Inca Khipu: Knotted-Cord Record Keeping in the Andes

Chapter
41
The Inca Khipu: Knotted-Cord
Record Keeping in the Andes
GARY URTON
INTRODUCTION
The knotted-stringed instrument used for record keeping in the Inca empire, known as
khipu, from Quechua, “knot” [Note 1], was the subject of considerable interest from the
earliest days following the Spanish invasion of the Andes, beginning in 1532. Early postconquest reports of encounters with Inca record keepers tell of old men carrying bundles
of strings with which they recounted all manner of information pertaining to the Andean
past—from census figures for this or that province to details of the deeds performed by
each of the dozen kings that had ruled before the arrival of the Europeans (Cieza 1967;
Pizarro 1920).
The recording device in question was a construction of knotted, colorful strings made
of spun and plied camelid hair or cotton fiber (Figure 41.1). These devices were used by
Inca state record keepers for retaining different types of administrative records and for
registering information consulted in the production of historical and other types of narrative performances (Cobo 1983; Garcilaso de la Vega 1966; Mackey et al. 1990; Quilter and
Urton 2002; Urton 1998). While it remains uncertain how narratives were produced from
the knotted-string registers, we understand a good deal about how quantitative information
and statistical data were recorded.
KHIPU CONSTRUCTION
What are commonly referred to as “Inca khipu” display a myriad of variations on the structure shown in Figure 41.2. The following overview of khipu construction features is based
on the study of 301 samples entered into the Khipu Database (KDB), at Harvard University
(see the project website at: http://khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu/).
Handbook of South American Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell.
Springer, New York, 2008
831
832
G. Urton
Figure 41.1. A large khipu in the Ethnographic Museum, Göteborg, Sweden. (photo by Gary Urton)
Khipu are composed of a variable number of spun and twisted threads, called pendant cords or strings that are attached by means of half-hitch knots to a thicker cord, the
latter of which is referred to as a primary cord. The average thickness of primary cords is
0.26 cm, and their average length is 61 cm. The average number of pendant cords per khipu
on samples in the KDB is 60; the median number per device is 27. The average length of
pendant strings is 33 cm, and the average thickness of the approximately 1,300 measured
to date is 0.16 cm. In 35% of cases recorded in the KDB, pendant cords have attached to
them what are commonly called subsidiary cords. Subsidiary cords may have second-order
subsidiary cords attached to them, and so on down to several levels of subsidiaries. The
deepest level of subsidiary attachments recorded to date is on a sample (AS70/UR35
[Note 2]) from Arica, Chile; this sample bears pendant cords with as many as thirteen
levels of subsidiaries (Figure 41.3).
Eighteen out of the 301 samples bear what are referred to as top cords. These cords
are attached to the primary cord opposite the pendant cords. Many top cords have their
attachments passing through the loop(s) of the half-hitch knot attachments of groups of
pendant cords. Many years ago Locke (1923) showed that on khipu containing numerical/
statistical data that have top cords, the sum of the numerical data registered on groups of
pendant cords bound to the same top cord appeared on that top cord itself.
As stated earlier, khipu are made of either cotton fibers or camelid hair, although the
vast majority—all but four of the 301 samples in the KDB—are of cotton [Note 3]. In a
small number of samples, khipu made primarily of one of these materials bear a few cords
made of the other material. Khipu are generally quite colorful. This is often a result of the
use of differently colored camelid hairs (these vary in hues of white, beige, brown, black)
or cotton fibers (ancient Andean domesticated cotton varies greatly in color: white, and
various hues of brown from light brown to chocolate) (Conklin, 2002: 60). In addition to
these material-based sources of color differences, cords were often dyed with vegetal dyes
(Arellano 1999).
