Pre-Columbian dice in the Andean region

Using a Yupana with dice, in Inca times ?

Was the Yupana sequence (1,2,3,5) also present in Inca dice ?

Using a Yupana with a few dice, instead of seeds, is much easier. 

Less manipulations are required, as each face of a dice represents a group of seeds. 

With dice, its easier to perform big multiplications with a Yupana, without knowing the multiplication tables.  

See a simple way to do that, here : 

So, I searched the internet, to verify if this unusual way of doing was feasible in Inca times :

• what kind of dice did they have ?
• were they numbered in the sequence 1,2,3,5 that is used in the Yupanas ?

Answer, in short :  No mention of the sequence (1,2,3,5) in dice. 
Dice were often pyramidal in the Andean region :

• 4 sided (square base) truncated pyramids, numbered 1,2,3,4.
• five or six-sided truncated pyramids.
• related to games named by the number 5 (depending of the language and depending of the transcription : huayro, pichca, wayru, pichqa, pichka, pisca, pichica, pichiqa, huayru, huairu, wayru, guayro, ...).

So... I tried using a Yupana with the sequence 1,2,3,4 instead of 1,2,3,5... and it seems easy !

Details ...

4 sided and 6 sided,

http://boardgamestudies.info/pdf/issue1/BGS1Depaulis.pdf
http://ex.ludicum.org/publicacoes/bgsj/1
Inca Dice and Board Games / Thierry Depaulis, Board Games studies, 1998

•   2 illustrations (extracted from a publication dated 1918) representing dice found in the Museo de Chile ; numbering is not entirely visible ; drawings page 45

 

•  1 illustration of a "modern" dice, six sides, pyramidal, sequence 1,0,4,2,5,3 [ same as below, where it is said to have been found in use in the '60 (1960) ] ; drawing, page 30

4 sided, in this order : 2, 3, 1, 4 

http://www.museodeljugueteetnico.com/articulos/PichcarecuperandoFerrareseCapettini.pdf

[2020 11 20] https://apjdat8.webnode.com/_files/200000182-67e3268e06/PichcarecuperandoFerrareseCapettini.pdf

La Pichca”: Recuperando el patrimonio intangible de los Pueblos Originarios de América”. Stela Maris Ferrarese Capettini. Museo del Juguete Étnico “Allel Kuzen”

A dice found in the Haichol cave (see drawings below, from other articles) is said to be of the same type as dice used in the Inca empire.  The numbers on the 4 sides are in this order : 2, 3, 1, 4; the base has no number.  

"cuerpo prismático de piedra, de cuatro caras triangulares; la quinta cara, o base, es plana [...] Sus dimensiones son: la base, rectangular, 22 x 18 mm.; la altura, 41 mm. [...] Cada una de las caras muestra un número variable de hoyuelos de forma cónica [...]. Una de las caras muestra 2 hoyuelos; la siguiente 3, la próxima 1 y la última 4."

4 sided (square base) truncated pyramid (1,2,3,4) :

http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0717-73562004000400027

Dos "Pirámides" de Caspana, El juego de la Pichica y el dominio Inka en el Loa superior [northern Chile].

3 dice of the same kind (pyramid ; 1, 2, 3, 4) :

• one found in the Mapuche zone, citation attributed to R. Lenz,
• one found in a Museum of Natural History (where ?  Chile ?), citation attributed to L. Matus,
• one found in the Mapuche territory (search "Varinia Varela" to which it is attributed) 

Several (truncated) pyramidal dice  : 

http://www.ifeanet.org/publicaciones/boletines/27(1)/75.pdf
http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=12627104
http://www.redalyc.org/pdf/126/12627104.pdf

"La pichca : oraculo y juego de fortuna (su persistencia en el espacio y tiempo andino)" 1998, Gentile

•  2 dice found in "Huaca Tres Palos", Rimac valley [Peru, Lima, Maranga], drawing of the dice : end of page 88 [one "1,2,3,4" , the other "1,3,2,4"] 
  
• 1 dice found in  Pachacamac, Lurin valley [Peru, Lima], see drawing ; beginning of page 89 (order : 1,3,2,4)
  
• several dice found in Machu Pichu, Urubamba valley [Peru] and said to have been made by a pre-inca megalithic people [like peoples from Chavin or Tiahaunacu] ; 3 dice are described :
• one is resembling the Huaca Tres Palos one,
• another one is a truncated pyramid with incised lines,
• the third one is a rectangular parallelepiped (see drawing, beginning of page 90 ; order : 1 or 5 ?, 2, 3, 4)
  
• 1 dice found in Casabindo, Jujuy [Northern Argentina], truncated pyramid (1,3,2,4), see drawing page 91
  
• 1 dice found in Viluco, Mendoza province [Argentina] : square based pyramid, with dots, order 1,3,3,4 (no face with a 2), drawing page 95
  
• 1 dice found in Chenque Haichol, Neuquen province [Argentina] : square based pyramid, with dots, order 1,2,3,4 ; drawing page 96
  
•  another drawing, page 3 of
•  http://www.hechohistorico.com.ar/Trabajos/Jornadas%20de%20Bariloche%20-%202008/Ferrarese.pdf 
• http://www.museodeljugueteetnico.com/articulos/Ponencia%20sobre%20el%20dado%20de%20la%20Cueva%20de%20Haichol%20Ferrarese.pdf
   
  
• Several bone dice found in the Sierra del Ecuador : hexagonal base, six sided pyramids, 1 of them is in the sequence 1,0,2,3,4,5 another one is in the sequence 1,0,4,2,5,3 ; drawings page 99
   
   
  

(c - dice found in use around 1965 : not pre-colombian )

[2020-11-07] 

More descriptions of this type of dice in the last pages (from page 111) of a thesis by Santiago Ordóñez Carpio, 2004, "El juego del huayru o pishca. Una aproximación a la reestructuración del cambio y la muerte en los Andes". Se here, for instance:

https://fdocuments.ec/document/flacso-ecuador-cbc-colegio-introduccion-el-huayru-es-un-ritual-de-origen.html?page=111

Other beautiful images found on the facebook page of the 

museo nacional de historia natural de chile

https://www.facebook.com/notes/museo-nacional-de-historia-natural-de-chile/el-ancestral-juego-de-dados-y-or%C3%A1culo-del-quechucague-o-pichca/10154208849277919/

(also here : http://www.mnhn.cl/613/w3-article-73666.html)

No other Andean dice ?

see them all (low quality photos, but with maps showing where they were found) here :

http://www.museodeljugueteetnico.com/articulos/Caminos%20Incas%20a%20trav%C3%A9s%20del%20juego%20con%20dados.pdf

[2022 11 07] that doc disappeared... so, you can see the same information largely developed (with other images) in 2 long videos from the museum: https://youtu.be/zLYCbmAplaI and https://youtu.be/X9dNTotDDk4 ... they are sometimes showing reproduction in plain wood (not very appealing, but that's what we would all also probably do, if we wanted to make or use that type of dice).

I copy some of the images here, in case those 2 videos also disappear in the future: