| Quipu Khipu | |
|---|---|
 An Incaquipu, from theLarco Museum in Lima, Peru. | |
Period | c. 2600 BCE – c. 1900 CE |
| Region | CentralAndes |
Quipu (/ˈkiːpuː/KEE-poo), also spelledkhipu (Ayacucho Quechua:kipu,[ˈkipu];Cusco Quechua:khipu,[kʰipu]), are record keeping devices fashioned from knotted cords. They were historically used by various cultures in the centralAndes of South America, most prominently by theInca Empire.[1]
Aquipu usually consists ofcotton orcamelid fiber cords, and contains categorized information based on dimensions like color, order and number.[2] The Inca, in particular, used knots tied in a decimalpositional system to store numbers and other values inquipu cords. Depending on its use and the amount of information it stored, a givenquipu may have anywhere from a few to several thousand cords.
Objects which can unambiguously be identified asquipus first appear in the archaeological record during the 1st millennium CE,[3] likely attributable to theWari Empire.[4][5]Quipus subsequently played a key part in the administration of theKingdom of Cusco of the 13th to 15th centuries, and later of theInca Empire (1438–1533), flourishing across the Andes fromc. 1100 to 1532. Inca administration usedquipus extensively for a variety of uses: monitoring tax obligations, collectingcensus records, keeping calendrical information, military organization,[6] and potentially for recording simple and stereotyped historical "annales".[2]
It is not known exactly how many intactquipus still remain and where, as many were deposited in ancient mausoleums[3] or later destroyed by the Spanish. However, a recent survey of both museum and private collection inventories places the total number of known extant pre-Columbianquipus at just under 1,400.[7]
After theSpanish conquest of the Inca Empire,quipus were slowly replaced by European writing and numeral systems. Manyquipus were identified as idolatrous and destroyed, but some Spaniards promoted the adaptation of thequipu recording system to the needs of the colonial administration, and some priests advocated the use ofquipus for ecclesiastical purposes.[8] Today,quipus continue to serve as important items in several modern Andean villages.[9]
Various other cultures have used knotted strings, unrelated to South Americanquipu, to record information—these include, but are not limited to,Chinese knotting, also practiced byTibetans,Japanese, andPolynesians.[10][11][12][13][14]
The wordquipu is derived from a Quechua word meaning 'knot'.[15] The termsquipu andkhipu are simply spelling variations on the same word.Quipu is the traditional spelling based on theSpanish orthography, whilekhipu reflects the recentQuechuan and Aymaran spelling shift.Khipu (pronounced[ˈkʰipu]) comes fromCusco Quechua, while many other Quechua varieties use the termkipu. Currently, thehispanicized spelling ofquipu is the form most commonly used in both Spanish and English.[16]
"The khipu were knotted-string devices that were used for recording both statistical and narrative information, most notably by the Inca but also by other peoples of the central Andes from pre-Incaic times, through the colonial and republican eras, and even – in a considerably transformed and attenuated form – down to the present day."
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Quipus held information, decipherable by officials calledquipucamayocs (Cusco Quechua:khipu kamayuq,lit. 'khipu specialist',[ˈkʰipukaˈmajoχ]), classified in various categories, narrated from the most important to the least important category, according to color, number, and order.[2]
To date, most of the information recorded on thequipus studied by researchers consists of numbers in a decimal system,[18] such as "Indian chiefs ascertain[ing] which province had lost more than another and balanc[ing] the losses between them" after the Spanish invasion.[19] In the early years of theSpanish conquest of Peru, Spanish officials often relied on thequipus to settle disputes over localtribute payments or goods production. Thequipucamayocs could be summoned to court, where their bookkeeping was recognised as valid documentation of past payments.
Some knots — as well as other features, such as color, fiber type, cord attachments, etc. — are thought to represent non-numeric information, which has not been deciphered. It is generally thought that the system did not include phonetic symbols analogous to letters of the alphabet. However,Gary Urton has suggested that thequipus used a binary system which could recordphonological orlogographic data.[20] According to Martti Pärssinen,quipucamayocs would learn specificoral texts, which in relation to the basic information contained inquipu, and pictorial representations, often painted onquiru vessels, similar toaztec pictograms, related simple "episodes".[2]
In 2011, a potential match between six colonial-eraSanta Valley Quipus and a Spanish colonial document from the same region was identified.[3] Researchers believe this possiblequipu-document match is the strongestRosetta Stone-like connection currently known, which could offer key clues needed to unlock the full extent of the quipu code. Subsequent studies have built on the proposedquipu-document connection, suggesting that the binary manner by which cords can be attached to the main body of the sixquipus may encodemoiety affiliation,[21][22] and, more recently, uncovering detailed Andean social structures encoded within the sixquipus.[23]
The lack of a clear link between any indigenous Andean languages and thequipus has historically led to the supposition thatquipus are not aglottographic writing system and have nophonetic referent.[24] Frank Salomon, at the University of Wisconsin, has argued thatquipus are actually asemasiographic language, a system of representative symbols – such asmusic notation ornumerals – that relay information but are not directly related to the speech sounds of a particular language,[25] likeideograms andproto-writing.
