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00:00:19They ruled over the Andes, they ruled over the Pacific coasts, they were rulers of the
00:00:29first American superpower. Their name is stamped on history. They were the Incas.
00:00:47From their capital of Cusco, in the mountains of southern Peru, in just over a hundred years,
00:00:53between the 15th and 16th centuries, they conquered a vast territory stretching from Ecuador to Chile.
00:01:04At its height, this empire, the largest ever to exist in this region of the world, counted
00:01:10at least 10 million inhabitants. And yet this monumental civilization apparently left no
00:01:18writings. Its story was therefore recounted by its enemies, the Spanish Conquistadors.
00:01:30Having brutally defeated the Inca Empire in 1532, the Spanish drew up richly illustrated reports known as
00:01:39chronicles. Later, during the 19th and 20th centuries, this documentation, which was
00:01:46the only existing historical source, was used as reference material for all the archaeological
00:01:52research undertaken concerning the Incas.
00:01:59But discoveries over the last 15 years, mainly due to technical progress, have fundamentally shaken up
00:02:06certain theories derived from these accounts.
00:02:16A new history of the Inca Empire is coming to light, revealing unknown or misunderstood aspects
00:02:22of this legendary civilization.
00:02:28Wow.
00:02:33We always say that the Inca civilization was the only one that existed without writing, but you know what?
00:02:41Maybe we're going to have to change that.
00:02:46Many people think Spanish arrived and the Inca Empire fell that day. However, we now know that after the Spanish
00:02:54arrival, they retreated into a remote area of the Andes and continued resisting Spanish rule.
00:03:06The Inca Empire had also resisted in a symbolical way, especially in a great
00:03:11ceremony of abandon.
00:03:12These events are really spectacular, and yet we don't find any mention in the
00:03:19writings of the Conquistadors.
00:03:21But thanks to our research, we are able to re-écrire a more complete version, and
00:03:27even though we do not even expect, of the history of the Incas.
00:03:37To be continued...
00:04:01To be continued...
00:04:21To be continued...
00:05:06To be continued...
00:05:15To be continued...
00:05:22For the last ten years, this scientist has been questioning one of the theories taught in all of our history
00:05:28books.
00:05:34The Incas were purportedly the only major civilization not to have had a system of writing.
00:06:10For recording data, numbers within very particular and complex objects, composed of cords and knots, which are called kipus.
00:06:22A few hundred of them still exist, scattered across the Andes.
00:06:27Those at Tupicocha are preciously preserved by representatives of the most ancient lineage of the community.
00:06:34Sabine has obtained authorization to examine them.
00:06:39I want to thank you all of you for being here with your kipus.
00:06:45Yo soy antropóloga y profesor de antropología en una universidad en el Reino Unido.
00:06:52Es como un sueño estar aquí.
00:06:55A Tupicocha, les agradezco muchísimo.
00:06:58Gracias.
00:07:00Yo soy el presidente de la comunidad.
00:07:02Mi nombre es Julián Jaime Medina Albert.
00:07:04Y qué bien que el día de hoy ustedes vienen para ver nuestro, quizás, símbolo que tenemos ancestral de los
00:07:13kipus.
00:07:27Oh, this one looks perfect.
00:07:30Kipus are unique.
00:07:31The word kipu is one of the Quechua words for knot or for numbers.
00:07:37And this is the ancient Inca way of representing numbers.
00:07:41So this is what we call a long knot, and it has three twists right here.
00:07:48That means that represents three.
00:07:50This is in the tens place, and it's a single knot representing one.
00:07:55And this is a single knot in the hundreds place.
00:07:58So this chord is a hundred and thirteen.
00:08:02This means probably that this represents the obligation that somebody had.
00:08:09They had to do a hundred and thirteen of something.
00:08:12And what could it be?
00:08:14It could be how many loads of grain, how many loads of potato they had to give, you know, to
00:08:20community fiestas.
00:08:22Or it could be how many jars of beer they had to donate to the festival.
00:08:30I'm actually writing an article, so...
00:08:44Since the middle of the twentieth century, all the kipus studied by archaeologists,
00:08:50more than a thousand in total, have shared the same characteristics.
00:08:54They were created to record numeric data.
00:09:00But one day in 2017, Sabine learnt of the existence of kipus of a completely different nature.
00:09:34I got a call from a woman who lived here.
00:09:36I lived in this small village, San Juan de Coyata, and she asked me to come look at their kipus.
00:09:42So, of course, I came.
00:09:48We have to go over this mountain, and then we'll arrive at Coyata.
00:09:53What a road.
00:09:54It helps to be an adrenaline junkie to do this kind of work.
00:10:00Sabine is returning to this far-flung village to complete her analysis.
00:10:07I'm really excited to see this kipu again.
00:10:10You know, the last time I tried to come here, we had to turn back.
00:10:14Because the roads, you know, there was a little bit of rain, and the roads became too dangerous.
00:10:18Like you can see, it's really hard to get to this place.
00:10:22We hope we're going to be able to get through today.
00:10:44Well, there it is.
00:10:45There's Coyata.
00:10:47Wow, it's so good to see it after years.
00:10:56When she is welcomed back for her research, the inhabitants of San Juan de Coyata grant her a huge favor.
00:11:08Because their kipus, dating back to the Inca era, are never supposed to leave their strongbox.
00:11:17They are considered sacred.
00:11:20Both a treasure and a relic of the community.
00:11:24Even though the villagers themselves don't know how to decipher them.
00:11:34So Sabine is only allowed to study them in the presence of the head of the community.
00:11:39Wow.
00:11:47Wow.
00:11:50It's incredible, no?
00:11:56The first time she saw it, Sabine knew that this kipu was completely different from those she had studied previously.
00:12:04First of all, there are no knots.
00:12:07But more than that, the cords themselves are incredibly complicated.
00:12:14When I looked at the kipu, I looked at it with two herders from the community,
00:12:20and they identified the fibers of each cord as being from different animals.
00:12:26So this beautiful kind of buff color, this is from a vicuña.
00:12:31Okay?
00:12:33This blue here, this is dyed yama.
00:12:37There's also in here, this kind of burnished red.
00:12:44This is from deer.
00:12:46All together, there are six different animals represented in the cords.
00:12:52So I realized that I was looking at a kipu with a complexity far beyond anything I had seen before.
00:13:00And so I thought, what are they?
00:13:02That's really mysterious.
00:13:11Taking her studies further, Sabine discovered an account by a 16th-century missionary
00:13:17who claimed to have seen kipus used to encode not numbers, but syllables, words.
00:13:27Put another way, kipus which had been used to write, contrary to what was believed at the time.
00:13:36I thought, oh my gosh, could this be a syllabic kipu?
00:13:41Wow.
