Artifact 1
Khipu: More Sophisticated than We Thought?
INTRODUCTION
Khipus were a communication system used by the Incan Empire, which lasted from around 1400 to 1532 CE. It was used for record keeping and sending messages across the Empire. It was a series of knots tied into strands of rope that, when complete, formed simple messages.[i] Or was it more than that? Those who have studied the odd method of communication have found that the Khipus were not only used for the recording of “quantitative data,” but as to record “songs, genealogies, and other narrative forms containing historical information. In other words, Khipus could be used to tell stories and spread these stories across an empire. It would appear that Khipus are a more complex, and much more nuanced form of communication than scholars originally believed.
wikipedia.com
WHAT WE KNOW
Although the Incans did not use a system of writing as we know it (figures etched onto stone, metal, paper, etc.) this does not mean that they were not as advanced as their counterparts, simply different. Not much is known about Khipus, but one of the things that we do know is that they were often used to send messages across the mountainous regions in which the Empire inhabited.[ii] This makes sense. The ropes are more durable than paper or papyrus, incorruptible (no ink smears and the like), and a whole lot lighter than stone, metal, or wood. Although some Khipus were colored, one can clearly see from this image that they have lasted to this day.
Image: http://www.sfu.ca/archaeology-old/museum/laarch/inca/quipue.html
Messengers could get information across treacherous terrain in days. Theoretically, the Khipus themselves could even help on the journey, as they are made of rope, a handy tool for climbing indeed.
The Mystery
Traveling advantages aside, the Khipus remain quite the mystery to scholars today. One can infer that since so little knowledge about Khipus is available, that the Incans did not care to share this writing system with outside cultures. This tells us the Incans may have been quite secretive in their communications. Although they communicated with each other over great distances and challenging terrain, the Incans apparently did not communicate with anyone else in this manner.[iii] As the Incan Empire went on the decline, the more complex art of Khipu-making began to die out. Eventually, the ability to read and create Khipus that told great stories and other such narratives disappeared.
Conclusion
Although the art seemed to be all but lost, there are scholars who have rededicated themselves to understanding the mystery behind the Khipus. If we can begin to understand what the Khipus mean, then we will begin to understand what the Incans were trying to say. This sort of knowledge would give scholars newfound insight into what the Incans valued and how they communicated it.
Sources:
[i] Urton, Gary. “From Knots to Narratives: Reconstructing the Art of Historical Record Keeping in the Andes from Spanish Transcriptions of Inka Khipus.” Ethnohistory, vol. 45, no. 3, 1998, pp. 409–438. www.jstor.org/stable/483319.Copy
[ii]http://khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu/WhatIsAKhipu.html
[iii] http://www.sfu.ca/archaeology-old/museum/laarch/inca/quipue.html
Artifact 2
The Airplane’s Impact on the United States Postal Service
Let us take a look at one of the first major advancements of the 20th Century, the airplane. Orville and Wilbur Wright performed the first motorized flight on December 17, 1903. Ever since then, nations around the globe have become totally reliant on air travel to deliver people, products, and information quickly and across great distances. The United States of America, the birthplace of modern flight, is naturally no exception. After the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the airplane was quickly weaponized and produced on a large scale. Practically, the first use of airplanes was for war fighting, setting the precedent of aviation technology being developed through warfare. The advantages that airplanes provided during war (mostly high speeds and disregard for earthly terrain) could easily be translated into civilian use. It did not take long for the United States government to recognize the potential of aviation, and with it, a postal air service. It is my belief that without the advent of World War I, the airplane would not have become the versatile tool that we take for granted today. Without the airplane, the United States Postal Service would not be enjoying the success that it does today.
After the Wright Brother’s famous flight, development of the airplane made incredible leaps and bounds in a stunningly short amount of time. People of different nationalities, all made contributions to the development of the airplane. For example, in 1904, Professor Ludwig Prandtl presented the concept of the “boundary layer” (essentially the layer of air on the wing of an aircraft).[i] However, many American minds developed some of the most crucial aspects of the airplane before World War I. Lawrence Sperry developed the automatic gyrostabilizer in 1914, allowing an airplane to remain level without the pilot’s assistance.[ii] Naturally, over the course of the First Great War, many other developments were made. By the end of the war, planes could attain higher speeds than ever before, higher altitude, and were more aerodynamic. The U.S. Government took notice of the miraculous plane and established the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to “spearhead advanced aeronautical research in the United States.” Because the United States is such a large nation, being about 3.797 million square miles[iii], and full of difficult terrain like mountain ranges and rivers, the Postal Service needed to adapt in order to accommodate.
The Postal Service had some serious competition by way of private businesses such as Wells Fargo and UPS. With the United States having expanded about as far west as possible at this point in history, the U.S. Government officially “inaugurates airmail service” on May 15, 1918.[iv] Those first deliveries, and all the ones following after it, shortened trips that would’ve taken days to mere hours. The impact was clear. Despite any initial setbacks, this was an investment worth pursuing, as no other service could cover so much ground, so quickly. Naturally, this is because the United States Government had the head start on the developing technology.
These developments meant that it was only two years later that the first transcontinental flight would be made from San Francisco to New York. People now expected their mail to arrive in increasingly short amounts of time. Speed became the name of the game. Technology such as the radio and the telegraph were developed with speed and ease of communication in mind. With the radio, planes could communicate with each other while in the sky. The Postal Service was able to quickly expand all over the United States; meaning citizens did not have to rely on the more expensive private services. The USPS became universal across the country. As air travel became more common for the average citizen, he Postal Service simply started to ship mail on commercial flights. Many of the flights that you or I would take today are carrying not only us, and our luggage, but mail as well! The Postal Service actually integrated with private businesses, by paying airlines to carry the mail, something that ultimately benefits both parties. By taking full advantage of America’s capitalism, the USPS is invested in private business and is one of the largest employers in the nation.
Simply put, without the advent of the airplane, there is no knowing what state the United States Postal Service would be in right now, or if it would even exist at all. The invention of the airplane itself invited development, offered a new and quicker mode of transportation, and provided an edge over the competition. Once private airlines were more developed and mature, it became cheaper to just pay them to carry the mail. Now, the USPS is a large employer, and it benefits private businesses with her patronage, all due to the airplane. America, and the USPS, made it their own tool.
References
[i] “Airplane Timeline” http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=3728
[ii] “Airplane Timeline”
[iii]“America Square Miles Google search” Google.com
[iv] “The First Day of Airmail, 1918” Air and Space Smithsonian. http://www.airspacemag.com/videos/category/history-of-flight/the-first-day-of-airmail-1918/
Artifact 3
Wireless Tech in the Corporate World
The advent of wireless technology has, of course, had a remarkable impact on all of our daily lives. This impact not only stems from our own personal use of such technology, but also from the drastic changes to the way we do our business. Corporate America has been forever changed by the use of these new tools. E-mail, cell phones, wireless Internet, and others have all allowed America’s corporations to hit the proverbial gas pedal and do business faster than ever before. Thanks to these advancements, today we are all used to near instant gratification, whether we are shopping online or calling for customer service, we expect, and often get what we want as quickly as we want it. There are many specific inventions that we could talk about, too many, in fact. In order to narrow this topic down into something a little more manageable, let us briefly discuss two important pieces of technology that have transformed Corporate America: e-mail, and the smartphone. They have become an integral part of businesses big and small. These relatively new Internet-based tools have set the pace for modern business.
This breakneck pace started with e-mail. Documents of all kinds, such as graphs, letters, and photographs could all be sent in a matter of minutes rather than days or weeks through postal services. The ability to send mail through underwater cables and satellites obviously meant a quicker spread of information across greater distances. Due in no small part to e-mail, globalization is now the norm for successful corporations.
E-mail granted quick communications, but they were still limited to the stationary office computers until the laptop computer became common. However, surpassing the laptop in mobility was the smartphone, Apple’s iPhone being the most famous example. People are now more accessible than ever. A network of satellites in low orbit now connect nearly the entirety of the developed world, bouncing signals back and forth in a constant buzz of conversation. This technology has surely “blurred the line between professional and private lives,”[i] as people are now able to do business virtually everywhere that they go. With this new capability comes the demand for more, because we now know that more can be done.
In order to accommodate these increasingly challenging demands, Corporations have been afforded a unique new ability thanks to the wave of wireless technology: outsourcing, “the practice of hiring employees who work outside the company or remotely — and even halfway across the world.”[ii] As was stated above, people are more accessible than ever before, which means that distances matter a whole lot less than they used to. With the ever-increasing demand for more products, faster weighing down on corporations, they made the efficient decision to adapt technology as a means to redistribute labor across the world, especially to those who accept less money for more work. Because these outsourced employees are able to use the Internet to instantly communicate with their employers, the factor of distance more or less becomes a nonissue. This globalization is becoming more and more common for America’s businesses.
