|Home > World News > Article| The theory has Incan scholars
abuzz. The discovery of true Incan writing would revolutionise
their field in the same way as deciphering the Egyptian
hieroglyphics or Mayan glyphs lifted a veil from those
civilisations. But it also has broader interest because the
khipus could constitute what is, to Western eyes, a very
unorthodox writing system, using knots and strings in three
dimensions instead of markings on a flat expanse of paper, clay,
or stone. "What makes this work so interesting is that what is
being expressed is being conceptualised in such a different way
than we conceptualise," said Sabine MacCormack, a historian who
teaches at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. "This is about
an expression of the human mind, the likes of which we don't
have elsewhere." In a new book, Signs of the Inka Khipu, Dr
Urton proposes a new method for transcribing the knotted strings
that he believes could lead to breakthroughs. And his work has
helped fuel a resurgence of scholarly inter