As these real seeds are the product of sexual reproduction, they are not genetically identical to the parent plant so can be a potential source of genetic variation for potato breeding programmes. These real seeds are very important for breeding new potato varieties with greater resistance to a changing climate as well as novel pests and diseases. (3) Ireland and the potato: it's complicated No other food or ingredient symbolises the complexities of Irish food culture more than the potato. As a New World introduction, the ways and means of how it came to Ireland remain unclear with historical realties blurred by romanticised tales and myths of Sir Walter Raleigh and the Spanish Armada (stories claim that the ships' stocks of potatoes were washed up onto Irish stores). The potato had arrived in Ireland by the first decade of the 17th century (if not before) and was initially cultivated as a garden exotic with recipes from Irish country houses revealing its use in ingredient-rich and flavour-intense potato pies. With time, the potato leapt the garden wall becoming a crop of the fields. By the early 19th century, it was the main dietary staple of the rural poor displacing older carbohydrates like oats. The potato has given Ireland traditional, festive and regional dishes like boxty dishes and potato-oaten and potato-apple cakes. From RTÉ Radio 1's CountryWide, Suzanne Campbell reports on how the DNA testing of potatoes being labelled and sold in Donegal as Queens which were in fact a different variety At best, it is the symbol of a simple Irish approach to cooking, but at worst, it is also the symbol of a debased and insecure food system of 19th century Ireland. In recent times, the potato's standing as Ireland's main dietary carbohydrate has been challenged by increased consumption of pasta and rice, especially amongst younger generations. (4) The floury spud The Irish palate favours dry "mealy" potatoes above varieties with waxy-textured flesh and the most popular potatoes here are those with soft and floury texture. In the pre-Famine period, varieties like the Irish Apple commanded good prices above the prevalent and poor quality Lumper potato that dominated the diet of the rural poor. In the post-Famine period, the cultivation of a new variety, the Champion (1862) increased rapidly in part because of its floury texture and nutty aroma and it remained Ireland's most popular potato until into the 1930s. From RTÉ Lyric FM, History On A Plate looks at the life and times of the Irish potato Today, the main commercial varieties like the Rooster and Kerr's Pink can be cooked in a variety of ways. The continued appeal of these floury varieties is a reminder that we assigned commercial, economic and culinary importance to varieties that worked well with other traditional staples like butter, milk and cream. (5) A potato party The complimentary relationship between floury potatoes and dairy produce gave rise to a number of traditional potatoes dishes. These included colcannon (mashed potatoes with butter, milk/cream, cabbage or kale), champ (mashed potatoes with butter, milk/cream, spring onions, or nettles or peas) and poundies (plain mashed potatoes with butter, milk or cream). The socio-economic realties of pre-Famine Ireland made access to expensive floury-potato varieties and butter and cream beyond the means of the rural poor. However, money was spent or goods exchanged in accessing these items to make rich mashed dishes for festive and celebration days and colcannon and champ were made for St Brigid's Day and Hallowe'en. At Hallowe'en, colcannon or champ was the main festive meal and it was also used in the ritual performances of young women in divining their future marriage and love affairs. From RTÉ Archives, the Irish Farmers Association sent 500 tonnes of potatoes to Ethiopia in 1984 and Irish potatoes are now being grown there, reports Michael Lally for RTÉ News (6) The genetics of the spud The most complete potato genome sequence to date has just been published by a group of scientists in Holland. The implication for the research community and, ultimately, the consumer is huge. What the sequence allows us to do is to use genetic data to help us to continue to improve the potato plant using tools that are much faster than traditional breeding methods, tools such as genetic engineering or more recently genome editing. No nation can afford to be complacent when it comes the security of food as economic and climate-based factors can cause massive disturbances to the sector. We know that the potato can address many of the food security issues under threat from growing urbanisation, the emergence of novel pathogens, changing climates, increasing populations, land and water use. The original home of the potato is the Americas and the wild potato here is a hardy species (more than 155 wild species are found). The ability of the wild potato to thrive in varied ecosystems and its ability to resist a number of diseases gives us hope that important disease-resistant genes can be found in these wild relatives. This repository is also an excellent source for future genes for the improvement of our domestic varieties, whether by traditional breeding methods or by utilising the more recent biotech tools. (7) The future of cooking spuds While potatoes have been cooked as a staple in Irish households for centuries, they are today at the forefront of application of very novel advanced food processing technologies. A process called Pulsed Electric Field treatment involves passing electric fields through food to inactivate bacteria and modify cellular structure and is being applied to create crisps and chips. This gives potatoes improved cutting properties and greatly reduced oil uptake during cooking, giving healthier products with great textures. In addition, there has been great interest in the development of 3D printed snacks and food products that are based on the ability of potato starch to produce interesting structures and shapes.