00:13:42And so I thought, well, if it's syllabic, if it's phonetic, that holds out the promise that we could read
00:13:48it someday.
00:13:54If this kipu does indeed represent coded writing, how can it be deciphered?
00:14:00Sabine has taken inspiration from one of the great masters of deciphering.
00:14:07My great hero, of course, is Champollion, who deciphered the Egyptian glyphs.
00:14:13And what Champollion taught us is that the first thing you do is try to figure out what kind of
00:14:19information is where, right?
00:14:21So he looked in the cartouches and he said, ah, the pharaoh's name is here.
00:14:26Well, for various reasons that are too complicated to go into,
00:14:29I thought, well, maybe the name of the person who sent this is in this.
00:14:37Now, when I looked at this kipu, if you'll notice, there are these markers along the top.
00:14:44And the herders from the village told me, this is the insignia of one of the major lineage in the
00:14:53village.
00:14:54So I thought, well, what is the major lineage in the village?
00:14:58It's Ayukah.
00:15:05For Sabine, it was a revelation.
00:15:08This name, Aluka, was perhaps the key for the deciphering of this kipu.
00:15:14But before going further, she needed to cross-reference some information.
00:15:23So she went to the general archives of Seville in Spain.
00:15:28Census population registers compiled by Spanish colonials in Peru are kept here.
00:15:36On the page corresponding to San Juan de Coyata, the family name of Aluka was indeed mentioned.
00:15:46Sabine sensed that she had perhaps found her Rosetta Stone.
00:15:50So she set about deciphering.
00:15:54So, okay, we say the name of the lineage is probably the last three chords, like a signature.
00:16:02We have a dark brown wainako fiber, A, U, which is this mottled white and brown, and then Ka, which
00:16:12is the blue yalla fiber.
00:16:14If we try to match these sounds with the ending chords on the other kipu, do we come up with
00:16:21a decipherment that means anything?
00:16:24A second kipu is preserved in Koyata, it's in a worse state, but fortunately, the final chords haven't been damaged,
00:16:36and can therefore be studied.
00:16:43So the ending chords are over here.
00:16:48We have dark brown, which is A, blue, which is Ka, and then we have this golden brown.
00:17:07In order for the method of deciphering thought out by Sabine to work, the word Acapar needed to correspond to
00:17:14a name.
00:17:18She went back to the register in the hope of finding this one written as well.
00:17:25And there was indeed mention of an Acapar family, also present in the region of Koyata.
00:17:36When I first started to think that this could work, and when I came up with this decipherment, I was
00:17:43almost afraid.
00:17:44I was like, oh my gosh, no.
00:17:46That can't be.
00:17:47How could that be?
00:17:48But this is what the data is telling us.
00:17:54As Sabine had suspected, each chord seems to represent a syllable.
00:18:01And these syllables, once assembled, form words, phrases, texts, following a three-dimensional system fundamentally different from a classical alphabet.
00:18:25To consolidate this revolutionary theory and prove that the Incas did indeed use a form of writing, Sabine needed more
00:18:34data.
00:18:35Sabine needed more data.
00:18:39So this is really exciting to be able to do a preliminary decipherment of these syllables.
00:18:45So one of my goals is to try to find more kippus that look like this and that has these
00:18:52features, because that would make the decipherment so much better.
00:18:55This is going to revolutionize our understanding of the Inca empire, because if we can find kippus like this that
00:19:06date to the Inca empire, if we can decipher them, then we're going to be able to hear the Incas'
00:19:13own words about their history instead of that of the conquerors.
00:19:32In a few weeks, she will take off for the United States.
00:19:37An apparently very promising kippus is kept in a museum in Salt Lake City, and she has received authorisation to
00:19:45study it.
00:19:53If Sabine manages to decipher these kippus in their entirety, her work will truly be revolutionary and could profoundly change
00:20:02our understanding of the Inca world.
00:20:08Because what she reads in these chords may put in question certain paradigms, notably the way in which the Incas
00:20:15conquered such an immense territory.
00:20:20The story, as related by the Spanish, says that in 1438, Emperor Pachacutec, the ninth of the Inca dynasty, set
00:20:29off from the capital Cusco to conquer the Andes.
00:20:33Afterwards, his successors were to continue this irresistible expansion.
00:20:43In barely a century, the Incas were to conquer more than a hundred peoples in a pitiless way, according to
00:20:50the chronicles.
00:20:54The Incas had the heads of the chiefs fixed on the points of lances.
00:21:03Then they ordered that drums be made from the skin of their stomachs.
00:21:11As for the emperor, he ordered that the pregnant women be opened up, alive.
00:21:16And this was done.
00:21:22In their texts, the Spanish referred to nothing but the violence and cruelty of the Inca army.
00:21:29And until recently, their vision of events remained the commonly accepted one.
00:21:34But since the 2000s, archaeologists working at Lake Titicaca have revealed a totally unknown aspect of the conquest of the
00:21:42Andes by the Incas.
00:21:54Its very existence seems almost unreal.
00:22:00This lake, as vast as a sea, is at an altitude that was thought reserved for snow-covered summits.
00:22:11This gigantic mirror, more than a thousand kilometers from Cusco, holds a crucial place in Inca mythology.
00:22:19It was here, in this far-flung region, that the god Viracocha is said to have brought the sun into
00:22:26being, as well as its spouse, the moon.
00:22:36So it was, that in the 15th century, when Emperor Pachacutec, who considered himself directly descended from the sun, left
00:22:44to conquer the Andes, this lake represented an absolute priority for him.
00:22:49Because it was the place where the founding couple of his dynasty was said to have been born.
00:22:56Upon their arrival, the Incas are thought to have achieved a spectacular victory.
00:23:01But how would they have managed to impose such long-term authority over such an isolated region?
00:23:07Could there have been other factors than just military supremacy?
00:23:23This is what the Belgian archaeologist Christophe Delard is attempting to determine.
00:23:29For the last ten years, he has been heading a vast research program at the bottom of the lake.
00:23:36For eight weeks each year, his team of Belgian, Bolivian and Peruvian divers have carried out underwater searches.
00:23:47For the last ten years, he has been in the fountain.
00:23:49Today, what we need to finish is the fountain to the US-3.
00:23:54I will note it to the US-3.
00:23:56The other survey, Michael, you remember, we were here?
00:24:01There, we have something.
00:24:02Rossiyon, I work in this zone?
00:24:04Yes, okay.
00:24:05And you have a test?
00:24:06Okay, since we are really short, we are going to start at 11h.
00:24:09And you don't need to train on the rotations.
00:24:11If you have really cold, you have to go up to 55 minutes.
00:24:13It's not a problem, you don't need to do one hour.
00:24:15Okay.
00:24:15We are going to set up now.
00:24:16Okay, we are going to set up now.