As time goes on, the economy does fluctuate of course, but it appears that this technology is here to stay. It will surely keep evolving, becoming more and more efficient. Automatization is becoming more and more common as well, as machines take on the simpler jobs that humans used to hold, but that is a topic for another day. All in all, Corporations are more than prepared to continue adapting and adopting technology to serve their needs. The world is oriented around speed now, so we can expect technology to continue in that direction. The Internet clearly is not going anywhere, and has come to define the age that we now live in. It will only continue to be made more efficient, and be further integrated into each and every one of our lives.
[i] http://money.howstuffworks.com/technology-changed-business.htm
[ii] http://money.howstuffworks.com/technology-changed-business.htm
Reflective Essay
There has been quite a bit of material covered in this course. In order to organize, and make sense of all of this knowledge, I have turned to VMI ePortfolio, which allowed me to index my written works for this class and make them easily accessible. Looking back at my works, which were primarily focused on the Americas, it became clear that there was a theme among my papers, universality. The difference between the technology and techniques that failed (such as hieroglyphs) and those that ultimately succeeded (such as the phonetic alphabet) is their capability for being adopted by not just one culture, but many.
Let us start with an unsuccessful piece of technology. In my first paper, [Artifact 1] I discussed Khipus, of Incan fame. Like the Empire that birthed them, the use of Khipus died and the method for reading them was ultimately forgotten. Because this communication technology failed to be adapted by other cultures, it became irrelevant. I believe that Khipus were simply too complex and too tedious to learn and construct to make using them worthwhile. One could argue that writing on stone tablets could be equally as difficult. However, stones are generally more available than rope, which one has to make before using as a Khipu. It is even suggested that most Incans did not use Khipus often, as they were mainly used for “record keeping.” [Artifact 1] Khipus could have possibly been used to send more complicated messages, but it is unlikely, given there are only so many knots that one can tie, on only so much rope. While the rope-based technology was certainly durable and capable of withstanding the treacherous journeys that Incan messengers made, they were hardly universal. This may be a result of the fact that the Incan civilization was in fact quite isolated due to the mountains that surrounded them. But, what may have worked for the Incans was not adopted by any nearby civilizations, and so the Khipu eventually died. Now, Khipus are an example of a method of communication not being universal, but what about mode of transport and communication that is, or rather became, universal?
Let us fast-forward a few hundred years and we have entered the age of the airplane. My second paper [Artifact 2] delved into the topic of how the airplane helped to transform the modern United States Postal Service. Unlike the Khipus, and their mode of transportation, the airplane is universal, versatile, and absolutely necessary for the globalization of the economy. When they were first produced on a large scale, it was for warfare, to kill an enemy. But, their use during the war “could easily be translated into civilian use.” [Artifact 2] Airplanes can go nearly anywhere, at anytime. People from every civilization and culture with the proper education can operate them, as evidenced by the fact that “people of different nationalities” [Artifact 2] contributed to the advancement of airplanes. This universality makes the airplane and invaluable tool. Rather than being replaced by a new invention, the airplane has simply been updated and advanced throughout the years. It has now been over one hundred years since the first fixed wing flight, and airplanes continue to be a staple of not just American Culture, but World Culture.
The speed and accessibility of the airplane is only bested by that of the telephone, and the telephone, by the Internet. Of course, airplanes are still absolutely necessary to ship physical objects, but simple communication has never been easier thanks to the Internet. It is now so ingrained in our lives, that it appears to show no signs of going anywhere. The world, America in particular, as I have stated in my third paper, [Artifact 3] is wholly reliant on the Internet for communication and for business. If the Internet were to disappear overnight, the world as we knew it would come to a screeching halt. Fortunately, because a large portion of the world has access to the Internet and depends on it, it appears that the Internet will be around for quite some time, growing and evolving as we do. The key to the Internet’s success is, you guessed it, universality. E-mail became the basis of communication for every business and every modern country. This is because it is standardized. All one needs is a computer, an Internet connection, and you can automatically send and receive e-mails from all over the world. Even language is becoming less and less of a barrier with the advent of translation software language learning programs such as Rosetta Stone. As smartphones have become more common, the Internet is more accessible than ever, as people are “able to do business virtually anywhere they go.” Now, that is universality.
Universality is, ultimately, king. It is the name of the game. Of all of the technologies that I have discussed in my posts, the one that did not survive, even through advancements, was the Khipu. It is not that it was not translatable across cultures. It certainly could have been, but its transference across cultures was simply not worth the time and effort. There were already better, more universal technologies out there. The Khipu was outmoded in its lack of universality. The technologies that did survive, and continue to thrive, are the ones that, instead of becoming old and outdated, can be advanced and developed into something better. They were adopted and made better by many different cultures because they saw the benefit of these technologies.