Three major types of knots were tied into khipu pendant, subsidiary, and top cords
(primary cords are rarely knotted). The three knot types are referred to as: figure-eight
The Inca Khipu: Knotted-Cord Record Keeping in the Andes
Figure 41.2. Basic structural components of khipu construction. (Gary Urton)
Figure 41.3. Numerous subsidiary strings attached to pendant cords on a khipu (AS70/UR35) in the Museo
Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Santiago de Chile. (photo by Gary Urton)
knots, whose final shape is indicated by the name of this knot; long knots, which are made
by turning the cord (usually) between two to nine times inside the body of the knot; and
single or overhand knots. These three knot types were central elements in the signaling
of quantitative information in the decimal-based system of administration in the empire
(Locke 1923; Ascher and Ascher 1997; Julien 1988; Pereyra S. 1996, 2001).
833
834
G. Urton
Each of the three types of knots described above may be tied in one or the other of
two different ways, which result in variations in the axial orientation of the knots. That is,
they may be tied so as to have a dominant axis running across or inside the body of the
knot from upper right to lower left (= Z-knot), or the knot may be tied to have the dominant
axis running from upper left to lower right (= S-knot; see Urton 1994). The tying of knots
as either Z- or S-knots was one of the forms of structural variation in khipu construction
around which sign values may have been constructed in what has been argued was a binary
coding system (see Urton 2003).
NUMBER, PROVENANCE, AND DATING OF KHIPU
SAMPLES AND COLLECTIONS
Virtually everything about khipu is subject to dispute, and this extends even to the number
of these artifacts currently housed in museum and private collections around the world.
From my own inventory, I have arrived at the figure of 734 extant khipu (see the inventory at the KDB website). The main source of disagreement with regard to the number
of khipu is the count of samples in the largest known collection, that in the Museum für
Völkerkunde, in Berlin, Germany (Figure 41.4). My own count of the khipu in Berlin produced a tally of 298 samples. In a recent restudy of this collection, however, Loza (1999)
has reported that there are 402 samples in Berlin. The central issue appears to be how one
counts fragmentary samples. If Loza is correct in her count, this would bring the total
number of extant khipu to around 838.
Even more troublesome than tallying the total number of extant khipu is accounting
for their provenance and the archaeological context of their recovery. Khipu are seldom
attributed in museum records with more precise provenance data than the name of a general
region (e.g., Paracas, Ica-Callango), a river valley (e.g., Santa, Nazca), or an archaeological
Figure 41.4. Khipu samples in a storage drawer in the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. (photo by Gary Urton)
The Inca Khipu: Knotted-Cord Record Keeping in the Andes
site (e.g., Armatambo, Playa Miller #6). This reflects the fact that khipu were usually taken
by grave robbers from sites along the Peruvian or Chilean coastal deserts and were then put
up for sale on the international antiquities market.
Due to uncertainty surrounding their precise location before looting occurred, it has
proven extremely difficult to develop an understanding of the inter-relationships among
samples that were supposedly from the same area. In the past, khipu from the same region
or site were often dispersed to museum and private collections in different countries, even
to different continents. It has been argued that khipu researchers should attempt to reunite
samples with common provenance as these may once have composed archives—collections
of stored documents (Radicati 1964: 9; Urton 2005). The objective of the archival approach
is to attempt to reconstitute groups of khipu that were produced as the collective administrative records of populations living in specific sites around the former territory of the
Inca empire. There are, in fact, about a half dozen collections, or archives, of khipu in
the extant corpus that were recovered in archaeological excavations. These include a pair
of samples (AS48 and AS49) excavated by the University of Tokyo 1958 expedition to La
Centinela, on the south coast of Peru (Ascher and Ascher website). Another nine samples
(AS59–AS67) from the Peruvian south coastal site of Chala were excavated by Dorothy
Menzel and were later deposited with Oscar Nuñez del Prado in Cuzco (see Ascher and
Ascher website; Mackey, 1970: 259–62). Two samples (AS36 and AS37) were excavated
in 1925 at the site of Maranga, in the lower Rimac Valley, in a tomb that also contained four
mummy bundles, an undecorated cooking pot, a gourd, and Spondylus fragments (Jijón y
Caamaño, 1949: 119, 397, plate LXXVIII). Three very large and complex khipu (AS69,
AS71 and AS70/UR35) were excavated by Percy Dauelsberg at the site of Playa Miller #6
near Arica, Chile (Oscar Espouey, personal communication, 2005).