00:24:18We are going to set up now.
00:24:19Let's go.
00:24:20Let's go.
00:24:21Let's go.
00:24:21Let's go.
00:24:21Let's go in 15 minutes.
00:24:25Christophe Delard has decided to search not the banks but the bed of the lake.
00:24:30This is because the water level has risen by at least 15 meters since the 15th century.
00:24:37Vestiges dating back to the arrival of the Inca armies in this region may therefore have been submerged.
00:24:47At a height of nearly 4,000 meters, this dive is going to be very demanding.
00:24:53Let's go.
00:24:54Let's go.
00:25:05The water temperature is barely six degrees.
00:25:09Arnaud, 10, 42.
00:25:13Diving 12 meters when you're at this height is like diving 20 meters when you're at sea level.
00:25:23Some years ago, archaeologists made an exceptional discovery at the bottom of the lake, which led Christophe Delard to realize
00:25:30that the Inca expansion, particularly here at Lake Titicaca, had a far more complex dimension than just military conquest.
00:25:53Returning to the place where he made this discovery requires a five-hour boat trip to the other side of
00:25:59the lake.
00:26:13At dawn, the boat comes in sight of the Cacaya Reef.
00:26:17How many meters do you have the depth?
00:26:19Do you always control yourself?
00:26:21Doce.
00:26:21Doce.
00:26:25One, two, three.
00:26:26Ya, esta bien.
00:26:27Eso es el recif.
00:26:38Ah, c'est beau.
00:26:39C'est super beau.
00:26:45The Cacaya Reefs are still considered sacred today.
00:26:52This is what is known in the Andes as a waka.
00:26:56In the same way as mountains or rivers, local beliefs consider these rocks to be endowed with an inner life,
00:27:03a soul.
00:27:05So a ritual must be respected before approaching them.
00:27:24Cacaya Reefs
00:27:25The Cacaya Reefs
00:27:28Dice in the Kilgband
00:27:28Conradsoft
00:27:29Conrad
00:27:31Conrad
00:27:32Conrad
00:27:32Conrad
00:27:32Conrad
00:27:32Conrad
00:27:33Conrad
00:27:34so that we know that we are here and that we are accompanying us.
00:28:06These reefs were first spotted by one of Christophe De La's collaborators,
00:28:11the Bolivian archaeologist Marcial Medina.
00:28:32On that day, after just a few minutes diving, an archaeologist noticed a strange shape.
00:28:45There was a lot of vegetation, and there was this stone in stone.
00:28:51It didn't move until 500 years ago.
00:28:53He didn't expect the end of his plongée.
00:28:55He said, OK, Christophe, I think we have something.
00:29:02So I wanted to have the heart net.
00:29:04I had to be sure that it wasn't a stone with a trace of stone.
00:29:09Directly, I confirmed that I recognized this stone in stone.
00:29:21And so, to be sure that, during the rise of the object, it didn't open,
00:29:25I took my bandages and I sent, like a patient, the cover on the whole body.
00:29:49And in fact, when we were on the boat, everyone was waiting for it.
00:29:58It was one of the rare times where everyone cried, which never happens, because it's the
00:30:04everyday of the archaeologists.
00:30:05But on this point, there was a really strong emotional charge.
00:30:08It was quite strong.
00:30:15Once on dry land, the scientific team continued immortalizing this exceptional discovery.
00:30:22With their pictures, they shared this rare archaeological moment.
00:30:26Christophe Delard was now certain it was an Inca stone box in the characteristic style.
00:30:33But what could it contain?
00:30:35So he sought permission to set up a field laboratory in the local hall to attempt to open it.
00:30:48Stop!
00:30:48Now you come on?
00:30:50Sit, pa!
00:30:53Let's go.
00:31:04You look at...
00:31:05You look at the camera.
00:31:06What?
00:31:08What's wrong?
00:31:10You look at it.
00:31:11At first glance, when we open it, we can't see it.
00:31:15It's very simple. It was covered by sediment.
00:31:17It was filled with sediment.
00:31:18In fact, we did an archapeutic damage.
00:31:20We found it in the surface,
00:31:23so this cavity inside of the stone,
00:31:26cm by cm.
00:31:31And just at the end,
00:31:32on the last two centimeters of sediment,
00:31:35suddenly we had a little thing that looked at.
00:31:37So we had to move progressively
00:31:38and, in fact, in removing all this cavity,
00:31:41we realized that,
00:31:42there was a little gold on it,
00:31:45just next to a miniature figure
00:31:47in spondylus,
00:31:48with orange color.
00:31:54It was really an incredible moment.
00:32:08Nine years later,
00:32:10these miniatures are still preserved in the same place.
00:32:14Excuse me. Excuse me.
00:32:17Excuse me.
00:32:19Excuse me.
00:32:20Excuse me.
00:32:21Excuse me.
00:32:22Excuse me.
00:32:22Excuse me.
00:32:24Excuse me.
00:32:25Could these objects make it possible
00:32:27to better understand
00:32:28what really happened
00:32:29when the Incas arrived in this region
00:32:31600 years ago?
00:32:38In any case,
00:32:40that is what Christophe de La suspects.
00:32:44Amongst the villagers,
00:32:46these miniatures are today
00:32:47considered religious artifacts.
00:33:15This is actually a miniature bracelet
00:33:18with a perforation.
00:33:20These are the bracelets
00:33:22that the Inca had the nobles.
00:33:25And this is a figure
00:33:28of Camelida,
00:33:29which is associated
00:33:30to the feminine figure.
00:33:32It's very interesting
00:33:33because, in general,
00:33:35in terms of this offering,
00:33:36regardless of the substitution
00:33:37of the object,
00:33:38we have a couple,
00:33:40a duality,
00:33:41men and women.
00:33:42And perhaps,
00:33:43we can go a little further.
00:33:45We have, in a certain way,
00:33:46the primordial Inca
00:33:48really,
00:33:49the original couple
00:33:51of the dynasty
00:33:51which can be associated
00:33:54with the sun and the moon.
00:33:57This is a proof
00:33:58of what is considered
00:34:00as an offering
00:34:01to the water
00:34:01for the Incas.
00:34:02Therefore,
00:34:03we can see
00:34:04that there was
00:34:06a sacredness
00:34:07to the water.
00:34:11It would have been
00:34:12in order to submerge
00:34:13extremely valuable offerings
00:34:15that the Incas
00:34:16made these stone casings.
00:34:19You can see
00:34:20the cover.
00:34:21It's very well
00:34:21elaborated.
00:34:22It was carved
00:34:23in the Andesite.
00:34:24It was a volcanic pier.
00:34:25There are two interesting
00:34:26things,
00:34:27two perforations.