Metro
3 days ago
- Business
- Metro
The rise of the jacket potato - and the Preston brothers leading the revolution
Favoured by parents on a busy evening, the baked potato has always been an 'easy dinner' or 'quick tea' – depending on which part of the country you are from – that requires little effort while guaranteeing a low-cost, reliable taste. More recently, though, it's managed to shake off its dreary shackles and rise up the food chain at an astonishing rate to become an elite foodie option. A recent survey* found that 88% of Brits have swapped shop-bought sandwiches, sushi and salads for a hearty baked potato, while Sainsbury's revealed to Metro that sales of its own-brand potatoes increased 232% year-on-year in convenience stores. Of course, jacket potatoes are nothing new. The concept of baking spuds with the skin actually harks all the way back to 6,500 BC, with the Incas in Peru. Then, during the mid-19th century, they took off in the UK, with street food vendors making a nice profit selling them in the colder months. In 1974, a dedicated franchise, SpudULike, was born in Edinburgh with visitors able to load their potato up with all the classics (beans and cheese, tuna and sweetcorn mayo and chilli con carne, of course, featured on the menu). Despite initial success, the brand became unprofitable as the high street started to struggle, suffering a slow and painful death and all the physical spaces were gone by 2019. It seemed that the jacket potato was then destined to be in a supporting role forevermore – but suddenly, it's returned for a main character moment. Vhari Russell, founder of The Food Marketing Experts has worked in the food industry for over 20 years and tells Metro: 'Things go in cycles. I would say pizza was the 'it food' before jacket potatoes took over a couple of years ago. 'There's a movement around this nostalgia food trend, and they are very much part of that. Eating one takes many people back to a happy, safe place.' There's also another reason: the rise of the air fryer. 'The appliance has played a part as they have made them even quicker to cook, which works well with our busy lives,' adds Vhari. The expert also lists other reasons for the resurgence, such as being a UPF antidote for a more health-conscious society, not to mention the purse-friendly price tag in a cost-of-living crisis. And, of course , social media. If you're chronically online, or even just dabble in doom scrolling, then you're likely to have seen videos geared toward the baked spud movement. Content ranges from TikTok star Becki Jones topping hers with everything aside from the kitchen sink, to MasterChef Poppy O'Toole's (who goes by the handle Poppy Cooks, and is referred to as potato queen) mouth-watering recipes such as french onion, cheese and caramelised onion, or the more bonkers like her Christmas pudding concoction. Street food vendors have also turned serving jacket potatoes into national brands, such as Spudman – aka Ben Newman. He's gotten so big that some local businesses in Tamworth are complaining that he can't cater for the speed of growth, so the customers are using their toilets and tables. Some residents are just baffled as to why anybody would queue hours for a spud. There is also SpudBros, run by siblings Jacob and Harley Nelson. If your algorithm hasn't yet introduced you to the Preston-based brothers, let us catch you up. Their journey began five years ago when their dad, Anthony, known as Spud Father to social media fans, took over a converted tram that had been trading in Preston Flag Market since 1955 after his friend Keith, who'd previously run it (and gave Jacob, 30, his first job) passed away. Anthony asked Harley, 23, who was struggling at college due to dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia, to join him. It was a no-brainer as he'd always loved a baked spud. 'I've got a vivid memory of having a jacket potato on Christmas Eve and then hearing something in the chimney and going to see if it was Santa,' Harley excitedly tells Metro. (We quickly learn that whenever the brothers talk about tatties, happiness exudes from their every word.) The Nelson family may have adored potatoes, but not everyone was convinced in the early days. 'It was a ghost town in front of the van. I just stuffed my face with jacket potatoes to pass the time,' Harley recalls. So Anthony took to the streets to conduct an informal survey. 'He asked students why they were going to McDonald's rather than buying our jacket potatoes, and they said they weren't sexy enough and their mum made them at home, so why should they buy them?' It was then decided the business would start posting on social media and give jacket potatoes a public image makeover to prove they were worthy of customers' cash. Jacob, who worked in the food exportation market and had big dreams of turning it into a global brand from the off, quit his job to help, and their dad took more of a backseat. (Although, he still pops up occasionally on their channels and plays his part BTS). Although the brothers had less than 500 followers on social media, they understood how important it was to have a presence as a company, so they put in the hours live-streaming days at the van and posting clips of them loading up one and a half potatoes. Strangely hypnotic, their efforts were soon reflected in the numbers as their following quickly grew. They now have 4.2 million TikTok followers and another 1.5 million across YouTube and Instagram. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video One of their most popular videos, which has been watched over 37 million times, shows Jacob befriending an elderly couple, one of whom had Alzheimer's and had just suffered a fall. 'I was just rolling with the camera. I was up to 45 minutes of footage when they walked past, and it was a real interaction,' he explains. Our grandma's got dementia as well, so we know how hard it is for the other person in the couple to deal with that. 