Although the samples listed above were recovered during controlled archaeological
excavations, the descriptions of the actual contexts of discovery in each case are sketchy,
at best. There are, on the other hand, two archival groupings of khipu for which we have
reasonably good archaeological context as well as good descriptions of those contexts. One
of these is a set of 21 samples found in an urn inside a tomb located beneath the floor of
a house that was attached to one of the perimeter walls of what has been referred to as the
palace of Puruchuco (Mackey 1970; Villacorta Ostolaza 2005). The site of Puruchuco is
located south of the Rimac River, just where a canal off the river enters the open plain to
the west of the Andean foothills, about 11.5 km to the northeast of the center of present-day
Lima, in the district of Ate. In a recent re-study of this collection of khipu, Brezine and I
found that 7 of the 21 khipu from the Puruchuco archive constitute what we refer to as an
“accounting hierarchy” (Urton and Brezine 2005). This group of 7 khipu represents the
best evidence available to date for the procedures by which complex information was transferred between different accounting levels in the Inca hierarchical administration. Instructions of higher-level officials for lower-level ones would have moved down, via khipu,
from the top of the hierarchy. This information would have been partitive in nature, with
assignments made to groups of 1,000 workers broken down into two groups of 500, and so
on. In the reverse direction, local accountants would forward information on accomplished
tasks upward through the hierarchy, with information at each successive level representing
the summation of accounts from the levels below.
The other collection of khipu found in a reasonably good and subsequently welldescribed archaeological context is the group of 32 samples found in two rock overhangs
above and a short distance from Laguna de los Cóndores, a lake in tropical northeastern
Peru in the Department of San Martín (Figure 41.5). The majority of these khipu were
835
836
G. Urton
Figure 41.5. A khipu found in the plundered grave goods at Laguna de los Cóndores. (photo by Keith
Muscutt)
found associated with some 225 mummy bundles in a half-dozen above-ground burial
chambers within one of the two rock overhang sites, known as LC1 (Guillen 1999; von
Hagen and Guillen 1998; Urton 2001).
The pre-Columbian culture occupying this region is known as Chachapoya (see
Chapter 45 in this volume). The khipu themselves, however, were undoubtedly products
of the Chachapoya-Inca culture, a complex hybrid society that emerged in the cloud forest
between the central Marañon and Huallaga rivers following the Inca conquest of this
region, in the late fifteenth to early sixteenth centuries. The Laguna de los Cóndores khipu
archives contain one of the most convincing khipu calendars identified to date (Urton 2001;
see also Zuidema for a study of a calendar from Ica), as well as a particularly interesting
and complex example of a set of “matching khipu.” This latter phrase refers to two or more
samples that share identical, or very similar, color patterning and numerical values (see
Urton 2005). The similarity and overlap of data registered on the set of three ChachapoyaInca khipu points to the potential archival relationships among multiple samples deriving
from the same archaeological site or provenance zone.
It is common to refer to the artifacts we have been discussing here as “Inca khipu,”
implying thereby that the objects in question were made and used in the Andes between ca.
AD 1400–1532. In fact, through to today there has not been much information from either
the absolute or relative dating of samples to support such claims. We actually know very
little about the chronology of the production and use of Inca khipu. Even more uncertain is
the question of precedents, or antecedents, of Inca (i.e., Late Horizon) period knotted string
records. It is widely believed that khipu technology of the Late Horizon was a development
from an earlier, Middle Horizon (Wari) cord recording technology. In the samples that have
been attributed to the pre-Inca Wari, it appears that recording was performed not by way of
knots but by means of thread wrapping of cords in colorful bands using fine, brightly dyed
threads of camelid fiber. Although we have good studies of the patterns of thread-wrapping
The Inca Khipu: Knotted-Cord Record Keeping in the Andes
on a few Middle Horizon samples (Conklin 1982; Pereyra S. 1997) and even archaeological recovery of at least one sample from a good Middle Horizon context (Shady et al.
