I-N-C-U-H

The following two graphics that are each built from 16-move closed mini-tours with diamond and square patterns can be manipulated to create new alpha-numeric characters, vocabulary, ciphers, or codes. In fact, the title of this webpage, I-N-C-U-H, comes from those two modular knight tour graphics. I-N-C-U-H is a play on the word: INCA. As you view the various alpha-numeric characters created by the tours, you may notice that they resemble Mesoamerican writings of Central and South America prior to the 17th century incorporated by the Olmec, Mayan, or partially by the Aztec people.

    

Rotating copies of the previous Knight Tour letters make the following shapes:

                        

After looking at the shapes for a while, I noticed I could use five of the shapes to make the word: I-N-C-U-H.

                   

While copying and pasting the I-N-C-U-H tour letters, I noticed that they made neat patterns of dots and bars when being overlapped with each other. I will provide just a few examples. The following alpha-numeric characters could possibly be considered part of the lost writings of the Inca, but that would be a stretch of the imagination since no known writings have yet to be found. It might be better to view them as characters from an alphabet of a futuristic people called INCUH.

Partly overlapped copies of I-N-C-U-H Knight Tour Letters

Partly overlapped mirror copies of I-N-C-U-H Knight Tour Letters

Partly overlapped, flipped, and reversed copies of I-N-C-U-H Knight Tour Letters

Completely overlapped, flipped, and reversed copies of I-N-C-U-H Knight Tour Letters

One of the most amazing things about the previous partly overlapped characters, is that they represent a vigesimal (base 20) numbering system also used by the Olmec, Mayan, and Aztec people of the past. Each long bar is made up of five dots. Smaller bars are a combination of two, three, or four dots. Each dot represents a single unit. There can be four long bars surrounded by space (shown here as knight tour moves). Therefore, four long bars equals twenty, the same number used in the vigesimal system. The Mayans used 0-19. Zero would be represented by a clam-shell type character, while the number 19 would be represented by three long bars on top of each other with four separated dots positioned across the top of the top bar.

Graphic from www.MayaCalendar.com

Though the Inca had no known written language, they did use various colored cotton strings with knots representing numbers from a base 10 numbering system. These strings were called quipu, sometimes spelled khipu. Many cultures use their alphabet to represent both numbers and letters such as the Hebrews or the Greeks. It is not unlikely that the Inca also used their knotted string numbers as letters, or at least by combining several strings with different numbers to represent city names, titles of people, livestock names, names of the seasons or months, and perhaps everything else of major consequence.

    
Graphics from www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk

The Inca people also had an interesting counting device called a yupana. See my yupana webpage.

Return to this page often to see new updates. I will post more information about the INCUH alphabet in the days to come.

www.BordersChess.org/INCUH.htm   modified 2006.12.14