00:34:28You have to imagine
00:34:29that in the period of Inca,
00:34:31there were cords
00:34:32and that it was
00:34:32an offering
00:34:33made from a ship.
00:34:34You have to imagine
00:34:35a ceremony
00:34:35where this cover
00:34:37is placed
00:34:38very slowly
00:34:39in the bottom of the lake.
00:34:44So this sacred box
00:34:46was not thrown
00:34:47haphazardly
00:34:48into the lake,
00:34:49but intentionally
00:34:50and carefully placed
00:34:51in a chosen spot.
00:34:56And according
00:34:57to Christophe Delard,
00:34:59this was not
00:34:59an isolated case.
00:35:05Recently,
00:35:06by pushing
00:35:06the research further,
00:35:07he has discovered
00:35:08that 30 or so
00:35:09similar boxes
00:35:10containing miniatures
00:35:12have been found
00:35:13in the lake
00:35:13over the last 50 years.
00:35:26Each of them
00:35:27seems to have been
00:35:28precisely placed
00:35:29close to reefs
00:35:30or submerged rocks
00:35:31considered to be sacred.
00:35:45in the lake
00:35:47in the lake
00:35:48in the lake
00:35:48in the lake.
00:35:52But for what reason?
00:35:54Why would the armies
00:35:55of Emperor Pachacutec
00:35:57have bothered
00:35:58practicing such
00:35:59elaborate rituals
00:36:00all around the lake?
00:36:05How can it be explained?
00:36:09What were the Incas
00:36:10looking to achieve
00:36:11in this way?
00:36:24Once again,
00:36:25the answer
00:36:25to this question
00:36:26may be at the bottom
00:36:28of the lake.
00:36:44Come on!
00:36:46Come on!
00:36:49Come on!
00:36:49You've got the mountain
00:36:50for two minutes.
00:36:51Yes!
00:36:51You've got the mountain
00:36:52for two minutes.
00:36:52Yes!
00:36:55You are on the first level
00:36:56two?
00:36:58It's always the interface
00:37:00of the US3.
00:37:02It's always the interface
00:37:02It's the spot
00:37:03There is a two hands...
00:37:03Yeah, how do you do that with it?
00:37:06It's a handboard.
00:37:08And this is Tiwanaku ceramic.
00:37:10So Tiwanaku, normally there's a iconography.
00:37:14And since the iconography is post-couisson,
00:37:16it's a serode,
00:37:17while the ceramic kinka is often pre-couisson,
00:37:19so it's a lot more.
00:37:21OK. I'll put it with the rest.
00:37:27Over recent years,
00:37:28divers have found numerous objects like this,
00:37:31which belonged to peoples living here
00:37:33on the banks of the lake before the Inca conquest,
00:37:36notably the Tiwanakus.
00:37:42And what is striking is that all of them,
00:37:45without exception, have been sacred offerings,
00:37:50like these zoomorphic head incense holders
00:37:56or this engraved gold medallion.
00:38:02So long before the Incas,
00:38:04the peoples of the lake were already lowering
00:38:07religious objects to the bottom of the water.
00:38:12Which signifies that the Incas did not introduce
00:38:15these ritual practices.
00:38:20In reality, they assimilated them upon their arrival
00:38:24and even reinforced them by increasing the number
00:38:27of lake-offering ceremonies.
00:38:32Because these beliefs were an essential cog in the Inca plan.
00:38:39In order to conquer Titicaca,
00:38:41the armies of Emperor Pachacutec waged battle
00:38:44and blood flowed as the chronicle state.
00:38:48But this research shows us,
00:38:50and which was unknown until now,
00:38:53that at the same time,
00:38:54the Incas adopted another, more subtle method.
00:38:59They exerted control using local beliefs
00:39:02to better command the population
00:39:04and establish durable authority over the region.
00:39:21In any case, this is Christophe Delaar's conclusion.
00:39:29We can really talk about a both political and religious strategy.
00:39:34That's what really made the success of their expansion.
00:39:36They did not force the population to change as a god,
00:39:41even as a custom.
00:39:43They took the gods,
00:39:44they put it in their panthéon,
00:39:45and so they will progressively reappropriate
00:39:48sacred spaces,
00:39:51much older.
00:39:51In particular, the lake.
00:39:53It was one of the oldest areas.
00:39:55It's really emblematic.
00:39:56In this sense,
00:39:57they could really conquer the heart
00:39:59of all the Andes populations.
00:40:12So it would have been by a strategy of cultural appropriation,
00:40:16and investing what were already sacred places,
00:40:19that the Incas managed to bring these peripheral regions
00:40:23under the control of their capital, Cusco.
00:40:31This policy of absorption illustrates the great project
00:40:35of Emperor Pachacutec.
00:40:40To create an ideal world,
00:40:42integrating all the conquered populations
00:40:45and the most sacred places of the Andes.
00:40:51An ideology that he wished to write in stone.
00:41:04This is what new research at Machu Picchu reveals.
00:41:21Set in this Dantean landscape,
00:41:24the city appears to have been carved out of the mountain.
00:41:35The conquistadors never reached this far.
00:41:39Consequently, they never wrote about it.
00:41:45What was the purpose of this fascinating city?
00:41:50Since its discovery in 1911,
00:41:52it has often been presented as a sort of palatial retreat,
00:41:56housing some 750 people.
00:42:00Pachacutec apparently had it built
00:42:02in the middle of the 15th century
00:42:03in order to spend a few weeks of the year here
00:42:06away from the life in the capital, Cusco,
00:42:09and the intrigues of court.
00:42:15But today, two researchers have gone much farther.
00:42:19According to them,
00:42:21Emperor Pachacutec made this city
00:42:23the manifestation of his civilizing ideology.
00:42:46This conviction is the fruit of lengthy investigations,
00:42:50led by the Peruvian archaeologist Lucy Salazar.
00:42:54Since the beginning of her career,
00:42:56she has been attempting to pierce the secrets of Machu Picchu.
00:43:04Some years ago, she studied these ceramics,
00:43:07which come from Inca tombs,
00:43:08discovered at Machu Picchu at the beginning of the 20th century.
00:43:12Within the 20th century.
00:43:23The umphro室
00:43:24Here we have the artifacts, the facilities,
00:43:29which had been used to daycare
00:43:32for the personnel that lived in Machu Picchu.
00:43:39So, for example, at the time of serving, each one was served in these small dishes.
00:43:49While studying these objects, Lucy Salazar realized that they were all of a very modest nature.
00:43:57So she deduced that the individuals buried with these objects were probably of the lower classes,
00:44:04in the service of Emperor Pachacutec.
00:44:11They were working on different activities that they had to do in Machu Picchu,
00:44:21like planting corn in small terraces, flowers, vegetables.
00:44:27And then they were also working on metals, they were working on materials,
00:44:37in real life, throughout the whole year.