Sabine Hyland claims to have made the first phonetic decipherment through her analysis ofepistolaryquipus from San Juan de Collata, Peru, challenging the assumption thatquipus do not represent information phonetically.[26] However, thequipus in question date to the colonial period and are believed to have been exchanged during an 18th-century rebellion against the Spanish government, suggesting that their encoding may have been influenced by the introduction of European writing systems. With the help of local leaders, Hyland argues that the names of the twoayllus, or family lineages, who received and sent thequipus can be translated using phonetic references to the animal fibers and colors of the relevant quipu cords.[27][28]
While Spanish colonial chroniclers, such asInca Garcilaso de la Vega, hinted at the numerical system ofquipus, it isLeslie Leland Locke who is often credited with first demonstrating that manyquipus encode numbers using a base-10 positional notation.[29][30] Starting in the late 1960's and building on Locke's foundational work,Marcia Ascher andRobert Ascher analyzed several hundredquipus, revealing that most of the information recorded byquipu knots is numerical and can be systematically interpreted.
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Most quipus use three main types of knots: simpleoverhand knots; "long knots", consisting of an overhand knot with one or more additionalturns; andfigure-eight knots. The Aschers’ also identified a fourth, and less common, type of knot—a figure-eight knot with an extra twist—which they refer to as an "EE" knot. On a givenquipu cord, knots are grouped into clusters. Each cluster is tied at specific registers, or lengths, along the cord. These knot clusters represent digits in abase-10 number system.[31] The units, or "ones" position is commonly tied at the bottom of a cord, followed by a space above it, then the "tens" position, then another space, then hundreds position, and so on. In other words:
For example, if 4s represents four simple knots, 3L represents a long knot with three turns, E represents a figure-eight knot, and X represents a space:
Since the ones position onquipu cords are shown in a distinctive way (i.e., using long knots and figure-eight knots), it is usually clear where a number ends. Thus, it is possible that a singlequipu cord could contain several numbers. For example:
The "reading" ofquipu knots as numbers in the way outlined above is bolstered by the fortunate fact thatquipus regularly contain sums in systematic ways.[29][30][32] For instance, a cord may contain the sum of the nextn cords, with this relationship being repeated throughout thequipu. In other cases, there are even cords which contain sums of sums. Such a relationship would be highly improbable ifquipu knot values were being incorrectly interpreted.
Some data items are not numbers but what Ascher and Ascher callnumber labels.[1] They are still composed of digits, but the resulting number seems to be used as a code, much as we use numbers to identify individuals, places, or things. For example, Carrie J. Brezine decoded that a particular three-number label at the beginning of somequipus may refer toPuruchuco, similar to aZIP code.[33]
Some have argued that far more than numeric information is present and thatquipus are awriting system. This would be an especially important discovery as there is no surviving record of written Quechua predating theSpanish invasion. Possible reasons for this apparent absence of a written language include destruction by the Spanish of all written records, or the successful concealment by the Inca peoples of those records. Making the matter even more complex, the Inca 'kept separate "khipu" for each province, on which a pendant string recorded the number of people belonging to each category.'[34] This creates yet another step in the process of decryption in addition to the Spanish attempts at eradicating the system.[35] Historians Edward Hyams and George Ordish claims quipus were recording devices, similar to musical notation, in that the notes on the page present basic information, and the performer would then bring those details to life.[36]
In 2003, while checking the geometric signs that appear on drawings of Inca dresses from theFirst New Chronicle and Good Government, written byFelipe Guaman Poma de Ayala in 1615,William Burns Glynn found a pattern that seems to decipher some words fromquipus by matching knots to colors of strings.