'It touched us, so we offered them free potatoes for life, as we love making people's days. 'People are missing those interactions nowadays, which I think is part of our videos' appeal.' The SpudBros brand now sells nearly 1,000 jacket potatoes every day from their two locations in Preston and London, and some of those buyers have been familiar faces – Mr Beast, Joe Jonas, and Jessie J have all sampled their delights. They have a scratch map to document the countries people travel from, and it's almost complete. 'We want to change the American people's minds about baked beans. They just don't get it,' laughs Jacob. There's always a constant queue outside their van in Presto from 11am to 8pm, and a similar situation in London's SpudBros Express that opened in Soho last year, too. Like rock stars, the potatoes have groupies. 'We have one girl called Amelia, who is in her late twenties and from Sheffield. Everywhere we go, she comes,' Jacob tells us. 'She visits Preston at least once a week, and travels down every other week to the London store and always messages us on Instagram. She's definitely our number one fan, so we let her make her own potato the other week. She loved it.' The feverish support means a third store is opening in Amsterdam, and there are talks for a Las Vegas spot. There are also hopes that a reality TV show could be in their future, and home meal kits are rumoured to be on their way. 'We've got all sorts of crazy ideas coming,' promises Jacob. 'We want to inspire the generation and show that with determination and passion, you can achieve anything.' So what exactly makes their spuds so good? 'Our razzle dazzle,' Jacob teases. 'There are over 4,000 varieties of potatoes, and we use just one, which is a secret. It's really fluffy, and it makes a nice little crispy skin. There's so much technical stuff that you would not imagine.' Sampling the goods As someone who has a jacket potato dinner at least once per week, I feel like a good judge of whether SpudBros is worth the hype, so I travel thirty minutes from my London office to try one. This was nothing compared to Keira, 18, who was over from New Zealand, and I spottedherwalking down the street with a SpudBros brown cardboard takeaway tub and a big smile. Although she didn't fly here specifically for the potato, she was adamant it would be part of the itinerary. 'It's a vibe,' she says, adding that it was as important as seeing Big Ben. As I reach the Soho venue, it is packed inside the small restaurant. From glamorous women in low-rise jeans, slicked-back buns and glossy lips to men carrying hard hats and enthusiastic teens scrolling their phones with their slightly more reluctant parents by their sides. 'The key to achieving the perfect potato jacket involves keeping things simple whilst exercising patience,' says Tassy Goodall, Senior Innovation Chef at Sainsbury. 'All you need is a large floury baking potato, olive oil and salt – that's it. Pre-heat the oven up to 200°C (fan) and prick the potato with a fork, rub the surface with oil and salt generously all over. Bake for around an hour, until the skin is crispy and the middle fluffy, then add butter to the centre – it's the perfect base to add your favourite toppings.' If you need some topping inspiration, then Tassy has some ideas: Of course, you could go classic and comforting with baked beans and cheddar cheese, but why not shake things up and try our new Taste the Difference Giant Butterbeans in Tomato Sauce from our newly launched sharing plates range? Top with crumbled feta and pink pickled onions for a Mediterranean twist. Chicken Caesar salads are a beloved favourite and a great way to elevate your jacket potato. Simply shred some cooked chicken and stir in a dollop of our new Taste the Difference Loaded Caesar Dip for that creamy finish. Top with chopped romaine lettuce for crunch, grated parmesan cheese and a handful of croutons for texture. Add anchovies if you're feeling the full experience. Smoked Salmon bagels, complete with all the trimmings, are a timeless classic, so why not take inspiration and apply it to your jackets? Try coating the potato in sesame seeds pre-bake, then for the topping, flake some salmon fillets into some crème fraiche and add some chopped gherkins, capers, chives, dill and parsley. Finish with a squeeze of lemon for a refreshing kick of acidity. We're loving Korean flavours at the moment, so you could try a Kim-cheese twist on a jacket too. Pile in grated cheddar, a spoonful of kimchi, a quick gochujang mayo (combine 1/2tsp gochujang with 2tbsp mayo), chopped spring onion and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. If you love chaat, why not apply those flavours to a jacket potato? Toss the potato in garam masala pre-bake, then fill with a spoonful of Greek yoghurt, some tamarind chutney, pomegranate seeds, fresh mint & coriander and a scattering of Bombay mix that'll elevate your jacket to the next level. A few people I speak to are seemingly confused by their own sudden fascination and why they are now paying double figures for a jacket potato. (Prices begin at £4.50 in Preston to £7–£12 in London, depending on your toppings). 'When it was on the menu at school, I wasn't that excited about it, but I've been back here twice in two weeks,' says a perplexed Jay, 21. Teenager and regular visitor Alice, however, insists the spend is justified as they do the 'world's best jacket potato'. Not one to waste an opportunity, I get a potato with all the toppings, with each of the four taking a different corner – baked beans, chilli con carne, tuna mayo, and rich bolognese sauce. Digging my wooden fork into the spud, while appreciating he boys' commitment to putting cheese first so it perfectly melts, it's clear that this is like no jacket that I'd ever eaten before. More Trending The potatoes were just the perfect amount of soft, the garlic butter slathered on added a nice tang, and their trademark tram sauce, which reminds me of a spicy mayo, gave it a wickedly hot kick. There's no doubt a lot is going on with each of the flavours fighting for attention, but somehow it works. 