00:44:39Humildes, right?
00:44:41So to find out more about this domestic staff, Lucy Salazar took an interest in their skeletons.
00:44:50A hundred and seventy-four of them in total, found in the tombs and preserved in these boxes.
00:44:59She studied them minutely, one by one.
00:45:08She suspected that these bones could hold precious clues for determining what Machu Picchu represented during the Inca period.
00:45:17Here we have the skull.
00:45:31The skull is also formed.
00:45:36The skull is what the skull is of Silence, so as you can see,
00:46:05She suspects that this defamation was probably an ethnic cultural marker, but this marker
00:46:12doesn't correspond to the populations living in the valley around Machu Picchu in the Inca
00:46:17period.
00:46:24So where did this woman and the 173 other domestic staff found in the tombs come from?
00:46:32Were they from further off regions, and if so, which ones?
00:46:42The American Bethany Turner offered her help in trying to answer these questions.
00:46:47She is an expert bioarchaeologist, a new discipline at the border between biology, archaeology,
00:46:54and medicine.
00:46:58She believed it possible to determine the geographic origins of each skeleton found at Machu Picchu
00:47:04by analyzing their teeth.
00:47:13This individual appears to be very fragmentary, and aspects of their bones have been deteriorated.
00:47:19But that's not a problem for me, because when I look at, say, these teeth, I see a treasure
00:47:26trove.
00:47:27And that is because I study ratios of different isotopes.
00:47:36Isotopes are variants of a particular chemical element, carbon, for example.
00:47:42They are present in everything around us, water, plants, animals, and also our own bodies.
00:47:52When we eat food, the isotopes which it contains are incorporated into our body tissue, which
00:47:58retains traces of them.
00:48:04But these isotopes aren't all present everywhere in the same way.
00:48:09Their proportions vary, detectably, from one region to another.
00:48:13On the banks of the Pacific, for example, the isotopic signature is different from that on
00:48:19the high plateaus of the Andes, or that found in tropical regions.
00:48:28Consequently, by identifying the isotopic signatures written into these bones, Bethany
00:48:34Turner could determine in which region each of these individuals was born.
00:48:42When we look at, say, tooth enamel, at tooth dentin, these are representing the ratios that
00:48:49are metabolized into those tooth crowns during the first years of an individual's life.
00:48:55So the information in this tooth tells me where they were living during the first three years
00:49:01of their life.
00:49:04So I compared enamel and dentin from two or three teeth for each individual.
00:49:12And what that helped me see was that the people at Machu Picchu were born all over the empire.
00:49:20None of them were from the exact same place.
00:49:23They didn't appear to have been moved to Machu Picchu as big groups of people from the same
00:49:30place.
00:49:30Instead, they all seemed to be drawn from different regions of the empire and brought to Machu Picchu
00:49:37to serve the emperor.
00:49:45According to the isotopic signatures, these domestic servants notably came from the high plateaus
00:49:51of the Andes, the north coast of Chile, and from Ecuador, basically from each region which
00:49:59the Incas had absorbed.
00:50:07By acting in this way, bringing domestic servants to Machu Picchu from all the provinces, the emperor
00:50:13turned this citadel into a microcosm, a miniature metaphor of his multi-ethnic empire.
00:50:30So, I've been here probably seven or eight times, but every time, it's like the first time.
00:50:53When we think about this landscape, not just the beauty of the site, but the sacred
00:50:58nature of the landscape, that we have terraces wrapping around the site, that we have a river
00:51:04that wraps around the site.
00:51:07The site is surrounded by mountains, by huacas, which are sacred stones.
00:51:11It really represents an ideal of Inca cosmology.
00:51:28A symbol of the empire's prestige, this city was intended to be modern, perfect, a sort of total work of
00:51:36art.
00:51:45It's finely chiseled terraces were admirably proportioned.
00:51:54As for the urban zone, it was endowed with edifices unequaled in quality anywhere else in the empire.
00:52:03Everything here was purity.
00:52:09Harmony.
00:52:13Equilibrium.
00:52:21According to Bethany Turner, Machu Picchu wasn't just a holiday retreat.
00:52:26This city represented far more than that for its creator, Emperor Pachacutec.
00:52:32The fact that the Inca were bringing people from all over the empire to this one place,
00:52:40this perfect place, really represents in many ways this embodiment of an ideal, of the Inca ideal,
00:52:49and really helps us think about Machu Picchu, not just as one of a few dozen royal estates,
00:52:58or the biggest and best preserved of the royal estates.
00:53:02My research and the research of others has helped us think it could actually serve
00:53:08as a model city, a perfect microcosm of everything that the empire wanted to be.
00:53:31Thanks to all this research carried out at Machu Picchu and at Lake Titicaca,
00:53:36the true face of the Incas is coming to light.
00:53:42Clearly, it's thanks to their expertise in symbols and beliefs that they were able,
00:53:47in just a few decades, between the 15th and 16th centuries,
00:53:51to bring together a hundred or so dispersed peoples in one highly powerful empire.
00:54:01But at its very height, this giant of the Andes brutally collapsed.
00:54:09In 1532, the Spanish arrived.
00:54:13Terrified by the strength of these invaders, the Incas took no action and were crushed.
00:54:20Or in any case, that is what was commonly accepted until now.
00:54:26But recent discoveries have revealed that in reality, the Incas did not remain passive
00:54:31in the face of the conquistadors.
00:54:34They resisted in an unexpected way.
00:54:49This is what the Belgian archaeologist Peter Eckhout is in the process of demonstrating
00:54:54on the Pacific coast, not far from Lima.
00:54:58Each summer for the last 30 years, he has been excavating at a site called Pachacamac.
00:55:07The site has suffered a lot since the time of the Spanish conquest.
00:55:12First, because of the Spanish themselves, and multiple pillages, which are very quickly
00:55:17intervened since their arrival in the site.
00:55:19And then, we are in a region where the tremblements of the earth are frequent.
00:55:23D'ailleurs, Pachacamac was the god of the tremblements of the earth, among other attributes.
00:55:27That means, when we remove the sand that is there and remove the eboulies of the tremblements of the earth,
00:55:32it is intact.
00:55:42During the Inca period, between the 15th and 16th centuries, this was one of the greatest
00:55:48pilgrimage destinations in the empire.
00:55:51As with Lourdes in France today, believers flocked here in the hope of being miraculously cured.
00:56:01Those who died were mummified and buried in this sacred enclosure of more than 600 hectares.
00:56:13According to Peter Eckhout, to enter this sanctuary, the crowd of pilgrims had to follow this long road
00:56:19with high walls on each side.
00:56:28Once inside, to implore favour from the god Pachacamac, they carried out rituals,
00:56:35often accompanied with highly valuable offerings in gold or precious materials.