The August 12, 2005, edition of the journalScience includes a report titled "Khipu Accounting in Ancient Peru" by anthropologistGary Urton and mathematician Carrie J. Brezine. Their work may represent the first identification of aquipu element for a non-numeric concept, a sequence of three figure-eight knots at the start of aquipu that seems to be a unique signifier. It could be atoponym for the city ofPuruchuco (nearLima), or the name of thequipu keeper who made it, or its subject matter, or even a time designator.[37]
Beynon-Davies considersquipus as a sign system and develops an interpretation of their physical structure in terms of the concept of adata system.[38]
Khipu kamayuqkuna (knot makers/keepers, i.e., the former Inca record keepers) supplied colonial administrators with a variety and quantity of information pertaining to censuses, tribute, ritual and calendrical organization, genealogies, and other such matters from Inca times. Performing a number of statistical tests forquipu sample VA 42527, one study led by Alberto Sáez-Rodríguez discovered that the distribution and patterning of S- and Z-knots can organize the information system from a real star map of thePleiades cluster.[39]
Laura Minelli, a professor ofpre-Columbian studies at theUniversity of Bologna, has discovered something which she claims to be a seventeenth-centuryJesuit manuscript that describes literaryquipus, titledHistoria et Rudimenta Linguae Piruanorum. This manuscript consists of ninefolios with Spanish,Latin, and ciphered Italian texts. Owned by the family of Neapolitan historian Clara Miccinelli, the manuscript also includes a woolquipu fragment. Miccinelli claims that the text was written by two Italian Jesuit missionaries, Joan Antonio Cumis and Giovanni Anello Oliva, around 1610–1638, andBlas Valera, amestizo Jesuit sometime before 1618. Along with the details of reading literaryquipus, the documents also discuss the events and people of the Spanish conquest ofPeru. According to Cumis, since so manyquipus were burned by the Spanish, very few remained for him to analyze. As related in the manuscript, the wordPacha Kamaq, the Inca deity of earth and time, was used many times in thesequipus, where the syllables were represented by symbols formed in the knots. Following the analysis of the use of "Pacha Kamaq", the manuscript offers a list of many words present inquipus.[40] However, both Bruce Mannheim, the director of the Center for Latin American Studies at theUniversity of Michigan, andColgate University's Gary Urton, question its origin and authenticity. These documents seem to be inspired freely by a 1751 writing ofRaimondo di Sangro, Prince of Sansevero.[41][42][43]
Claims of the earliestquipu, or possible proto-quipu, comes from theLate Preceramic (c. 3000–1800 BCE) site ofCaral,[44][45] though this claim has yet to be thoroughly evaluated. A more plausible candidate for the earliest known precursor toquipus may be the wrapped batons found at the site of Cerrillos from the Late Paracas Period (c. 350–200 BCE).[46]
The first undisputed evidence ofquipu technology dates back to theMiddle Horizon (c. 600–1000 CE),[47] with these earlyquipus being used by theWari Empire. Differing slightly from their Inca successors, extant Wariquipu specimens tend to be smaller, have brightly colored thread wrapped cords, and its own system of knots which scholars do not fully understand.[4][5]
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Quipucamayocs (Quechuakhipu kamayuq, "khipu-authority"), the accountants ofTawantin Suyu, created and deciphered thequipu knots.Quipucamayocs could carry out basicarithmetic operations, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They kept track ofmita, a form oftaxation. Thequipucamayocs also tracked the type oflabor being performed, maintained a record ofeconomic output, and ran acensus that counted everyone from infants to "old blind men over 80". The system was also used to keep track of the calendar. According to Guaman Poma,quipucamayocs could "read" thequipus with their eyes closed.[41]
Quipucamayocs were from a class of people, "males, fifty to sixty",[48] and were not the only members ofInca society to usequipus. Incahistorians usedquipus when telling the Spanish about Tawantin Suyu history (whether they only recorded important numbers or actually contained the story itself is unknown). Members of the ruling class were usually taught to readquipus in the Inca equivalent of a university, theyachay wasi (literally, "house of teaching"), in the third year of schooling, for the higher classes who would eventually become the bureaucracy.[49]
In 1532, theSpanish Empire's conquest of the Andean region began, with several Spanish conquerors making note of the existence ofquipus in their written records about the invasion. The earliest known example comes fromHernando Pizarro, the brother of the Spanish military leaderFrancisco Pizarro, who recorded an encounter that he and his men had in 1533 as they traveled along the royal road from the highlands to the central coast.[50] It was during this journey that they encountered severalquipu keepers, later relating that these keepers "untied some of the knots which they had in the deposits section [of the khipu], and they [re-]tied them in another section [of the khipu]."[51][52][53][54]
Christian officials of theThird Council of Lima banned and ordered the burning of some quipus in 1583 because they were used to record offerings to non-Christian gods and were therefore considered idolatrous objects and an obstacle to religious conversion.[9]
Thequipu system operated as both a method of calculation and social organization, regulating regional governance and land use.[55] While evidence for the latter is still under the critical eye of scholars around the world, the very fact that they are kept to this day without any confirmed level of fluent literacy in the system is testament to its historical 'moral authority.'[56] Today, "khipu" is regarded as a powerful symbol of heritage, only 'unfurled' and handled by 'pairs of [contemporary] dignitaries,' as the system and its 'construction embed' modern 'cultural knowledge.'[56] Ceremonies in which they are 'curated, even though they can no longer be read,' is even further support for the case of societal honor and significance associated with thequipu.[56] Even today, 'the knotted cords must be present and displayed when village officers leave or begin service, and draping the cords over the incoming office holders instantiates the moral and political authority of the past.'[56] These examples are indicative of how thequipu system was not only fundamental mathematically and linguistically for the original Inca, but also for cultural preservation of the original empire's descendants.
