te tetted e tettetett tettet, te tettetett tettek tettese

[Hurdegaryp]

I wonder if any records were destroyed by conquistadors.

Neither the Aztecs nor the Incas had writing systems.

However, we do have important post-conquest codices - particularly for the Aztecs - that reveal a considerable amount of information about pre-conquest Mesoamerican society, alongside social reaction to the onset of smallpox.

The Florentine Codex is a particularly important document here, and contains a wealth of vitally important ethnographic data collected in the immediate aftermath of the conquest of New Spain, complemented by extensive illustrations.

If anyone would like to take a look, the entirety of the Florentine Codex has been digitised: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/10096/view/1/1/

Fascinating, but being fluent in Latin is not the trend anymore. I am rather surprised that the Aztecs and Incas didn't write, since they had rather impressive urban cultures. There were indigenous writing systems in South America, right?

[The Archregimancy]

Neither the Aztecs nor the Incas had writing systems.

However, we do have important post-conquest codices - particularly for the Aztecs - that reveal a considerable amount of information about pre-conquest Mesoamerican society, alongside social reaction to the onset of smallpox.

The Florentine Codex is a particularly important document here, and contains a wealth of vitally important ethnographic data collected in the immediate aftermath of the conquest of New Spain, complemented by extensive illustrations.

If anyone would like to take a look, the entirety of the Florentine Codex has been digitised: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/10096/view/1/1/

Fascinating, but being fluent in Latin is not the trend anymore. I am rather surprised that the Aztecs and Incas didn't write, since they had rather impressive urban cultures. There were indigenous writing systems in South America, right?

The only fully developed and subsequently deciphered indigenous writing system in the Western Hemisphere prior to the conquest was the Mayan writing system.

There are a few other script candidates, but little evidence of these survives, and they're poorly understood.

Must dash; won't be able to reply further.

[Tsaraine]

Neither the Aztecs nor the Incas had writing systems.

However, we do have important post-conquest codices - particularly for the Aztecs - that reveal a considerable amount of information about pre-conquest Mesoamerican society, alongside social reaction to the onset of smallpox.

The Florentine Codex is a particularly important document here, and contains a wealth of vitally important ethnographic data collected in the immediate aftermath of the conquest of New Spain, complemented by extensive illustrations.

If anyone would like to take a look, the entirety of the Florentine Codex has been digitised: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/10096/view/1/1/

Fascinating, but being fluent in Latin is not the trend anymore. I am rather surprised that the Aztecs and Incas didn't write, since they had rather impressive urban cultures. There were indigenous writing systems in South America, right?

The maya had a wholly indigenous, indisputably-a-writing-system syllabary; unfortunately they fell apart, as an urban, literate civilisation, some centuries before the arrival of Europeans. It was only deciphered in (IIRC) the 1970s. As for South America, there's some debate about how much information was actually encoded in quipu (knotted cords used by the Inca for recording quantities) but they seem to be mainly mathematical and/or mnemonic.

Here's a good video about using linguistic reconstruction to investigate PIE society, which may be of interest.

[Hurdegaryp]

Fascinating, but being fluent in Latin is not the trend anymore. I am rather surprised that the Aztecs and Incas didn't write, since they had rather impressive urban cultures. There were indigenous writing systems in South America, right?

The maya had a wholly indigenous, indisputably-a-writing-system syllabary; unfortunately they fell apart, as an urban, literate civilisation, some centuries before the arrival of Europeans. It was only deciphered in (IIRC) the 1970s. As for South America, there's some debate about how much information was actually encoded in quipu (knotted cords used by the Inca for recording quantities) but they seem to be mainly mathematical and/or mnemonic.

Here's a good video about using linguistic reconstruction to investigate PIE society, which may be of interest.

This is all very fascinating, but shouldn't we tone it down a bit? TET is currently exhibiting a more exalted level of communication than the average NationStates General thread, which makes all the others look bad in comparison. Not that many of them need help looking bad, but discussing that usually leads to a slippery slope.

[Tsaraine]

The maya had a wholly indigenous, indisputably-a-writing-system syllabary; unfortunately they fell apart, as an urban, literate civilisation, some centuries before the arrival of Europeans. It was only deciphered in (IIRC) the 1970s. As for South America, there's some debate about how much information was actually encoded in quipu (knotted cords used by the Inca for recording quantities) but they seem to be mainly mathematical and/or mnemonic.

