LINKS FOR EARLY MONDAY

Inca may have used knot computer code to bind empire

They ran the biggest empire of their age, with a vast network of roads, granaries, warehouses and a complex system of government. Yet the Inca, founded in about AD1200 by Manco Capac, were unique for such a significant civilisation: they had no written language. This has been the conventional view of the Inca, whose dominions at their height covered almost all of the Andean region, from Colombia to Chile, until they were defeated in the Spanish conquest of 1532.

But a leading scholar of South American antiquity believes the Inca did have a form of non-verbal communication written in an encoded language similar to the binary code of today's computers. Gary Urton, professor of anthropology at Harvard University, has re-analysed the complicated knotted strings of the Inca - decorative objects called khipu - and found they contain a seven-bit binary code capable of conveying more than 1,500 separate units of information.

In the search for definitive proof of his discovery, which will be detailed in a book, Professor Urton believes he is close to finding the "Rosetta stone" of South America, a khipu story that was translated into Spanish more than 400 years ago.

Indiana Jones fans, click here.

Political Theater Returns to the London Stage

But I'm sure as hell not holding my breath waiting for Broadway to follow suit...

For Michael Boyd, it is no coincidence that both the major national theatre companies are using Shakespeare as a vehicle for comment on modern times. He and Hytner have spoken about their joint responsibilities to their audiences in a way that their predecessors never would have, and both want to encourage new playwrights to write provocative political pieces for them rather than for small venues with already committed audiences.

"We want new work that tackles these issues on the larger stage - the stage that is on the cusp of high culture and popular culture," he said.

"There are undoubted resonances between the society for which Shakespeare was writing and that of today - both are deeply divided on fundamental issues. All theatre companies, whether they are the RSC and the National or smaller companies such as Chicken Shed, should want to find ways of addressing those issues."

For more, click here.

Looters Stole 6,000 Artifacts
Number Expected to Rise as Officials Take Inventory in Iraq

U.S. and Iraqi officials have confirmed the theft of at least 6,000 artifacts from Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities during a prolonged looting spree as U.S. forces entered Baghdad two months ago, a leading archaeologist said yesterday.

University of Chicago archaeologist McGuire Gibson said the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement told him June 13 that the official count of missing items had reached 6,000 and was climbing as museum and Customs investigators proceeded with an inventory of three looted storerooms.

The June 13 total was double the number of stolen items reported by Customs a week earlier, and Gibson suggested the final tally could be "far, far worse." Customs could not immediately obtain an updated report, a spokesman said.

The mid-June count was the latest in a confusing chain of seemingly contradictory estimates of losses at the museum, the principal repository of artifacts from thousands of Iraqi archaeological sites documenting human history from the dawn of civilization 7,000 years ago to the pinnacle of medieval Islam.

Okay...so it's not as bad as was first reported, but it now appears that it's far worse than the correction might have implied. Click here.

Thanks to This Modern World for the final link.

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