25 Centuries of Peruvian culture without writing?

Resumen

In 1973, Victoria de la Jara began publishing the results of her research. This article asks the reader to question the validity of the prevalent belief that ancient Peruvians did not have writing. This belief was traced to the 16th century chroniclers, who had no access to the later research about the ancient writing systems of Meopotamia, China, and Egypt and interpreted what they heard based on what they knew. She specifi cally targets Padre Jose Acosta, a Spanish Jesuit who arrived in Peru in 1569 and, although a respected scholar of his time, had no access to the later deciphering of ancient writing systems. In 1590 he wrote that no writing had yet been discovered in the Indies, there were only paintings and images. Champollion’s astonishing 1815 announcement that Egyptian hieroglyphs were not just images but a system of ideograms and phonograms opened a new era in the study of writing.
De la Jara also points to passages in the chronicles that describe feats of memory and information that, as with khipus, seem to have been based on visual systems. She refers the work done by Rafael Larco Hoyle to determine a system of Moche pallar beans, as well as to the mysterious Sahuayaco stone carvings that seem to be an inscription. These are some of the clues that suggest further research into the possibility of ancient Peruvian writing. (Penny Berliner).