Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (38 page)

In addition to the discs of green micaceous schist there are one or two of sandstone or other rock. Two or three flat discoidal pebbles of similar material were found in connection with the discs.

Forty-two oblong stone counters of green schist were found. Nearly all bear marks of having been ground and polished but none appears to have been engraved, although a number have
irregular scratches of a suspicious character which might, however, have been made accidentally in the course of manufacture. Most of them came from the Snake Rock Region and the upper part of the city.

The collection also includes nineteen triangular ‘chips’, found generally in places where other types of record stones occurred. None came from the burial caves. Besides the discs, oblongs, and triangles, there are a number of very irregular chips some of which are incised, others carved into highly problematical shapes impossible of classification. Some of the triangles and oblongs are pierced with holes as though for use as pendants or amulets.

In one grave four little green stone chips were found, each one carved to represent a denizen of the jungle. Possibly they were buried with their owner and designer, who, in carving them as silhouettes of a peccary, an ant eater, an otter, and a parrot, may have wished to record a visit to the forests of the lower Urubamba. Two chips were found representing in miniature an Australian boomerang. One has the outlines of a pipe, another of the head and shoulders of an animal, still another of a small flat reel or spool in which thread could be wound. Several are carved in the shape common to bronze knives and axes but in miniature. These might well have been used as offerings to the god of metallurgy, in the hope that the bronze castings would be successful.

Most of these little green chips appear to be record stones. Probably they belonged to an earlier culture than that of the Incas. They have been found in Ecuador, although they are almost wholly unknown in such European and American collections of Peruvian antiquities as I have seen. At Machu Picchu they came mainly from excavations in the city and occurred in greatest profusion in the vicinity of Snake Rock, which was possibly the most ancient cemetery.

Similar record stones were found by Professor Saville and by Dr Dorsey on the Island of La Plata, off the coast of Ecuador. An eminent Peruvian archaeologist, Señor Gonzales de la Rosa, believes that the predecessors of the Incas kept their accounts by
means of record stones. The Incas themselves used
quipus
, knotted strings of different colours arranged in decimal series. Velasco, the author of
History of the Kingdom of Quito
, quotes from an ancient Spanish missionary chronicle, the work of Friar Marco de Niza, a work that is not known to exist at present. The Friar says that the Caras, or ancient rulers of Ecuador, ‘used a kind of writing more imperfect than that of the Peruvian
quipus
’. They kept their records by means of ‘little stones of distinct sizes, colours, and angular form’ arranged in containers of wood, stone, or clay. ‘With the different combination of these they perpetuated their doings and formed their count of all.’ By means of these crude archives they kept a record of their kings. That the system seems to have been unsatisfactory and imperfect is shown in Velasco’s statement that some interpreted the deposits to mean that eighteen rulers covered a period of seven hundred years while others interpreted the succession as covering only five hundred years.

In treating of the burial customs of the pre-Inca rulers of Quito, Velasco says that above the mummy of each ruler was a little niche, inside which ‘were the small stones of various shapes and colours which denoted his age, the years and the month of his reign’. Professor Saville notes that little stones of distinct sizes, colours, and angular shapes used for the purpose of keeping historical and other records are to be found in various places on the western coast of Ecuador not far from the southern frontier of Colombia. The Caras were eventually conquered by the Incas and forced to adopt their customs, including the use of
quipus
, or records strings.

