Word: tocapus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...That connection established, Barthel turned to the tocapus embroidered on one notable Inca relic-a priestly garment, or uncu, now in Washington's Bliss Collection. He decided that the repetition of some of the tocapus meant that the same message was being emphasized. More important, he noticed that several signs, like Chinese pictograms, resembled real objects. That enabled him to pick out the symbols for the supreme Inca deity, Kon Ticsi Viracocha (popularly, Kon-Tiki), who is represented by the tocapu for heat (kon) and two bases of pyramids (ticsi), meaning foundation and earth. By the time Barthel finished...
...deciphering the so-called "talking boards" of Easter Island in the South Pacific. The Inca mystery was every bit as challenging. But he had invaluable help from Peruvian Archaeologist Victoria de la Jara. If there was a written language, she suspected, it must be hidden in the geometric designs (tocapus) found on priestly garments and wooden vessels...
...many years, Señorita de la Jara immersed herself in Inca history and painstakingly catalogued tocapus. But she failed to find what she was looking for: an Inca equivalent of the Rosetta stone, the key that opened ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to modern understanding. Finally, she turned her researches over to Barthel. With the same shrewdness that enabled him to decipher several Allied codes during World War II, Barthel made use of an important clue in her material. Many of the Inca vessels bore pictures as well as tocapus. In fact, one common scene portrayed the act of toasting...
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