2000), we do not yet have convincing arguments either for how information was encoded
by means of thread wrapping, nor for how or when Middle Horizon thread-wrapped khipu
evolved into Late Horizon Inca knotted-string khipu.
With regard to the dating of the production and use of khipu that presumably occurred
during the Inca period, the Puruchuco and Chachapoya collections are again of particular
interest. In the former case, the urn in which the 21 khipu from Puruchuco were found is
described in the field notes made at the time of their recovery as “a narrow-necked urn
[cantaro], semi-ovoid in form, covered with soot and with an applique on the outer body
in the form of a serpent” (cited in Urton and Brezine, 2005: 1067, note 3). Ceramics of the
style described in this burial (especially urns with strip applique in the form of serpents)
are typical of the style of central coastal wares referred to as Yschma, or Huancho (Cornejo
Guerrero 2000: 166). This was the common local ceramic style during the late Late Intermediate Period to Late Horizon in the three rivers valleys—Chillón, Rimac, Lurín—that
made up the core territory of the Kingdom of Yschma, which had its ritual and pilgrimage
center at the site of Pachacamac (see Chapter 38 in this volume). The association of the
khipu from Puruchuco with an Yschma/Huancho style urn suggests that this set of khipu
was related to the keeping of accounts by Inca record keepers within the territory of this
important coastal administrative center.
The Chachapoya-Inca khipu from Laguna de los Cóndores were found in association
with ceramics and textiles in styles ranging from the Late Intermediate Period through to
the Late Horizon (von Hagen 2000). However, glass beads, glazed pottery, and a small Latin
cross found in the disturbed burial chambers provide evidence of the continued production
and curation of mummies, as well as engagement with other valued burial items, such as
the khipu, into early colonial times (Urton 2001: 132). In addition to these sources of relative dating, we have five radiocarbon dates taken from khipu samples at this site. Four of
these (calibrated) AMS readings produced dates between AD 1479 ± 38 and 1531 ± 69
[Note 4]. The fifth AMS calibrated reading from the site of LC1 gave a date of AD 1203 ± 34.
I am inclined to disregard the latter reading, as it is so far out of line with the other four
readings from the same site. This leaves us, then, with C14 dates that place the tested samples from Laguna de los Cóndores beginning around the late fifteenth century when it is
thought the Incas entered the Chachapoyas area (Chapter 45 in this volume) until a little
while after the European invasion and the first entry of Spaniards into the Chachapoyas
region (AD 1535).
Interestingly, the other two AMS dates I have obtained on khipu samples also date
between late pre-Hispanic and early Colonial times. One sample (UR35/AS70), from a
khipu in the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, in Santiago de Chile, produced a calibrated AMS reading of 365 ± 29 BP, or AD 1538 ± 66; this khipu was recovered from the
site of Playa Miller #6, near Arica, Chile. A khipu sample (without provenance) in Emory
Univerity’s Carlos Museum [Note 5] yielded a calibrated AMS reading of 336 ± 36 BP, or
AD 1552 ± 59.
Therefore, the radiocarbon dates from seven khipu from the far northern highlands of
Peru to the north coast of Chile yielded dates from the period between late pre-Hispanic to
early Colonial times. Were we not to have persistent testimony from Spanish writers from
the earliest days following the European invasion of the Andes about the widespread use of
khipu in the Inca state, we might be left (from the AMS dates) with the suspicion that khipu
were in fact a late development of Inca information technology that became more highly
837
838
G. Urton
developed during the colony, rather than an artifact that was of central importance in Inca
administrative practice throughout the (brief) life of the Empire.