24 hours later, I find myself still thinking about it and craving a second round. As I look at my diary to work out when I can next get my fix, I realise that I've just become a Spud Bros groupie too! SpudBros in Preston and SpudBros Express in London will be doing a kids eat free day today (May 30) to celebrate the International Day of the Potato. Children 12 and under can claim a kids' meal if with a purchasing adult (maximum two kids' meals per paying adult). The offer will begin at opening and end when SpudBros have sold out. *Nurishh Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch by emailing Share your views in the comments below. 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Atlantic
7 days ago
- Science
- Atlantic
The Scholars Deciphering a Lost Writing System
The heaps of khipus emerged from garbage bags in the back of the tiny, one-room museum—clumps of tangled ropes the size of beach balls. Sabine Hyland smiled as she gazed down at them and said, ' Qué lindo, qué lindo ': how beautiful. Hyland, an anthropologist, had traveled here to the remote mountain village of Jucul in the Peruvian Andes to study them, in the hope of unlocking one of the most important lost writing systems in history, that of the Inca empire. Instead of writing on clay tablets or papyrus, as other ancient societies did, the Incas recorded information by tying knots into long cords they called khipus. Only a few Andean villages have preserved their khipus through the centuries; those that have survived are revered, and village elders have sometimes kept their existence secret even from other community members. Yet beyond scraps of lore, most villagers have no idea what their khipus say: Knowledge of how to read them has all but vanished in the 500 years since the Spanish conquered and destroyed the Inca empire in the 1500s. Jucul sits at an altitude of 11,800 feet, six hours north of Lima on axle-rattling mountain roads. The village is surrounded by green-brown slopes streaked with rocks, like waterfalls frozen in place. Most of its roughly 150 inhabitants live in mud-brick homes with tin roofs, and dogs roam freely. The gradients are steep; you can walk one block and ascend two stories. Nearly everyone wears a Stetson or sun hat or ball cap—L.A. Lakers, Miami Heat, KEEP AMERICA GREAT. The people of Jucul kept their khipus locked away for centuries; Hyland and I were among the first outsiders ever to see them. New khipus rarely turn up anywhere in the Andes, so these cords could amount to a major breakthrough for Hyland, a professor at the University of St Andrews, in Scotland. Although some scholars doubt that they'll ever be able to read khipus fully, even a partial reading of the undeciphered cords would help illuminate the history of the Andean people who began recording information on them more than a millennium ago. Hyland has already published a proposed decoding of a few syllables on khipus from other villages. If the Jucul ones provide additional clues, she and her colleagues might one day be able to use them to crack open the lost history of the Inca empire, which was, at its peak, the largest civilization in the Americas. The Incas began conquering nearby kingdoms in the mid-1400s, and in less than a century they had subdued a population of 12 million. The nearly 25,000 miles of roads they built, many through punishing mountain terrain, facilitated communication between far-flung areas, as did the numerous rope bridges they suspended over dizzying gorges. The Incas had advanced calendars and ceramics as well, and perfected a type of neurosurgery, likely to treat skull wounds suffered in battle, among other ailments. But most traces of the empire have vanished. The hilltop complex of Machu Picchu is one of its few enduring relics. From the November 1967 issue: Peru's Inca renaissance Khipus are another. Approximately 1,400 khipus have survived, but hundreds of thousands were likely in use in the 1400s. Most khipus are made primarily of cotton or animal hair (llama, alpaca) and have a similar structure: a long, thick 'primary' cord from which up to 1,000 tasseled or knotted 'pendant' cords dangle. The majority consist of plain beige, brown, or white cords, but others display a wide range of colors; Hyland has studied one that contains strands of 'crimson, gold, indigo, green, cream, pink, and shades of brown from fawn to chocolate.' Some also have objects knotted into them; Hyland has heard that a few khipus in Jucul might contain locks of human hair, bags of coca leaves, and a doll that might represent a god or supernatural being. 'I am not leaving this village without seeing that doll,' she told me. Beneath her excitement, though, Hyland confessed that she was nervous. The bundles in the museum were so snarled—real-life Gordian knots—that unraveling them seemed hopeless. The khipus' centuries-old fibers also looked fragile, as though one errant tug could snap the strands and destroy the information encoded there. That's to say nothing of the task of actually working out what they might mean. Deciphering a lost writing system requires a rare combination of linguistic flair, statistical savvy, and deep cultural knowledge of the region in question. Some scholars have spent their whole lives toiling on lost scripts and died with nothing to show for their efforts. The most famous decipherment ever, that of Egyptian hieroglyphs, required the discovery of the Rosetta stone, which contained near-identical texts written in ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek. Even with that enormous head start, decoding the script still took two decades. Yet khipu scholars seem optimistic these days. 