Anthropologists andarchaeologists carrying out research inPeru have highlighted two known cases wherequipus have continued to be used by contemporary communities, albeit as ritual items seen as "communal patrimony" rather than as devices for recording information.[57] Thequipu system, being the useful method of social management it was for the Inca, is also a link to the Cuzco census, as it was one of the primary methods of population calculation.[58] This also has allowed historians and anthropologists to understand both the census and the "decimal hierarchy" system the Inca used, and that they were actually 'initiated together,' due to the fact that they were 'conceptually so closely linked.'[58]
In 1994, the American cultural anthropologist Frank Salomon conducted a study in the Peruvian village of Tupicocha, wherequipus are still an important part of the social life of the village.[59] As of 1994, this was the only known village wherequipus with a structure similar to pre-Columbianquipus were still used for official local government record-keeping and functions, although the villagers did not associate theirquipus with Inca artifacts.[60]
The villagers of San Cristóbal de Rapaz (known as Rapacinos), located in theProvince of Oyón, keep aquipu in an old ceremonial building, theKaha Wayi, that is itself surrounded by a walled architectural complex. Also within the complex is a disused communal storehouse, known as thePasa Qullqa, which was formerly used to protect and redistribute the local crops, and some Rapacinos believe that thequipu was once a record of this process of collecting and redistributing food. The entire complex was important to the villagers, being "the seat of traditional control over land use, and the centre of communication with the deified mountains who control weather".[57]
In 2004, the archaeologist Renata Peeters (of theUCL Institute of Archaeology in London) and the cultural anthropologist Frank Salomon (of theUniversity of Wisconsin) undertook a project to conserve both thequipus in Rapaz and the building that it was in, due to their increasingly poor condition.[61]
The remote village of Jucul, Peru, has keptquipus in the attic of its colonial church for centuries, only recently being discovered by outsiders in 2024.[62] Thesequipus are closely related to those of San Cristóbal de Rapaz, which is near by.[63]
In 1912,Leslie Leland Locke published "The Ancient Quipu, A Peruvian Knot Record,"American Anthropologist, New Series I4 (1912) 325–332.[29] This was the first work to show how theInca (Inka) Empire and its predecessor societies used thequipu for mathematical and accounting records in the decimal system.
The archaeologistGary Urton noted in his 2003 bookSigns of the Inka Khipu that he estimated "from my own studies and from the published works of other scholars that there are about 600 extantquipu in public and private collections around the world."[64]
According to the Khipu Database Project[65] undertaken byHarvard University professor Gary Urton and his colleague Carrie Brezine, 751quipus have been reported to exist across the globe.[failed verification] Their whereabouts range fromEurope toNorth andSouth America. Most are housed in museums outside of their native countries, but some reside in their native locations under the care of the descendants of those who made the knot records. A table of the largest collections is shown below.