COLONIAL SOURCES ON KHIPU
Although none of the Spanish chroniclers laid out for us how to read an actual khipu
(there is much general commentary on idealized or abstract samples), nonetheless, the
colonial chronicles and documents are the best sources of information on the roles, status and manipulation of these devices in Inca administrative practice. Several useful summaries of the colonial testimony have been published to date (e.g., Locke 1923; Quilter
and Urton 2002; Urton n.d.). Chroniclers insist that khipu were consulted in relation to a
variety of matters of interest to the Inca state, from censuses and tribute records (Acosta
2002: 349–350; Cieza de León 1967: 62, 67; Garcilaso de la Vega 1966: 274–275), to
astronomy and calendrics (Guaman Poma 1980), to the keeping of what are often referred
to as historical annals (Molina 1916). Both Antonio de la Calancha (1974) and Garcilaso
de la Vega (1966) assert that they learned how to read certain types of khipu. These and
other sources have been studied closely (e.g., Pärssinen 1992; Quilter and Urton 2002), but
the data and recording principles described in these accounts have not yet led to significant
breakthroughs in decoding extant khipu samples.
In addition to the various accounts and commentaries on khipu contained in the
Spanish chronicles, we have a growing body of so-called khipu transcriptions (Pärssinen
and Kiviharju 2004). These are documents written by Spanish scribes in (Spanish) alphabetic script from translations of readings of khipu given by native record keepers in their
native Andean languages (especially Quechua and Aymara). While the khipu transcriptions
primarily focus on the types of information that were of most immediate, practical interest to Spanish administrators (e.g., census data and both pre-Hispanic and colonial tribute
accounts), two features of these transcriptions render such documents of great importance
in present-day efforts to understand how information was encoded onto and decoded from
both statistical and narrative records.
In the first place, the identities mentioned in these documents (e.g., individual offices
and statuses and various types of plants, animals, manufactured products, etc.) were clearly
of enduring significance to the Inca record keepers. Many of these same objects and identities are presumably also recorded in some of the extant khipu. Secondly, it has been
shown (Murra 1975; Pärssinen 1992) that, while not universal or invariant, the order in
which these identities were placed, read and transcribed from samples reflects principles
of organization, classification, and precedence that would have had salience in Inca record
keeping more generally. Therefore, the khipu transcriptions contain both information and
organizational principles that may eventually provide clues for our on-going efforts to decipher Inca statistical and even narrative khipu.
PRESENT-DAY STUDY OF EXTANT KHIPU
Beginning with the work of L. Leland Locke at the American Museum of Natural History
(1923), the most significant advances made in decoding khipu information to date have
been in terms of the study of the numerical data registered on these devices. It is critical
to note here that the three knot types tied into khipu described earlier—figure-eight, long,
The Inca Khipu: Knotted-Cord Record Keeping in the Andes
and single—were tied into the strings in hierarchical clusters that in many, though not all
[Note 6] samples signed quantitative values in the Inca/Quechua decimal place system of
numeration. The signing of such values was a central element in the recording of statistical
data in many of the Inca khipu (Garcilaso de la Vega 1966; Locke 1923).
The study of the quantitative data recorded on khipu has been the focus of a fortyyear program of khipu studies undertaken by Marcia Ascher and Robert Ascher (1997). The
Aschers’ work is based on their careful study of some 215 samples (see: http://instruct1.cit.
cornell.edu/research/quipu∼ascher/). The corpus of Ascher khipu descriptions forms the
basis for all modern analyses of khipu record keeping, including the KDB (although the
KDB project has produced descriptions of an additional 133 samples; see the data tables at:
http://khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu/datatables.html).
In addition to their descriptive studies, the Aschers have analyzed a number of
important patterns in the organization of numerical data registered on khipu, such as hierarchical categorization, summation and numerical rhythms. The Aschers argue that these
features constitute the logical principles at the core of the khipu information system and
that, as such, they represent the practical operations at the heart of a complex mathematical
agenda, or set of problems, that was the primary motivation for much khipu manipulation
and practice (1997: 81, 93, 101, 109, 122). For the Aschers, to penetrate the code of the
khipu is to expose the core values and principles of Inca cognition, mathematics and, ultimately, philosophy.