The finding at Machu Picchu of similar record stones made of the local green micaceous or chloritic schist might indicate that at some time in its history Machu Picchu was inhabited by people who had not yet learned to use string records. Or else these were brought from Ecuador by the Incas, which is possible. No record stones have been found elsewhere in this region, and were it not for Professor Saville’s discoveries we should have been at a loss as to how to regard these little green chips. Under the circumstances it seems proper to suggest that the high niches
in the Principal Temple might have been intended to receive collections of record stones and were purposely placed out of reach so as to obviate the likelihood of their being disturbed. That none were found in these niches need not necessarily destroy this hypothesis. In the first place, when the time came for the use of record stones to be abandoned in favour of
quipus
they might all have been removed by order of the high priest and buried near the Sacred Plaza. In the second place, when the Principal Temple was no longer used for worship the priests may have carried away or hidden the record stones which were in its high niches. In the third place, it must be remembered that the Principal Temple was stripped of any ornaments or objects of interest which it contained long before my first visit. It would have been one of the first things to be found by Indian treasure seekers working their way along the top of the ridge and it is to be presumed that they long since would have carried away anything of interest which it contained. Finally, it is interesting to note that our careful searches and excavations in other groups of Inca ruins in this region, including Choqquequirau, Rosaspata, and Patallacta, have not yielded any similar stones, tokens, or counters. Had only a few ‘record stones’ been found here it might easily be supposed that they were brought from Ecuador after the conquest of that region in the last century of the Inca Empire. As most were made of local green schist, it seems likely that they were made here by some of the Incas.

In an excavation near the City Gate, twenty-nine obsidian pebbles, slightly larger than ordinary marbles, were found. One more was dug up a few feet away but none was found anywhere else. The late Professor Pirsson, of the Sheffield Scientific School, who was kind enough to examine them for me, said that similar obsidian pebbles are found in all parts of the world, citing especially Honduras, Arizona, and central Europe. The finding of these rounded chunks of volcanic glass in some localities where there has been no recent volcanic action has led to the suggestion that they might be extraterrestrial, possibly a ‘meteoric shower’. Whatever their origin, their location near the gateway of the city would seem to indicate that they might have
been used as record stones, possibly to keep tally on those who brought alpaca wool for the Chosen Women.

We also found a few tokens or counters of baked clay. They are extremely rare in collections of Peruvian antiquities. There were likewise a few pentagonal clay discs made of rounded potsherds, marked on five sides so as to be used as counters up to five. Also of potter’s clay were ear-plugs, flute-like whistles, paint dishes, and dice-like counters. They are incised with straight lines and crosses clearly intended to represent a numerical tally. Very little is known about these last, and although they are fairly common at Machu Picchu, few, if any, have found their way into the larger museums of the world. Like the stone discs, they do not seem to have been used by the Incas but probably by an earlier people, prior to the invention of the
quipu
.

There is a story in Montesinos that before the invention of
quipus
, or knotted mnemonic strings, there was another method of keeping accounts. Since the tradition in Montesinos relates to an event centuries old at the time of his investigations, it is barely possible that the old method of writing which is referred to in the tradition means the use of record stones and incised terra-cotta cubes such as have been found at Machu Picchu. It is possible that the use of counters was carried to a greater degree at Machu Picchu than elsewhere in Peru but that the invention of the
quipu
and the ease with which it could be adapted to a decimal system prevented the spread of the use of stone counters. Whether one prefers to regard the story in Montesinos as a somewhat embroidered account of an actual event or as a reference to the abandonment of the use of record stones and the commencement of the use of the
quipu
is not important. The interesting fact remains that at Machu Picchu we have evidence of a different system of notation from that employed by the Incas at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

Besides the record stones, artifacts found at Machu Picchu included beads in the shape of discs, perforated bars, possibly used as spreaders, pendants, points for needles or shuttles, whorl-bobs for spinning, polishing stones, scrapers, knives, pestles, mortars, and grinding stones. There are two pestles
made in the shape of cylinders, 7 or 8 inches long and 2 or 3 inches in diameter, very beautifully cut and polished. Some of the mortars are merely circular or oblong depressions in roughly squared rectangular blocks. Two or three grinding stones possibly intended for ceremonial purposes, were cut out of broad, thin slabs looking strikingly like old-fashioned gravestones, 2 feet long and 1½ feet wide. Near them were found equally long thin slabs with a curved edge, the ceremonial rocking-stone mullers.