| Museum collection | Location | Quipus |
|---|---|---|
| Ethnological Museum of Berlin | Berlin,Germany | 298[citation needed] |
| Museum Five Continents[66] | Munich,Germany | |
| Pachacamac[67] | nearLima,Peru | 35 |
| Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú[68] | Lima,Peru | 35 |
| Centro Mallqui[69] | Leimebamba,Amazonas,Peru | 32 |
| Museo Temple Radicati,National University of San Marcos | Lima,Peru | 26 |
| Regional Museum of Ica "Adolfo Bermúdez Jenkins" | Ica,Peru | 25 |
| Museo Puruchuco[70] | Ate District,Lima,Peru | 23 |
While patrimonialquipu collections have not been accounted for in this database, their numbers are likely to be unknown. One prominent patrimonial collection held by the Rapazians of Rapaz, Peru, was recently researched byUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison professor, Frank Salomon.[71]
Quipus are made offibers, either spun and plied thread such aswool orhair fromalpaca,llama,guanaco orvicuña, though are also commonly made ofcellulose likecotton. Archaeological evidence has also shown that, in some cases, finely carved wood was used as a supplemental base to which the color-coded cords could be attached.[72] Theknotted strings ofquipus were often made with an "elaborate system of knotted cords, dyed in various colors, the significance of which was known to themagistrates".[73] Fading ofcolor, natural or dyed, cannot be reversed, and may indicate further damage to the fibers. Colors can darken if damaged by dust or by certaindyes andmordants.[74]Quipus have been found with adornments, such dried potatoes and beans, attached to the cords, and these non-textile materials may require additional preservation measures.[75]
Quipus are now preserved using techniques that aim to minimize their future degradation.Museums,archives and special collections have adopted preservation guidelines fromtextile practices.[76]
Environmental controls are used to monitor and controltemperature,humidity andlight exposure of storage areas. As with all textiles, cool, clean, dry and dark environments are most suitable. The heating, ventilating and air conditioning, orHVAC systems, of buildings that housequipu knot records are usually automatically regulated. Relative humidity should be 60% or lower, with low temperatures, as high temperatures can damage the fibres and make them brittle. Damp conditions and high humidity can damage protein-rich material.Textiles suffer damage fromultraviolet (UV) light, which can include fading and weakening of the fibrous material. Whenquipus are on display, their exposure to ambient conditions is usually minimized and closely monitored.[74][77]
Despite best efforts, damage can occur during storage, or be from the result of earlier conservation efforts.[78] The more accessible the items are during storage, the greater the chance of early detection.[77] Storingquipus horizontally on boards covered with a neutralpH paper (paper that is neitheracid oralkaline) to prevent potential acid transfer is a preservation technique that extends the life of a collection. The fibers can be abraded by rubbing against each other or, for those attached to sticks or rods, by their own weight if held in an upright position. Extensive handling ofquipus can also increase the risk of further damage.[79]
Quipus are also closely monitored formold, as well asinsects and theirlarvae. As with all textiles, these are major problems.Fumigation may not be recommended for fiber textiles displaying mold or insectinfestations, although it is common practice for riddingpaper of mold and insects.
Conservators in the field oflibrary science have the skills to handle a variety of situations. Even though somequipus have hundreds of cords, each cord should be assessed and treated individually.Quipu cords can be "mechanically cleaned with brushes, small tools and light vacuuming".[80] Just as the application offungicides is not recommended to ridquipus of mold, neither is the use ofsolvents to clean them.
Even when people have tried to preservequipus, corrective care may still be required. Ifquipus are to be conserved close to their place of origin, local camelid or wool fibres in natural colors can be obtained and used to mend breaks and splits in the cords.[80] Rosa Choque Gonzales and Rosalia Choque Gonzales, conservators from southern Peru, worked to conserve the Rapaz patrimonialquipus in the Andean village of Rapaz, Peru. Thesequipus had undergone repair in the past, so this conservator team used new local camelid and wool fibers to spin around the area under repair in a similar fashion to the earlier repairs found on thequipu.[80]
When Gary Urton, professor ofAnthropology at Harvard, was asked "Are they [quipus] fragile?", he answered, "some of them are, and you can't touch them – they would break or turn into dust. Many are quite well preserved, and you can actually study them without doing them any harm. Of course, any time you touch an ancient fabric like that, you're doing some damage, but these strings are generally quite durable."[81]
Ruth Shady, aPeruvianarcheologist, has discovered aquipu or perhapsproto-quipu believed to be around 5,000 years old in the coastal city ofCaral. It was in quite good condition, with "brown cotton strings wound around thin sticks", along with "a series of offerings, including mysterious fiber balls of different sizes wrapped in 'nets' and pristine reed baskets. Piles of raw cotton – uncombed and containing seeds, though turned a dirty brown by the ages – and a ball of cotton thread" were also found preserved. The good condition of these articles can be attributed to thearid climate of Caral.[82]
Dank der Bemühungen von Professor Kurayoshi Takara von der Ryûkyû-Universität in Japan gelangte das Arithmeum in den Besitz von äußerst seltenen japanischen Rechenhilfsmitteln, den 'Warazan'. Übersetzt bedeutet das: 'rechnen mit Stroh'.
[Elsdon] Best focuses on the use of knots (orquipus - a word he says originates from Peru, where knots were used similarly to Aotearoa/New Zealand, Hawaiʻi, and other parts of the Pacific) for tallying accounts, quantities of food, and conveying messages.
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