Here's a good video about using linguistic reconstruction to investigate PIE society, which may be of interest.

This is all very fascinating, but shouldn't we tone it down a bit? TET is currently exhibiting a more exalted level of communication than the average NationStates General thread, which makes all the others look bad in comparison. Not that many of them need help looking bad, but discussing that usually leads to a slippery slope.

Eh, I feel we can be forgiven for ascending into more erudite altitudes on occasion. It's not like anyone is being forced to discuss archaeology, or to read it; they could easily start talking about something else in TET if they wished to.

But, if you insist ...

HURR DURR BOOBIES

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I wonder if any records were destroyed by conquistadors.

Neither the Aztecs nor the Incas had writing systems.

However, we do have important post-conquest codices - particularly for the Aztecs - that reveal a considerable amount of information about pre-conquest Mesoamerican society, alongside social reaction to the onset of smallpox.

The Florentine Codex is a particularly important document here, and contains a wealth of vitally important ethnographic data collected in the immediate aftermath of the conquest of New Spain, complemented by extensive illustrations.

If anyone would like to take a look, the entirety of the Florentine Codex has been digitised: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/10096/view/1/1/


Edit:

See also the Codex Mendoza

Arch, are you completely certain of this? Because I am almost certain that the Maya, the Aztec, the epi-Olmec and the Mixtec all had pictographic writing systems.

[Hurdegaryp]

This is all very fascinating, but shouldn't we tone it down a bit? TET is currently exhibiting a more exalted level of communication than the average NationStates General thread, which makes all the others look bad in comparison. Not that many of them need help looking bad, but discussing that usually leads to a slippery slope.

Eh, I feel we can be forgiven for ascending into more erudite altitudes on occasion. It's not like anyone is being forced to discuss archaeology, or to read it; they could easily start talking about something else in TET if they wished to.

But, if you insist ...

HURR DURR BOOBIES

Oh, crap. Let us return to the noble subjects of archeology and plagues of the past posthaste!

[Italios]

It's been an hour, and so far the Asclepius sculpture has only a base and a foot with very dry skin.

[Hurdegaryp]

It's been an hour, and so far the Asclepius sculpture has only a base and a foot with very dry skin.

These things take time. I recently decided to start painting miniatures again, that doesn't go fast either. Creating a whole statue out of clay must be significantly more time-consuming.

[The V O I D]

This is all very fascinating, but shouldn't we tone it down a bit? TET is currently exhibiting a more exalted level of communication than the average NationStates General thread, which makes all the others look bad in comparison. Not that many of them need help looking bad, but discussing that usually leads to a slippery slope.

Eh, I feel we can be forgiven for ascending into more erudite altitudes on occasion. It's not like anyone is being forced to discuss archaeology, or to read it; they could easily start talking about something else in TET if they wished to.

But, if you insist ...

HURR DURR BOOBIES

This is going to be immortalized in my sig. I don't care if it's irrelevant, I'm keeping this. Or, a sigified version of this.

[Italios]

It's been an hour, and so far the Asclepius sculpture has only a base and a foot with very dry skin.

These things take time. I recently decided to start painting miniatures again, that doesn't go fast either. Creating a whole statue out of clay must be significantly more time-consuming.

The clay I'm using is air-dry and cracks easily, I can't use the good stuff because there's no time to fire it in a kiln. I'm trying to build the body bit by bit, and I really hope the base and feet will support the entire body or if it'll just topple over.

[Esternial]

Eh, I feel we can be forgiven for ascending into more erudite altitudes on occasion. It's not like anyone is being forced to discuss archaeology, or to read it; they could easily start talking about something else in TET if they wished to.

But, if you insist ...

HURR DURR BOOBIES

Oh, crap. Let us return to the noble subjects of archeology and plagues of the past posthaste!

Damn it, Hurdey!

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Fe de errata: The Aztecs didn't fully develop a writing system but did use glyphs.

[Hurdegaryp]

These things take time. I recently decided to start painting miniatures again, that doesn't go fast either. Creating a whole statue out of clay must be significantly more time-consuming.

The clay I'm using is air-dry and cracks easily, I can't use the good stuff because there's no time to fire it in a kiln. I'm trying to build the body bit by bit, and I really hope the base and feet will support the entire body or if it'll just topple over.

