[antiraza]

I'm not certain I understand where the problem is? Trades are learned by apprenticeship. Knowledge is learned by oral transmission. As the previous commenter said, this has been normal for most of history, and frankly is still the case many places around the world. Literacy is _new_. Even when literacy was emerging, it was likely that a mason or a carpenter was not of a literate class and they learned the same way generations before them did: apprenticeship and oral knowledge transmission.

[mmooss]

We're talking about adminstering and leading large-scale empires, which is enough of a difficulty, and doing it in the special circumstances of the Incas. And as part of that, developing and advancing these technologies and all the precursors to it - culture, education, skills, technology itself, and political support for it, all on that large scale.

If you think that's easy or normal, consider that it is hardly ever done. Few accomplish what the Incas did, much less with their challenges (see the OP regarding those). For an example, look at China in the mid-to-late 19th century, a place with far more advantages, as they tried to adopt technology.

Edit: From the OP:

"... they managed to create the largest empire ever seen in the Americas – a sprawling two-million-sq-km civilisation that extended across parts of modern-day Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina – encompassing as many as 12 million people and 100 languages. It was roughly 10 times the size of the Aztec Empire and had twice its population. Remarkably, the Inca managed to forge this vast society without the wheel, the arch, money, iron or steel tools, draft animals capable of ploughing fields or even a written language."

[alephnerd]

They used Quipu to catalog most administrative information (taxes, census, military, etc) - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

Quipu's are actually pretty cool - it's basically a proto-flamegraph and could even potentially be used alphabetically, but we wouldn't really know as there just aren't that many left after the brutal Spanish invasion of the Inca empire and the subsequent inquisition.

[mmooss]

Yes I'm aware of them - and they add to my wonder: Why were the Inca so innovative?

As I understand them, quipu did not transmit words, so how do you communicate, for example, rope bridge construction and maintenance information over great distances and time.

[krisoft]

> quipu did not transmit words, so how do you communicate, for example, rope bridge construction and maintenance information over great distances and time.

Your question has been answered before in this thread. You communicate rope bridge construction and maintenance via apprenticeship. There is a master rope bridge builder who teaches personaly by demonstration and telling an apprentice rope bridge builder, then supervises their work for a bit before the apprentice is declared a master themselves. You do not need written communication for this.

In fact even to this day this is how much of the skills are communicated. I learned lost wax casting from a dude in a workshop who shown me what should be the proper consistency of the malachite-gypsum-water mixture before you slop it on your wax pieces. I didn’t learn it from a book, even though i know how to read and read a lot. Similarly i learned from a master (a different one) during personal supervision on how silver glows when it is just perfect temp to flow into a cast. Also learned from a master how to see that the metal I’m working is becoming brittle from work hardening, and what can I do to avoid or even use that effect to my benefit. None of this is rope bridge building, just illustrations that knowledge, even very important knowledge, is transmitted to this day without writing.

Why is it so hard to imagine that the Incas did the same?

[mmooss]

What a bizarre conversation - I could understand one person not quite fathoming the question, but all these people insisting is really odd.

This thread doesn't explain the Incas at all for reasons I explained (but which should be obvious). What I'm asking are well-established, prominent subjects of research.

And then people playing down literacy ... is this that anti-modernism trend - the Middle Ages were fine, secret prehistorical societies had advanced technology, who needs literacy, etc.? It's just hard to fathom.

[antiraza]

I'm not sure I'm (I'll speak only for myself in this thread) am 'playing down literacy'. It's great, we should have more of it. No questions asked.

Maybe there's a tone interpretation issue in the thread... 'How did the Incas do this' -- is that asking for the detailed specifics of their management culture and systems (mostly unknowable -- likely the subject of a many past and future academic careers), or is it a statement of incredulity. I think myself and most of the other commenters have interpreted the latter, whether that was your intention or not.

What I'm pointing out is that, if you've seen much of the developing world, or lived anywhere except the fully formed bubble of a 'modern developed society,' you will have had the opportunity to observe that 'life... (and by extension, civilization)... find a way.'

The Egyptian pharoahs ruled for over 3000 years. That number is unfathomable in the context of modern society. Yes they had a written language, but the vast majority of that empire very likely did not know how to read it.

The millions that lived through that era integrated, obeyed and functioned into that power structure for more than 1.5x the time since we all agreed on a numbering structure for 'years since some arbitrary point in the past.'

Christianity, and Hinduism, and Islam, and frankly every major religion spread, and brought most of humanity into their fold without most of its adherents being able to read. There wasn't a formal written bible until hundreds of years after the religion itself was formed. It passed through dozens of generations before being formalized.

All this is to say: I don't know how the Incas did it, in terms of the granular specifics of their culture and systems, but that they did it, somehow, and using methods quite normal for most of history, is far from implausible.

[krisoft]

> I could understand one person not quite fathoming the question, but all these people insisting is really odd.

If everyone is misunderstanding your question then maybe the problem is with how the question is formed.

> This thread doesn't explain the Incas at all

Yeah. Nobody is going to explain a whole civilisation with everything involved in a few short sentences. You were asking specificaly how the bridge building knowledge was spread without literacy. That is what was explained to you. Repeatedly.

> And then people playing down literacy

Nobody is “playing down literacy”. It is just clear from your question that you do not understand how something can happen without it. So I have pointed out examples where skills are transmitted without reading/writing. It is called tacit knowledge and it has a huge role in all kind of skills and technology.

> the Middle Ages were fine, secret prehistorical societies had advanced technology, who needs literacy, etc.?

What are you talking about? Why are you making things up?

> It's just hard to fathom.

I can say the same about your weird whatever that list is.

[mark336]

The kamayocs spread the knowledge orally from master to protege