'Everybody feels like we're close,' says Jon Clindaniel, an anthropologist and computer programmer at the University of Chicago. There's a new collaborative spirit in the field; key data are being shared more widely than even a few years ago. At the same time, sophisticated radiocarbon dating methods and novel approaches involving AI are being employed. As Hyland put it, 'We're in a whole new Renaissance of khipu studies.' Further progress could open up new tracts of knowledge about the origins of writing, as well as the rise—and fall—of one of the greatest lost empires in history. Hyland and I arrived in Jucul on a sunny day in June. We were greeted with offal-and-corn soup and presented with necklaces threaded with carnations, roses, toffee, lollipops, and circular knots of bread, a sort of Peruvian bagel. That night in the village museum—a room featuring Jucul's most prized possessions, including ancient skulls and youth-volleyball trophies—we took part in a ceremony she called a chacchadero, meant to bless Hyland with good luck in deciphering the khipus. A table was spread with coca leaves, liquor made from raw sugar cane, and rolled cigarettes. Hyland had advised me not to refuse anything I was offered—people might get offended—so after an opening prayer, I wadded some crinkly coca leaves into my cheek and swigged the cane liquor, then dutifully choked my way through my first cigarette. A score of speeches followed. At one point, someone passed around a gourd with white powder inside. I was alarmed to think I might be snorting my first cocaine that night as well, until Hyland explained that it was lime, a calcium-based mineral that, when dissolved in the mouth, draws more stimulants out of the coca. The trick worked. Despite the 40-degree cold outside, I was flushed warm when we emerged from the museum, and I spent a few restless hours on my cot before the buzz from the coca wore off. The next morning, we swept coca dust and cigarette ash off the table, opened a garbage bag, and plopped down the first of four khipu bundles, which weighed about 20 pounds and supposedly contained the goddess doll. I'd volunteered to help unravel, although I was suddenly regretting it. Imagine a snarl of Christmas lights so big you need two arms to carry it. Wary of the brittle strands, I hunted around as delicately as possible for loose ends and wriggled my way elbow-deep into the rat's nest, palpitating every loop and twist. Unfortunately, disturbing the ropes like this caused them to shed, and before long, a cloud of dander was tickling my nose; some settled on my tongue. One stretch of cord looked particularly fragile. It was dark yellow and Hyland said it looked like maguey, a vegetable fiber. I spent 20 minutes teasing it free, centimeter by centimeter, and exhaled with relief when it emerged intact. (I later learned that this section wasn't maguey but animal hair that had suffered damage from rodent urine.) Still, it was just one liberated foot amid seeming miles of khipus. Luckily we had help. Victor Margarito, who runs the Jucul museum, had a knack for untangling the snarls: Like a magician pulling handkerchiefs from inexplicable places, he kept wriggling his fingers into the bundle and emerging with entire yards of free rope. Thanks mostly to him, we eventually extracted 20 separate khipus and khipu fragments from the bundle—including a black-and-white one with a barber-pole-swirl primary cord that sent Hyland into another chorus of ¡Qué lindo! We didn't find a doll, but we did uncover small tassels that resembled ghosts, as well as shriveled scraps of rawhide bound to hair that looked uncannily human. It turned out to be llama or alpaca fibers. The whole thing stretched 74 feet—longer, she said, than any other khipu ever recorded to date. Most exciting of all, a coca pouch the size of a wallet was sewn onto the primary cord. It was dyed pink, and had blue tufts on each corner. Hyland was thrilled: Coca is a quintessential ritual item in Andean culture, and she said the bag provided good evidence that the khipus were used in rituals as well. Sure enough, Margarito worked open the bag's knot and found, amid desiccated coca leaves, a pair of ancient cigarettes rolled in centuries-old paper—an echo of the previous night's ceremony. Fully understanding the khipus' meaning, though, would take far more time and study. The tassels were different colors, different fiber types, different thicknesses—all variables that could encode meaning in different ways. As Hyland put it, 'Where do you even start deciphering that?' The first breakthrough in khipu decipherment took place in the 1910s. An American math teacher and amateur historian named Leland Locke had been studying the history of counting devices, and he turned his attention to a cache of khipus at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He determined that most khipus record numbers, functioning like textile abaci, a theory later confirmed by a khipu unearthed in an ancient Inca cemetery. The hanging pendant cords are divided into 'decimal zones' of different values. To log the number 237, for example, a khipukamayuq, or 'khipu animator,' would first make two overhand knots in the 'hundreds zone' near the primary cord. Then they'd scoot down an inch or two and make three more knots in the 'tens zone.' Finally, after scooting down another inch, they'd tie a special knot with seven circular loops. Some khipus encode numbers that reach into the tens of thousands. Scholars now believe that the Incas often used these numerical records to count goods. In 2013 and 2014, for instance, archaeologists excavated an Inca storehouse and found several khipus alongside caches of peanuts