In the excavation on the ridge near the Snake Rock and the Temple of the Three Windows, Mr Erdis found pieces of a beautifully decorated rectangular dish, originally carved out of a single piece of schist. Its shape and its design were so unusual that he dug up every foot of ground to a depth of about 2 feet over a fairly large area in the hope of finding other portions of it. By examining every pebble he was finally successful in finding nearly all the pieces of this beautiful dish, which is probably pre-Inca and of very great age. It is about 8 inches long by 5 inches wide and 2½ inches high. He also found another smaller dish of similar design.

A number of crude stone dishes and bowls were found, one nearly circular and about 12 inches in diameter and 5 inches in depth. There were also pieces of two or three handsomely made circular stone dishes showing evidence of having been carefully cut and polished. Such dishes are eagerly sought by Peruvian collectors of antiquities, so it is not surprising that we found no good examples. Relatively few objects of stone occurred in any of the burial caves.

Five primitive obsidian knives were found in one of the oldest parts of the city near a ledge marked with incised serpents. We also found a stone flake knife of chalcedony very like a couple which I picked up in some pre-Inca ruins near Lake Parinacochas. We found a hundred specimens of Inca bronze including axes, chisels, clubs, shawl-pins and knives. In the city were many pieces of little braziers which had been used in their manufacture. Rough usage had destroyed most of them so that it was only possible to restore one brazier with any degree of accuracy.
None were found in any of the graves. They seem not to have been used by the women who were buried there.

Hundreds of hammer-stones were found, indicating the great importance and frequent use of this primitive paleolithic implement, which enabled the Incas to accomplish such incredible feats. They consist usually of hard, compact pebbles or cobblestones of diorite or other firmly consolidated rock material. Sometimes slight depressions permitted the thumb and finger to hold them securely, but in most instances there is only the chipped point of the pebble to show that it was used as a hammer-stone.

One cobblestone, 8 inches long and 4 inches wide, bears evidence of having been used by its ingenious owner for three different purposes. This original three-in-one tool has a small depression carved in its side which could serve as a mortar for grinding pigments; its ends are both abraded by its having been used as a hammer-stone; and one side is smoothly rounded so that it could be used as a rocking-stone pestle or muller.

Among the articles of wood is the charred fragment of a dish which possibly was 1½ inches deep and 6 inches in diameter; a nicely made crochet needle over 5 inches long, the handle slightly flattened, incised on the edges, and decorated with a feather pattern; a needle 5 inches long made from a large stout thorn, its base flattened and perforated; another needle about 4 inches long with a small metallic ring fastened to the base. No examples were found of that painted woodenware frequently seen in collections of Cuzco antiquities which seem to represent an art practised during the early days of the Spanish Conquest under the influence of European design.

Four bone articles were found: a whorl-bob made possibly from the end of a femur, and three pointed tools, still used in the hand looms of Peru to beat up the thread of the woof. Two of them are perforated; one has a nicely decorated handle consisting of two birds facing each other.

Our knowledge of the textiles made and worn at Machu Picchu must rest mostly on the beautiful specimens already referred to which have been found in the tombs of the Peruvian coastal desert. However, we know from Rodriguez, an eye-witness,
that Titu Cusi who lived here, and some of his nobles, were sumptuously dressed. In this moist climate – we had frequent showers even in the dry season – it is not to be supposed that articles of cloth would last very long. A few very small fragments of nicely woven woollen textiles were found in some of the burial caves where they were most thoroughly protected against the weather. They were so decayed, however, as to make it impossible to determine the size or nature of the original garments.

One terra-cotta ear-plug was found, its outer surface covered with small holes in which possibly little coloured feathers had once been placed. We know that the Inca nobles were distinguished by the large size of their ear ornaments, to receive which the lobe of the ear had to be punctured and stretched. This was such a conspicuous feature of the nobles that the conquistadors called them
orejones
, ‘big ears’.