SocietySouth America
The Inca empire
The Americas' largest empire, run without writing and without money
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Khipu could record numbers reliably, and some researchers believe they also encoded words, though this is undeciphered. The state moved whole populations to break up resistance, ran granaries against famine, and built in stone with joints so tight a knife blade will not enter — without mortar, in earthquake country, and they still stand.
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The Inca empire stretched four thousand kilometres along the Andes. They had neither writing, wheels nor money, but kept accounts with knots on cords — khipu — and levied taxes in days of labour rather than goods.
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Part of Terra Saga — the story of Earth on a timeline. terrasaga.org