Recently, KDB project personnel have produced studies of khipu focusing primarily on the identification of different types of numerical data that may derive from different record keeping interests of Inca state administrators. Based on study of the khipu
samples stored in the KDB, we have identified several heretofore unreported examples
of matching khipu, as well as what we term “close matches”—two or more samples with
nearly identical numerical information and/or color patterning (Urton 2005). It has been
argued that close matches may result from successive, temporally or socially (e.g., from
different khipu keepers) distant accountings of such phenomena as censuses or tribute
records. We were also able to identify the highly complex accounting hierarchy from
Puruchuco. This is a set of seven khipu, distributed into matching pairs (and one triad) of
khipu on three hierarchical levels. In this accounting group, sums of data on lower levels
are recorded on strings of khipu at higher levels, or, in the reverse direction, larger values
on higher levels are subdivided, or partitioned, into smaller values recorded on khipu at
lower levels (Urton and Brezine 2005). Such studies are helping define some of the basic
procedures of record keeping, including cross-referencing and checks and balances, used
in khipu administrative practices.
KHIPU ACCOUNTS AND ACCOUNTING IN PREHISTORY
AND HISTORY
The khipu played a central role in Inca administrative practice, as these knotted-string
accounts emerged from and gave testimony to the work of organizing, classifying and
representing information relating to the composition and distribution of material goods
and other resources, including political power, in the Inka state. Despite our understanding of the important role played by these devices in Inkaic administrative practice, we
still lack detailed, in-depth knowledge and understanding of khipu semiosis and “reading”
procedures. Specifically, one of the key questions facing khipu researchers is what the
839
840
G. Urton
Spanish meant when they wrote in their own ink-on-paper records that the khipukamayuq
“consulted” information recorded on khipu in recounting historical and other types of narrative accounts. Was this “consulting” an act of reading what essentially was a script,
with fully formed grammatical units registered three-dimensionally on the khipu strings?
Or did the khipu function more like a registry of general signifiers evoking classes of
objects, actions, places and times that were given more nuanced form and substance by
a khipukamayuq, who would have brought to the reading of these sketchy notes, or cues,
information retained in his memory, as well as a range of creative, discursive practices for
producing a narrative appropriate to a given place and perhaps audience? Or was the manner of “consultation” somewhere between the extremes of the continuum of styles from the
restricted, literal reading procedure, at one end, to the more open, free-form procedure, at
the other? The answers to these questions, which we are unable to provide at the present
time, will go a long way toward ultimately determining whether or not the khipu recording
and information system should be considered a true writing system.
As was argued in numerous works published during the reflorescence of anthropological historical studies in the Andes at the end of the last (twentieth) century (e.g.,
Abercrombie 1998; Julien, 2000; Urton 1990; Wachtel 1977), the control of history was
one of the principal sources of power in both late pre-Hispanic and early colonial times
in the Andes. In the former period, Inka recordkeepers were engaged daily in collecting,
classifying and registering in the khipus information vital to the attempt to control and
exploit subject populations over the extraordinary swath of land that stretches from what
is today Quito to Santiago de Chile. In the early colonial period, many of these same
native record keepers and their direct descendants found themselves locked in what can
only be described, from the present-day perspective, as a life and death struggle with
an alien state built around political institutions, bureaucratic procedures and a religious
ideology quite unlike any that had previously existed in the Andes. Intimately related to,
underlying, and reinforcing these Spanish colonial institutions, procedures and ideologies was a record keeping system that operated on a glottographic, alphabetic recording
principle that was almost assuredly different from anything that had existed in Andean
recording technology up to that time.