00:56:50It was precisely to pillage these offerings that the conquistadors, immediately upon their arrival,
00:56:57made Pachacamac one of their principal targets.
00:57:04If one believes their accounts, these warriors did not even have to besiege the city to bring it down.
00:57:11The Inca priests and pilgrims, subjugated by their superiority, apparently gave in without reacting.
00:57:24But excavations carried out by Peter Eckhout over recent years seem to suggest a very different scenario.
00:57:39Along with the Peruvian archaeologist Milton Lujan,
00:57:43he has concentrated on studying a temple built inside this 1,600-square-metre rectangular enclosure by the Incas.
00:58:01The edifice is divided into six rooms, linked to each other by corridors.
00:58:16At the beginning of these excavations, the archaeologists were far from imagining what they were to discover.
00:58:26We said,
00:58:28this must be something very special, it's a building that has very particular characteristics,
00:58:33so we will start an excavation that will give us a lot of surprises.
00:58:39I said, well, it was like this.
00:58:42Close to this enclosure, archaeologists uncovered a large number of mummies.
00:58:50Believers, buried close to the god Pachacamac.
00:59:00But it was what they discovered afterwards, in this very same temple, which interested them most.
00:59:09The ground which they cleared, and which dates back to the very end of the Inca period,
00:59:15was scattered with objects.
00:59:18Sacred offerings.
00:59:30While collecting them, Peter Eckhout realized that they had all been broken, cut into pieces,
00:59:38and the fragments dispersed through the sanctuary.
00:59:42How could this be explained?
00:59:52He has since had them restored in his excavation house, in an attempt to understand what happened.
01:00:01All these objects are sacred, and show a large diversity of origins.
01:00:06We have, for example, here, these coupes,
01:00:09at piédestal,
01:00:11with the same coupe formed by coquillages,
01:00:14which are from the Eau Chaudes of the Equator,
01:00:17or this big vase here, with this motif of félin in relief,
01:00:21which technique, the finishing, also inspired from the very far north coast coast.
01:00:27But others may even go far further.
01:00:30We have this object, for example,
01:00:32which is a fragment of large parure, of large coiffure,
01:00:35ornée of plumes, from Amazonia.
01:00:37And so we have this large variety of provenances,
01:00:39which attest to the different regions,
01:00:42where the pilgrims came from,
01:00:43which came to the Pachacamac at the Inca period.
01:00:50And so we have, for example,
01:00:51Why were all these offerings found in this state?
01:01:01Could they have been destroyed by the Spanish during pillaging?
01:01:06To find out, Peter Eckhout carried out an experiment using a copy of a vase.
01:01:21It's quite eloquent, because it corresponds mostly to what we found.
01:01:25The impact is there, and it's there that we found some of the main pieces of the vase,
01:01:31that it was at this point where they were broken.
01:01:33But here, we can see that they are at 1m, 50cm, 2m,
01:01:37which is very different from what we found,
01:01:39where there were even pieces on top of certain murs of the pieces,
01:01:42where the vase had been broken.
01:01:46Take, for example, the vase with the feline motif.
01:01:51Its point of impact was identified in this room.
01:01:55However, several fragments were found on the other side of this wall.
01:01:59And the same thing goes for all the other offerings.
01:02:03So what we can say is that the vase had been broken in situ,
01:02:08in place, and then we collected some pieces,
01:02:11and we were able to disseminate them in different places of the temple,
01:02:14according to the ritual model.
01:02:17And the same thing is to be applied, even if it's different,
01:02:21to the objects in plumes, to the tissue, etc.,
01:02:23where fragments were found in the temple in the same way.
01:02:36So these offerings were broken and dispersed intentionally.
01:02:43What could have happened in Pachacamac to cause the Incas
01:02:47to destroy, in a ritualized way, all their sacred objects?
01:03:00According to Peter Eckhout, this destruction,
01:03:03even if it wasn't carried out by the conquistadors,
01:03:06was nonetheless directly linked to their arrival in Pachacamac in January 1533.
01:03:14Having penetrated the sacred enclosure, the Spanish wreaked chaos.
01:03:20In their chronicles, they make no secret of this.
01:03:24We tortured one of their priests, but learned nothing from him.
01:03:30We searched all the houses for the gold and silver which they kept hidden,
01:03:34and which they did not wish to bring us.
01:03:36They also dug up about a hundred mummies of the faithful,
01:03:40and burned them, after having stolen all the precious objects surrounding them.
01:03:45From the sanctuaries, tombs, and mummies,
01:03:48we drew a large quantity of gold and silver.
01:03:53We had a large quantity of gold and silver.
01:03:56Faced with such sacrilege, the officiating priests of the temple apparently decided to take action,
01:04:03to resist in their own way, before the Spanish could turn on them in their turn.
01:04:15Today, after years of research, this is the hypothesis of Peter Eckhout.
01:04:21What happens, in reality, what happens, is a voluntary closure of the temple.
01:04:27Rather than having to face this ultime sacrilege,
01:04:30which is the pillage, often followed by incendies and diversities,
01:04:35the Incas, the officiants of the temple, decided to close themselves.
01:04:39So it's a form of symbolic resistance, it's a form of cultural suicide, if you want.
01:04:43But as long as we see the site devastated, or in any case, killed and destroyed,
01:04:51we decide to take things in hand themselves, and to close them in the right way.
01:04:59To close this temple, the priests would have held a final service,
01:05:03a ceremony of abandonment, during which they would have broken all their most sacred objects.
01:05:11Then they would have distributed them around the different rooms,
01:05:14according to a ritual which was meaningful to them.
01:05:21It can seem strange to say that it is a way of abandoning a building and abandoning the world in
01:05:30which we believed.
01:05:31In reality, it's because the status of objects, or of different things that compose the universe,
01:05:36is different from these ancient societies from ours.
01:05:39For example, for us, this table, it doesn't have an âme, it doesn't have a conscience.
01:05:44An animal is living, it has a little more.
01:05:45And men are those who have a full conscience and are, let's say, our interlocutors.
01:05:50In the Andin world, it's completely different.
01:05:52Some objects, we create them, we give them a life.
01:05:56The rayon gave life in creating them, they kill them in prison.
01:06:06Carrying out a final ritual to close their world.
01:06:13Far from being shamefully annihilated without reacting, the priests of Pachacamac resisted morally,
01:06:21symbolically, actors in their own disappearance.
01:06:44In 1553, the conquistadors continued their advance towards the capital, Cusco, wreaking chaos everywhere they went.
01:06:54The end of the empire's death.
01:07:00Ninety percent of the empire's inhabitants died rapidly, massacred or overcome by illnesses introduced by the Spanish.
01:07:11The survivors were enslaved by or allied themselves with the conquistadors.