Do you use an internal structure in order to keep it upright? You know, a 'skeleton' made of small sticks or something.

[Tsaraine]

Neither the Aztecs nor the Incas had writing systems.

However, we do have important post-conquest codices - particularly for the Aztecs - that reveal a considerable amount of information about pre-conquest Mesoamerican society, alongside social reaction to the onset of smallpox.

The Florentine Codex is a particularly important document here, and contains a wealth of vitally important ethnographic data collected in the immediate aftermath of the conquest of New Spain, complemented by extensive illustrations.

If anyone would like to take a look, the entirety of the Florentine Codex has been digitised: https://www.wdl.org/en/item/10096/view/1/1/


Edit:

See also the Codex Mendoza

Arch, are you completely certain of this? Because I am almost certain that the Maya, the Aztec, the epi-Olmec and the Mixtec all had pictographic writing systems.

Arch is still strictly correct, since the Maya, Olmec, and Mixtec aren't Inca or Aztec. As I understand it, exactly how much the Aztec codices are pictographs as opposed to pictures is debatable.

Eh, I feel we can be forgiven for ascending into more erudite altitudes on occasion. It's not like anyone is being forced to discuss archaeology, or to read it; they could easily start talking about something else in TET if they wished to.

But, if you insist ...

HURR DURR BOOBIES

Oh, crap. Let us return to the noble subjects of archeology and plagues of the past posthaste!

BOUNCY CHESTICLES

Eh, I feel we can be forgiven for ascending into more erudite altitudes on occasion. It's not like anyone is being forced to discuss archaeology, or to read it; they could easily start talking about something else in TET if they wished to.

But, if you insist ...

HURR DURR BOOBIES

This is going to be immortalized in my sig. I don't care if it's irrelevant, I'm keeping this. Or, a sigified version of this.

Insufficient! TATTOO IT ON YOUR CHEST.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Arch, are you completely certain of this? Because I am almost certain that the Maya, the Aztec, the epi-Olmec and the Mixtec all had pictographic writing systems.

Arch is still strictly correct, since the Maya, Olmec, and Mixtec aren't Inca or Aztec. As I understand it, exactly how much the Aztec codices are pictographs as opposed to pictures is debatable.

Well, the Inca did have quipu, but that system was more mathematical than writing.

[Italios]

The clay I'm using is air-dry and cracks easily, I can't use the good stuff because there's no time to fire it in a kiln. I'm trying to build the body bit by bit, and I really hope the base and feet will support the entire body or if it'll just topple over.

Do you use an internal structure in order to keep it upright? You know, a 'skeleton' made of small sticks or something.

Actually, that might work. This statue is going to be pretty small, so I'll test it out with toothpicks.

[Hurdegaryp]

Fe de errata: The Aztecs didn't fully develop a writing system but did use glyphs.

Highly complicated glyphs, even. Their scripture makes Egyptian hieroglyphs look highly streamlined in comparison.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Fe de errata: The Aztecs didn't fully develop a writing system but did use glyphs.

Highly complicated glyphs, even. Their scripture makes Egyptian hieroglyphs look highly streamlined in comparison.

They indeed look rather complicated.

[Hurdegaryp]

Arch is still strictly correct, since the Maya, Olmec, and Mixtec aren't Inca or Aztec. As I understand it, exactly how much the Aztec codices are pictographs as opposed to pictures is debatable.

Well, the Inca did have quipu, but that system was more mathematical than writing.

Which could actually be used as a language system, since numbers can easily take the place of letters. Awareness of the binary system, which predates modern computers several centuries, might even result in being able to add more information, but I may be entirely wrong about that.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Well, the Inca did have quipu, but that system was more mathematical than writing.

Which could actually be used as a language system, since numbers can easily take the place of letters. Awareness of the binary system, which predates modern computers several centuries, might even result in being able to add more information, but I may be entirely wrong about that.

Well, the thing with quipu is that if it was used as a means to communicate in any other way that didn't involve keeping track of financial and tributary information, scholars do not know for certain. They keep studying the quipu, of course.

The Historia et Rudimenta Linguae Piruanorum is mentioned as a source for supporting that quipu were used as a writing system that was more complex but most researchers cast doubt upon this manuscript because of its radical approach at discussing historical figures and because the owner of the manuscript never allowed more than one team of researchers to study it.