Accounting and writing systems are directly concerned with the classification, control and representation of information about the world. As history played itself out in the
early colonial Andes, the alphabetic script and the political system it supported decidedly
won out over the Andean cord- and knot-based recording technology. Just as Andean peoples struggled to create a space for their cord-based representations of self and society in
the context of a world ultimately won over by the technology of alphabetic writing and the
Hindu-Arabic numeral signs, we are left today with the challenge of reading in and through
the accounts produced by means of these same grapheme/numeric traditions, as well as
interpreting the archaeological record, information and representations that can help us
arrive at an understanding of what was surely one of the most extraordinary recording
technologies of the ancient world—the khipus.
CONCLUSION
Much remains to be done in the field of khipu research. Many samples have yet to be
recorded in the standardized format developed by the Aschers (Aschers’ website) and
modified and expanded by us (Urton 2003: 56–57). At the time of writing, some fifty
The Inca Khipu: Knotted-Cord Record Keeping in the Andes
of the recorded samples have yet to be entered into the KDB. Perhaps most importantly,
there remain many archives of colonial documents from (and in) Andean nations that
researchers have not yet searched for khipu transcriptions. Finally, it should be noted
that very exciting ethnographic work is underway in contemporary Andean communities
that retain khipu and that persist in the communal use and curation of these extraordinary
objects (Salomon 2004; see also earlier work with ethnographic samples by Mackey
[1970]). Any one of these avenues of investigation, or, more likely, a combination of all
of them, may one day lead to significant breakthroughs in our understanding of how the
Inca record keepers coded and decoded—or “read”—information on these remarkable
devices.
NOTES
1. “Khipu” is the spelling according to the Peruvian Ministry of Education’s graphophonemic conventions.
“Quipu” is the Hispanicized spelling.
2. In khipu studies, it is common practice to provide for each sample studied a two-letter abbreviation, drawn
from the name of the investigator (UR=Urton; AS=Ascher), and a unique number to identify each sample.
Descriptions of the sample in question were produced by both the Aschers (AS70) and by Urton (UR35).
3. This figure does not take into account some 12 to 15 camelid khipu from Cajamarquilla, on the central coast of
Peru, that are in the American Museum of Natural History, in New York; these samples have not been studied
to date.
4. The seven C14 readings from khipu samples presented in the text—five from Laguna de los Cóndores, one
(UR35/AS70) from the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino (MCHAP), and one from the Carlos Museum—
were obtained by the author from the NSF University of Arizona AMS facility. The readings were calibrated
using the Calpal online calibration program (18 October 2005).
Lab I.D.
Sample I.D.
DC_13 Value
Years B.P.
Age B.P.
T12818A
CMA373/LC2-002
−26
414+−35
1501+−58
T12819A
CMA419/LC1-048
−21.9
403+−35
1518+−70
T12820
CMA628/LC1-257B
−11.3
419+−36
1479+−38
T12821A
CMA847/LC1-476
−24.5
834+−35
1203+−34
T12822A
CMA479/LC1-108
−22.5
379+−34
1531+−69
AA46921
MCHAP780
−12.1
365+−29
1538+−66
AA64905
Carlos2002.1.118
−24.7
335+−36
1552+−59
5. This sample in the Carlos Museum (#2002.1.118) is actually composed of three separate khipu whose primary
cords have been knotted together.
6. About one-third of all khipu do not have their knots tied in decimal-based hierarchical tiers (as in the numerical/
statistical khipu). I have referred to these as non-decimal, narrative, and “anomalous” khipu (Urton 2003).
REFERENCES
Abercrombie, Thomas A., 1998, Pathways of Memory and Power: Ethnography and History among an Andean
People. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.
Acosta, José de, 2002 [1590], Natural and Moral History of the Indies. Translated by F. Lopéz-Morillas, edited
by Jane Mangin. Duke University Press, Durham and London.
Arellano, Carmen, 1999, Quipu y tocapu. Sistemas de comunicación incas. In Los Incas. Arte y Símbolos, edited
by Franklin Pease, et al., pp. 215–261. Colección Arte y Tesoros del Perú. Banco de Crédito del Perú,
Lima.