01:07:18As for Emperor Manco Inca, the 14th of the dynasty, he took flight, accompanied by the remaining faithful, estimated to
01:07:26have been several hundred in number.
01:07:34Recent research has made it apparent that the emperor took refuge in the jungle in order to organize his resistance.
01:07:42From a remote city called Vilcabamba, he hoped to set out and reconquer his empire.
01:07:51But the chronicles give no indication of the whereabouts of this city, which was erased from people's memories.
01:07:57So where exactly was Vilcabamba, the last bastion of the Incas?
01:08:25American archaeologist Ryan Bauer went in search of this lost city.
01:08:30And after ten years of research, he believes that he has at last managed to localize it.
01:08:36The bridge is out.
01:08:38Shut up.
01:08:49I don't see them, but I presume I keep going.
01:09:08I'm going to have to sit here and be nervous for three, four hours.
01:09:13But it used to be a lot harder to go to the site.
01:09:17The very first time I went with a crew, we needed to rent horses.
01:09:23And it took us three days to hike in with horses.
01:09:27But now, in the last few years, they've finished the road.
01:09:32But it's a very, very remote location.
01:09:41It's a very, very remote location.
01:09:56Ten years ago, Brian Bauer delved into the accounts of explorers at the beginning of the 20th century,
01:10:03who spoke of vestiges existing in the depths of this valley.
01:10:12It's a very remote location.
01:10:12This is the end of the road, and from here we have to hike up to the site.
01:10:22Let's go.
01:10:23Let's go.
01:10:23Here we go.
01:10:29Brian?
01:10:31Yeah.
01:10:32It's done, it's done.
01:10:32Are you ready?
01:10:33It's done.
01:10:34It's done.
01:10:35It's done.
01:10:36It's done.
01:10:36It's done.
01:10:36Good cheese.
01:10:36Good cheese.
01:10:39The site is an hour's trek away.
01:10:45This is the fourth time that Brian Bauer will have been there,
01:10:48and today, he's more or less certain of it,
01:10:51this could be Vilcabamba, the city of refuge for the Incas.
01:11:03Because following excavations,
01:11:05this site, which has been partially cleared,
01:11:07possesses all the attributes of an imperial city.
01:11:11Ceremonial clearings.
01:11:16Perfectly rectangular buildings.
01:11:22And above all, this vast complex,
01:11:26which he has excavated over a long period.
01:11:47The quality of material we have is exceptionally beautiful,
01:11:52exceptionally well-made.
01:11:53And so we know this was an elite building,
01:11:56and so we believe, as the Incas would have in all of their villages,
01:12:03they would have had their palaces and their residence,
01:12:07but they also would have had a Temple of the Sun.
01:12:09And so we think this was the Temple of the Sun.
01:12:15And it has various rooms.
01:12:18And we found within them teacher production,
01:12:24consumption material,
01:12:25and so what we expect is that the workers of the state
01:12:31would have been preparing food in these rooms,
01:12:34and then there's a small patio there where they would have come out
01:12:39and served the dignitaries when they were visiting.
01:12:45According to datings,
01:12:46this temple was occupied from the middle of the 16th century.
01:12:55coinciding precisely with the period when Emperor Manco Inca
01:12:59would have taken to the jungle.
01:13:11So is this site really Vilcabamba?
01:13:16For the moment, this city has only been partially cleared.
01:13:21Only a few edifices have seen daylight once more.
01:13:25Exactly how far did it stretch?
01:13:30Are there other habitations still buried beneath the undergrowth,
01:13:34which would have been able to house the hundreds of resistance
01:13:37who came to organize the revolt against the Spanish invader?
01:13:49It was in order to answer these questions that Brian launched this latest mission,
01:13:54with a Franco-Peruvian team led by Marjorie Coulin.
01:13:59Tomorrow, these scientists are going to attempt to scan the entire site
01:14:03using this drone equipped with LiDAR sensors.
01:14:08In fact, the LiDAR, it means Light Detection and Ranging,
01:14:11so it's like a radar, but it uses light impulsions luminaires.
01:14:14They will be envoyated geométriquement in such a way that
01:14:16some of them will be able to pierce the vegetation
01:14:20below and rebondir rather under the canopy than above.
01:14:25And so we hope that these impulsions,
01:14:28which will be able to pierce the canopy,
01:14:30will give us an idea of what there is below
01:14:32and potentially of the archaeological structures
01:14:35that are below.
01:14:36So what are we doing tomorrow?
01:14:38First of all, we have to decide the area
01:14:40that will have the highest priority for us.
01:14:44I have seen scattered buildings in this area,
01:14:49but we were never able to map it systematically.
01:14:54So my priority would be to do the center
01:14:56and then move this area, which has been pretty cleared.
01:15:02And then once we're there, we could follow the river up,
01:15:07checking both sides of the river,
01:15:09and then up into that corner.
01:15:12Fantastic!
01:15:39Now comes the leader.
01:15:44It's 4 kilos of charge.
01:15:47So that explains the size of the drone
01:15:50necessary to carry this type of material.
01:15:54It's very high technology, very high precision.
01:15:58It's very expensive material.
01:15:59We take our time to install everything.
01:16:05Yeah, ready, let's go.
01:16:32I'm really excited about the LiDAR,
01:16:34because I think this may be the first time
01:16:36it's ever been used in Peru.
01:16:39We have no idea what's in the dense trees over there,
01:16:44so we're hoping that the LiDAR will be able to see
01:16:48the extension of the city without excavating the entire city.
01:16:52And nobody wants to do that,
01:16:54because this is a beautiful tree-covered region,
01:16:57and so you want to do the science
01:17:00but leave the site as intact as possible.
01:17:08The LiDAR will fly for six hours.
01:17:13Brian Bauer hopes it will detect residential areas
01:17:17which could have housed the hundreds of exiled resistance.
01:17:23This will help to strengthen the theory
01:17:25that this site is indeed Vilcabamba,
01:17:29the bastion from which Inca resistance
01:17:31organized itself against the Spanish invader.
01:17:42There is another fundamental clue,
01:17:44discovered here a few years ago,
01:17:46which seems to strengthen this hypothesis further.
01:18:07It is this vase, filmed here for the very first time.
01:18:11It was found in the Temple of the Sun.
01:18:16Since its restoration, it has been kept safe
01:18:19in a secret storage place.
01:18:23The Israeli archaeologist, Batami Atzi,
01:18:27has just finished her study of it.
01:18:29It is a very special moment to see this piece.
01:18:33I have not seen a lot of people.
01:18:36Yes, it is a unique moment.
01:18:44It is a reconstruction of a piece of Inca,
01:18:49in a form of Inca.
01:18:50It is made of 55 fragments
01:18:53that were found close to the door.