[Hurdegaryp]

Which could actually be used as a language system, since numbers can easily take the place of letters. Awareness of the binary system, which predates modern computers several centuries, might even result in being able to add more information, but I may be entirely wrong about that.

Well, the thing with quipu is that if it was used as a means to communicate in any other way that didn't involve keeping track of financial and tributary information, scholars do not know for certain. They keep studying the quipu, of course.

The Historia et Rudimenta Linguae Piruanorum is mentioned as a source for supporting that quipu were used as a writing system that was more complex but most researchers cast doubt upon this manuscript because of its radical approach at discussing historical figures and because the owner of the manuscript never allowed more than one team of researchers to study it.

That doesn't help. More research is needed in order to come to more informed conclusions, because that is the scientific way to do things.

Coming back to my earlier mentioning of the binary system, it is actually a bit older than I previously mentioned. The I-Ching is about five millennia old and is the oldest known binary system known to us. This ancient Book of Changes inspired Leibniz to develop his revolutionary binary arithmetic.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

Well, the thing with quipu is that if it was used as a means to communicate in any other way that didn't involve keeping track of financial and tributary information, scholars do not know for certain. They keep studying the quipu, of course.

The Historia et Rudimenta Linguae Piruanorum is mentioned as a source for supporting that quipu were used as a writing system that was more complex but most researchers cast doubt upon this manuscript because of its radical approach at discussing historical figures and because the owner of the manuscript never allowed more than one team of researchers to study it.

That doesn't help. More research is needed in order to come to more informed conclusions, because that is the scientific way to do things.

Coming back to my earlier mentioning of the binary system, it is actually a bit older than I previously mentioned. The I-Ching is about five millennia old and is the oldest known binary system known to us. This ancient Book of Changes inspired Leibniz to develop his revolutionary binary arithmetic.

Huh. Of that, I was unaware. I always considered the binary system, as seen in computing, a modern invention. One learns something new every day.

[Hurdegaryp]

That doesn't help. More research is needed in order to come to more informed conclusions, because that is the scientific way to do things.

Coming back to my earlier mentioning of the binary system, it is actually a bit older than I previously mentioned. The I-Ching is about five millennia old and is the oldest known binary system known to us. This ancient Book of Changes inspired Leibniz to develop his revolutionary binary arithmetic.

Huh. Of that, I was unaware. I always considered the binary system, as seen in computing, a modern invention. One learns something new every day.

My tendency to keep reading Neal Stephenson is responsible for me gaining this knowledge. His Baroque Cycle features Leibniz, Newton, Huygens and many other important savants of the 17th/18th century.

[Ethel mermania]

Last interesting factoid: contrary to the belief that you contracted plague and died shortly after, the reality seemed to be that the disease took 37 days to manifest itself fully. For the first 12 days, you weren't contagious. Then for the next 20 days, you were highly contagious. Then, the last 5-7 days, you manifested the virulent symptoms and died.

Assuming that we're talking about Yersinia pestis-associated plague, I think that rather depended on the type of plague.

Yersinia pestis causes three different types of plague, which are sometimes confused.

The first type is the famous bubonic plague; this has an incubation rate of 2-6 days, with death usually occurring between 10-14 days after infection. This is typically spread by infected fleas. The mortality rate for infected individuals is about 40-60% if left untreated, but several effective treatments exist these days.

The second type is pneumonic plague; while much rarer than bubonic plague, this is the type usually held to be behind stories of apparently healthy individuals suddenly dropping dead, and has a mortality rate of over 90% if left untreated. This is a lung infection typically spread by breathing in infected air droplets exhaled by other infected individuals.

The third, and rarest, type is septicaemic plague. This is a blood infection, typically caused by an open wound coming into contact with infected tissue. Untreated, it has a 100% mortality rate, and treatment has to occur within 24 hours of infection; it can kill within hours of symptoms presenting.

The 'Black Death' was most likely a combination of all three of these; hence the accounts of most of the infected dying after developing the characteristic buboes of bubonic plague, with the stories of previously healthy people dying overnight likely relating to victims of pneumonic plague or speticaemic plague.



Finally, all of that reading about late classical and early medieval plague comes in handy...

See all that schooling did come in handy, no matter what everybody else said.