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.
So, I searched the internet, to verify if this unusual way of doing was feasible in Inca times :
Dice were often pyramidal in the Andean region :
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
4 sided, in this order : 2, 3, 1, 4
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 ?
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, ...).
Details ...
4 sided and 6 sided,
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