and chili peppers; a 2015 paper argued that the cords helped track how much food was on hand. Close examination of the numbers also suggested that storehouse officials would subtract a fixed amount from each cache and set it aside, probably either as taxes or as seeds for the next year's planting. But not all khipus served as ledgers. Spanish chronicles from the 1500s state that the Incas used khipus as letters, calendars, legal documents, biographies, historical texts, and possibly even poems. The Jucul khipus, Hyland said, almost certainly contain some linguistic information: The hanging pendant cords contain no knots, so if they did record numbers, it was by some other means. Hyland believes that they may encode words instead, through variables such as color; fiber type (cotton, animal); and the left- or right-hand twist of the strands. The Jucul khipus also resemble another, badly damaged set from the Andean village of Rapaz, where locals say their khipus functioned as religious calendars, documenting items offered for sacrifice during festivals. Both the Jucul and Rapaz khipus likely originated in Spanish colonial times, perhaps as early as the 1500s, after the Inca empire disintegrated but before the Andean people stopped using the medium for record keeping. It's an open question whether contact with the Spanish changed the nature of khipu writing, and whether Inca-era khipus (pre-1530s) and colonial-era khipus record information in similar ways. A bigger question is at stake here too. Over time, writing arose in multiple locations in Asia and Africa. Yet because those continents were in constant contact with one another, exchanging goods and ideas, scholars have debated whether writing sprung up independently in each spot or first appeared in one place before spreading elsewhere. By contrast, scientists are certain that new-world civilizations developed their writing systems independently from those of other continents, because these systems originated before any contact with the Old World. These writing systems, then—including, possibly, Inca khipus—could illuminate how and why our ancestors first adopted written language: a record of one of the most consequential changes in human history. Hyland, now 60, first fell in love with Andean culture at age 16. In 1980, her father, an agricultural scientist, took a year-long post in Lima, at a crop-research station called the International Potato Center, and brought his family with him from their home in New York State. He studied seed-storage techniques, and whenever he visited rural areas, she would tag along. The Andean landscape and lifestyle thrilled her. She recalls a field trip with a church group to a museum of ancient artifacts in Lima. In addition to seeing some erotic pottery that scandalized her chaperones, she glimpsed a magnificent khipu with blue and brown cords hanging on a wall. During college at Cornell, Hyland studied anthropology and learned Quechua, the dominant language of the Inca empire. She earned her Ph.D. at Yale in 1994; one of her professors was Michael Coe, who helped decipher the hieroglyphs of the Mayan empire. His success inspired Hyland to believe that deciphering narrative, nonnumerical khipus might be possible. But the field of khipu studies had grown stagnant, in part because some prominent scholars argued that nonnumerical khipus were merely personal mnemonic devices. That is, they believed that each khipu maker would record information using an idiosyncratic pattern of colors, knots, and fibers—a code that no one else could understand. Khipu makers could read their own cords, the theory went, but no one else could, and after they died, their khipus became indecipherable. An anthropologist named Gary Urton challenged that idea. In a series of papers and books he wrote while teaching at Colgate University in the 1990s, he argued that the Inca empire was highly centralized, and that officials wouldn't have left the recording of vital information to the whims of individual scribes. There had to be a standardized system. Urton's theory eventually won over his colleagues and revitalized the field. Urton had a charming backstory: He told reporters that he'd quit Boy Scouts after failing knot tying, and that he was inspired to decipher the 'trapped' words inside khipus because a childhood stutter had left his own voice trapped inside him. In 2000, he won a MacArthur genius grant, then jumped from Colgate to Harvard and quickly became the field's star scholar. Shortly after arriving at Harvard, Urton, then 56, decided to create a database to promote the systematic study of khipus, with information on their length, number of cords, and other attributes. He hired 32-year-old Carrie Brezine to build it. She was uniquely suited for the role: She had a degree in mathematics and an interest in the subject. She was also an enthusiastic amateur weaver; she'd even made khipus herself. The two began an affair; Brezine later said she felt pressured by Urton to acquiesce and to continue the affair because of his power and status in the field. She also enrolled in a Ph.D. program at Harvard, with Urton as her adviser. Although she'd built the database, she says that sex was a condition of her ability to use it. 'Gary made it clear that he could and would revoke my access at any time if I did not perform adequately,' she told Science magazine in 2020. (In an email to The Atlantic, Urton disputed that he pressured Brezine and denied using sex as a condition for access to the database, calling Brezine's description 'a complete misrepresentation of anything I ever said.') Harvard eventually launched an investigation into sexual-misconduct allegations from Brezine and other former Harvard students, and in June 2021 the university stripped Urton of his emeritus status and banned him from campus. (Urton told me that Harvard's investigation was 'profoundly unfair and unjust,' and said he had not had relationships with any women while they were students.) Urton had dominated the field of khipu studies for years. After he was forced out, Jon Clindaniel, who had been his graduate student at Harvard, took over administration of the database and, along with several other scholars, made the site easier to access and search. Since then, the field of khipu decipherment has flourished. Some of this work involves using computers to analyze khipu data in creative ways. For her part, Hyland is focusing on linguistics. In fact, she's drawing on a classic strategy for deciphering lost languages—one that relies on, of all things, the power of puns. Puns have historically played an important role in written language. In ancient Egypt, the words for vulture and mother sounded alike ('mwt'), so whenever scribes needed to mention someone's mother on a sarcophagus or temple wall, they chiseled in a vulture hieroglyph. (An equivalent in English would be drawing a circle with rays—☼—to mean son.) A related tool for early writing systems was the rebus, in which a series of pictures and letters stand for sounds, such as 👁️🥫CU for 'I can see you.' Hyland already knows of a few potential Quechua puns on khipus. One appeared on a khipu believed to be from a family named Yakapar. Hyland reasoned that the khipu's last few cords probably were a signature. As she explained in an article in the journal Current Anthropology, the very last cord was a rich yellow color, like ripening corn. The word for this color in Quechua is paru —a near-perfect match for the last syllable of Yakapar. Another pun involved a type of modified khipu that had cords dangling from a wooden board. The board featured carvings of monkeys, and it recorded the consumption of a corn beverage on feast days. In Quechua, 'monkey' is k 'usillu, and kulli refers to this beverage. Scholars are also working to decipher khipus by sorting them into genres. Although Spanish chroniclers documented many different types of khipus, given the lack of archaeological context for most surviving ones, we have no way of knowing which khipus belong to which category. Manny Medrano, a graduate student at Harvard who formerly studied under both Urton and Hyland, explains the dilemma with an analogy. 'It's as if someone raided a bookstore overnight and flung all the books on the floor,' he told me. 'We don't know which are detective novels, which are accounting books. So for me … the decipherment problem first and foremost is a reshelving problem.' Another Harvard graduate student, Mackinley FitzPatrick, is leading an effort to sort khipus into genres based on the colorful patterns woven into their primary cords. In the past, many scholars neglected primary cords, as if they were mere scaffolding. But there's renewed interest in these cords: FitzPatrick thinks that, like the spine of a book, they might signal a khipu's subject matter. From the September 2024 issue: Will the mystery of the Voynich Manuscript ever be solved? Artificial intelligence can help determine genre too. A few years ago, Clindaniel trained an AI system to analyze the colors of 37,645 cords on 629 khipus, as well as the colors of the cords that surround them, which may indicate context and genre. Clindaniel's program found that rare khipu colors—red, certain blues, orange, yellow, certain grays, greens—were all clustered together, indicating that they were probably used in highly similar contexts. Based on Spanish chronicles and other clues, Clindaniel suggests that this context might have involved religion or Inca royalty. In the future, scholars could analyze fiber type and other variables to search for more clusters. A better understanding of the materials used to make khipus might also help with decipherment—another area where Urton's diminished presence has created openings for new techniques and theories. Urton told me that when scrutinizing khipus to determine what kind of fibers they were made of, he just eyeballed the fibers and guessed; most, it was assumed, were made of cotton. More recently, a graduate student of Hyland's named Lucrezia Milillo has been using microscopes to examine khipus, and has found animal hair and non-cotton vegetal fibers. On some khipus that Milillo has studied, those fibers appear at regular intervals, systematically, suggesting that its use encoded meaning somehow. One obstacle to deciphering khipus is a lack of firm dates for them; knowing which ones were made prior to the Spanish conquest is especially important. Given that khipus are made from organic material, scientists should in theory be able to date them by measuring the amount of radioactive carbon-14 they contain. But a 2014 paper co-authored by Urton argued that carbon-14 tests cannot cleanly distinguish pre-1530s khipus from post-1530s khipus. (He told me that this is due to a bombardment of cosmic rays in the 1500s and a subsequent jump in carbon-14 levels in the atmosphere.) Ivan Ghezzi, an archaeologist in Peru who has done extensive work on carbon dating, says this pronouncement discouraged other scholars, and only several dozen of the approximately 1,400 known khipus worldwide have been carbon dated today. More recently, though, Ghezzi and other experts have devised potential work-arounds for the complications because of atmospheric fluctuations. With firmer dates in hand, Hyland and others will have a better grasp on whether studying colonial khipus can help crack Inca ones. Still, some scholars remain pessimistic about the odds of deciphering khipus with any certainty. Galen Brokaw, a khipu expert at Montana State University, cites one concern above all: his belief that khipus are 'not a single code.' Instead, he suggests, they may be 'multiple codes that work together.' Just as brown and white cords might have different meanings in different genres, other variables could shift too: a llama-hair cord might mean one thing in a census and something else entirely in a tribute record. And if that's the case, even the complete decipherment of one genre of khipus wouldn't necessarily help scholars read another; each would become its own laborious puzzle. Other lost writing systems did not face this obstacle. Once Egyptologists determined what, say, a lion or hippopotamus hieroglyph meant on a temple wall, those hieroglyphs meant the same basic thing in prophecies, medical documents, and recipes. If an archaeological team today discovered a new site with Mayan or Egyptian hieroglyphs, it could call in an expert to read them and get a translation in short order. 