01:18:58It represents a struggle between Spanish and indigenous people.
01:19:03We have four Spanish people
01:19:05and all around there are many other Inca warriors
01:19:10from different parts of the empire
01:19:13in this fight against the Spanish.
01:19:18After months of study,
01:19:21Batami Atzi managed to identify the characters
01:19:24and she observed an astonishing recurrence.
01:19:33Here, an Inca knocks to the ground a Spanish horseman.
01:19:38Here, another Spaniard is run through.
01:19:43And so it goes on throughout the battle scenes.
01:19:46Each time, it is the Incas who are the victors.
01:19:54In the foco,
01:19:55are the two jinetes Spanish
01:19:57under the arco iris.
01:19:59And the arco iris
01:20:01in the Andes society
01:20:04represents a significant change.
01:20:07It is a concept known in the Andes
01:20:10as Pachacuti.
01:20:11It is the end of a era
01:20:13and the beginning of a new era.
01:20:15So here, what we see is a representation of the future.
01:20:20A future in which the Incas
01:20:23will win the Spanish
01:20:24and will bring another Pachacuti.
01:20:28A Pachacuti that will favor the Incas.
01:20:31They believed they could
01:20:33invert the situation
01:20:34and they could have the power again.
01:20:38They could have the power again.
01:20:39They could have the power again.
01:20:42They could have the power again.
01:20:44Right to the end,
01:20:45it seems they never gave up.
01:20:48Carried by a spirit of resistance,
01:20:50they continued to believe
01:20:51that this city would be the base
01:20:53from which they would one day set off
01:20:55to recreate their empire.
01:21:13No idea.
01:21:14Your day, too, is nice.
01:21:18Now, we are going to show you,
01:21:20but…
01:21:28Yes, look at that tree, that's great. Is the tree on top of the wall?
01:21:35Yeah, but look at this area here.
01:21:38Yes.
01:21:39There are areas where there are definitely things.
01:21:42We have already started to find murals 100% safe under the vegetation.
01:21:49I'm going to start to move here.
01:21:53And it's going to be a murals.
01:21:55Exactly.
01:21:56It's going to be a lot clearer.
01:21:58Yes, yes.
01:21:59And it has it.
01:22:00See?
01:22:01We're going to go up.
01:22:04Yes, we're going to go up.
01:22:06The break.
01:22:08And it's going to be a murals.
01:22:09The city continues to reach here.
01:22:12Yes, that's clear.
01:22:13We're already seeing it.
01:22:16They're very preliminary,
01:22:17and we're still working on the data.
01:22:20But my first impression is that I'm surprised with the amount of construction
01:22:27that we're finding underneath the forest.
01:22:30It does tell you about the scale of the construction
01:22:34and the scale of the size of the city itself.
01:22:40We see a huge city, so there's no doubt that the site was the city that the Incas called
01:22:47Vilcabamba during the final of the Incas state.
01:22:55A few months later, this 3D reconstruction was created.
01:23:04Vilcabamba spread over more than 15 hectares.
01:23:07As Brian Bauer suspected, it was easily large enough to house all the resistance.
01:23:15It was here, within these walls, that for 40 years they organized the resistance,
01:23:21believing themselves protected by the anonymity of this jungle.
01:23:31But in 1572, the Spanish led an attack.
01:23:38Despite their determination, the resistance was overcome.
01:23:41In 1571, Vilcabamba was reduced to ashes.
01:23:53The last Inca emperor was executed.
01:23:56It was the end of this civilization.
01:24:04The Inca's giant empire was silenced forever.
01:24:24But 500 years later, perhaps it will retrieve its voice.
01:24:39The anthropologist Sabine Highland continues her search on the trail of the forgotten Inca writings.
01:24:51She is still looking for a quipu similar to those discovered in Peru to validate her theory about Incas possibly
01:24:59creating words with these objects.
01:25:03Somebody sent me a picture of the quipu here in Provo.
01:25:07And I was astonished because it looks exactly like the coyote quipus.
01:25:12And I'm going to see it right now.
01:25:13I've travelled a long way just for this moment.
01:25:20The quipu which Sabine is preparing to discover was taken to the United States in the 1940s.
01:25:43This quipu comes from a valley in the Andes, 400 kilometers north of Coyote, the village where she found the
01:25:50first two.
01:25:52There's no quipu.
01:25:53There's no knots and a lot of the same colors, the dark browns, the blues, all of these different colors.
01:26:00It's really incredible.
01:26:03This is not a numerical quipu.
01:26:05Numerical quipus don't look anything like this.
01:26:08I am quite convinced that this is another phonetic quipu, very similar to those in Coyote.
01:26:14This is what I was hoping.
01:26:19I'm a little overwhelmed at seeing this right now because this is the proof I needed.
01:26:24When I first came out with my research on the Coyote quipus and my partial decipherment,
01:26:29a lot of people said, well, maybe just in that village in the 18th century,
01:26:34but we don't have any proof that anybody else in the Andes ever used this.
01:26:39This is really exciting because this is proof that there are other quipus out there
01:26:44besides those in the town of Coyote.
01:26:48So it would seem that during the Inca period, there did indeed exist a form of writing
01:26:54common to the different Andean valleys, as Sabine Highlands suspected.
01:26:58From here on, it will be necessary to painstakingly separate out the results,
01:27:03to attempt to discover which syllable is hidden behind each chord
01:27:07and eventually be able to read these quipus in full.
01:27:12You know, it's funny because the story of Champignon, we always hear,
01:27:15well, he gets the Rosetta Stone and he sees the relation, he figures this out.
01:27:18We don't often hear, it took him 18 years.
01:27:22It wasn't a simple task.
01:27:42Why am I accumulating all this data?
01:27:45Why am I making all this effort to try to decipher these quipus?
01:27:51Now we know that the Incas have left a written trace,
01:27:54and it's my obligation to bring their words back to life.
01:27:58And I believe that it is the same for all the researchers embarking on this adventure.
01:28:06What do you do when you set out on the trail of the Inca resistance?
01:28:11What do you do when you dive into the Tiricaca Lake in search of forgotten offerings?
01:28:19What are we doing if not giving back to the Incas their own words, their own voices,
01:28:24their own vision of the world without filters or intermediaries?
01:28:28And I believe that for an empire, for civilization that has suffered so much,
01:28:34but has also contributed so much to humanity, this is only just.
01:28:50After a hit and run, an attempt to evade justice leads two brothers
01:28:54on a darkly comic journey full of twists and turns.
01:28:57From the creator of Line of Duty comes Scotland's answer to Fargo,
01:29:01Gilt, stream free on SBS On Demand.
01:29:31and I will see you on the next one.
01:29:34...
01:29:35...
01:29:36...
01:29:36...
01:29:37...
01:29:37You