'I'm not sure that'll ever be possible' for khipus, Brokaw told me. 'I hope I'm wrong.' Some scholars also question whether khipus represent 'true' writing. In true writing systems, symbols (i, x) map directly to sounds ('eye,' 'eks'). Although keen on decipherment, Hyland admits that Inca khipus might represent more of a 'proto–writing system' still coming into being when the Spanish invasion disrupted its development. Carrie Brezine won't even go that far. To explain her theory of how khipus work, she invokes Homer. Imagine if Homer had encoded The Odyssey in knots that signified ideas such as 'hero/geographical obstacle/challenge/opponent.' However useful to ancient bards, such a spare description would mean little to us today. Brezine believes that focusing so much on decipherment can obscure what's truly special about khipus: that a large empire 'functioned with textile data as its core bureaucratic tool.' Cords made from the hair of different animals can look identical, especially when dyed, and distinguishing one fiber type from another requires running your fingers along the strands to feel how coarse or silken they are. Certain khipus, then, require both sight and touch to make sense of them. As Hyland notes, even if we never read a single Inca word, they provide a whole new understanding of what written language can be. On our third day in Jucul, the town lost power, as happens often there. In the little museum, we hauled our table over to the sunlit doorway and, with the mountains framed before us, continued untangling the snarled bundles. Eventually, 96 khipus and khipu fragments emerged from the garbage bags. The bundle in the last bag was in the worst shape yet, riddled with rodent droppings and giving off a pungent odor. But it also produced another new record, Hyland said, for the longest khipu ever discovered, which stretches an astounding 224 and a half feet. Among its brown, white, and black tassels, it contained tufts of human hair, perhaps as 'signatures' for whoever made different portions of the khipu. When disentangling the cords, Hyland also saw a flash of green silk deep inside the bundle and felt her heart leap into her throat—could it be the doll? She had to wait more than two hours while Victor Margarito separated everything. Sadly, the doll itself, probably made of wax, had disappeared; it was likely devoured by mice. But its green silk skirt remained. Hyland ran her fingers over the stitching, marveling at how delicate it was. Based on the skirt's style, she suspected that it dated from around 1700. As we were working, Rubén Susanibar, a tanned, wiry farmer in a dusty Stetson, walked into the museum and sat down. At first he just watched us, saying nothing. Then Hyland invited him to help untangle, and drew him out with a few questions. Some townspeople, it turns out, had more information about the khipus than they'd let on. Several khipus contained cords with matted tangles of animal hair attached. Susanibar explained that these mats, which he called tancash, can form naturally on vicuñas, llamas, and alpacas if their fur gets soaked. Tancash is useless for anything practical, its fibers too snarled to be spun into cloth or rope. People must therefore have collected it solely to add to khipus, to encode meaning somehow. Hyland wondered whether tancash might pun on some important name or concept in Quechua. Later, after I left Jucul, an elderly man named Lenin Margarito wandered into the museum and told Hyland about another possible pun, as well an old village ritual that required hauling coca, rum, cigarettes, and food up a mountaintop in the middle of the night. Lenin is the father of Victor Margarito, the museum caretaker, but Victor had never heard the stories his father was telling. He ended up scribbling notes as fast as Hyland—heritage passing down in real time to the next generation. To protect the khipus, Hyland had planned to wrap them in acid-free paper for storage. But she'd forgotten to pack any in her rush to leave Scotland, so it was on to Plan B. She rooted through her luggage and selected two clean cotton T-shirts to sacrifice, one green, one red. She swaddled some of the longer khipus in those and packed them into cardboard boxes for storage in the museum, to await her return next year. She was already excited to get back. Since leaving Jucul, Hyland has purchased an antique wax doll, and she plans to commission a tiny silk gown so the town can display a replica of the goddess alongside the skulls and volleyball trophies in the museum. Even now, months later, she still can't believe the luck she had in uncovering so many new khipus. 'It feels like finding a cave with the Dead Sea Scrolls,' she said, 'or entering an untouched ancient Egyptian tomb filled with hieroglyphic inscriptions.' Hyland and her colleagues might never decipher khipus fully, much less resurrect the Inca equivalent of the psalms or Homer. But even a few spare lines would be invaluable. Such words would give the people of Jucul and throughout the Andes something that many of us today simply take for granted—a chance to hear their ancestors speak.