Ascher, Marcia and Robert Ascher, 1997 [1981], Mathematics of the Inca: Code of the Quipu. Dover, New York.
Calancha, Antonio de la, 1974 [1638], Crónica Moralizada del Orden de San Agustin en el Perú con Sucesos
Ejemplares en Esta Monarquía. Vol. I. Transcription and critical study by Ignacio Prado Pastor. Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima.
Cieza de Leon, Pedro de, 1967 [1551], El Señorío de los Incas. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima.
841
842
G. Urton
Cobo, Bernabé, 1983 [1553], History of the Inca Empire. Translated and edited by Roland Hamilton. University
of Texas Press, Austin.
Conklin, William J., 1982, The information system of the Middle Horizon quipus. In Ethnoastronomy and
Archaeoastronomy in the American Tropics, edited by Anthony F. Aveni and Gary Urton, pp. 261–281.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 385. New York Academy of Sciences, New York.
, 2002, A khipu information string theory. In Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting
in Andean Khipu, edited by Jeffrey Quilter and Gary Urton, pp. 53–86. University of Texas Press,
Austin.
Cornejo Guerrero, Miguel Antonio, 2000, La nación ischma y la provincia inca de Pachacámac. Arqueológicas
24: 149–173.
D’Altroy, Terence N., 2002, The Incas. Basil Blackwell, Malden, MA.
Garcilaso de la Vega, El Inca, 1966 [1609–1617], Royal Commentaries of the Incas. Translated and with an
Introduction by Harold V. Livermore. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe, 1980 [1615], El Primer Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno. Critical edition by
John V. Murra and Rolena Adorno. Translation and textual analysis by Jorge L. Urioste. 3 Vols. Siglo
Veintiuno, Mexico City.
Guillén, Sonia E., 1999, Arqueología de Emergencia: Inventario, Catalogación y Conservación de los Materiales
Arqueológicos de los Mausoleos de la Laguna de los Cóndores. Final report to the Instituto Nacional de
Cultura, Lima.
Jijón y Caamaño, J., 1949, Maranga: Contribución al Conocimiento de los Aborígenes del Valle del Rimac, Perú.
La Prensa Católica, Quito, Ecuador.
Julien, Catherine J., 1988, How Inca decimal administration worked. Ethnohistory 35 (3): 257–79.
, 2000, Reading Inca History. University of Iowa Press, Iowa City.
Locke, L., Leland, 1923, The Ancient Quipu, or Peruvian Knot Record. American Museum of Natural History,
New York.
Loza, Carmen Beatriz, 1999, Quipus and quipolas at the Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. Genesis of a reference
collection (1872–1999). Baessler-Archiv, Neue Folge, Vol. 47: 39–75.
Mackey, Carol J., 1970, Knot Records in Ancient and Modern Perú. Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology,
University of California, Berkeley.
, Hugo Pereyra, Carlos Radicati, Humberto Rodriguez, and Oscar Valverde (eds.), 1990, Quipu y
Yupana: Colección de Escritos. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Lima.
Molina, Cristóbal de, 1916 [1573], Relación de las Fábulas y Ritos de los Incas. Edited by by H. H. Urteaga and
C.A. Romero. Colección de Libros y Documentos Referentes a la Historia del Perú, Vol. 1. Imprenta y
Libreria Sanmartí. Lima.
Murra, John V., 1975, Las etno-categorías de un khipu estatal. In Formaciones Económicas y Políticas en el
Mundo Andino, by John V. Murra, pp. 243–254. Instituto de Estudios Andinos, Lima.
Pärssinen, Martti, 1992, Tawantinsuyu: The Inca State and Its Political Organization. Societas Historica Finlandiae,
Studia Historica 43. Helsinki.
and Jukka Kiviharju, 2004, Textos Andinos: Corpus de Textos Khipu Incaicos y Coloniales. Tomo I.
Acta Ibero-Americana Fennica. Instituto Iberoamericano de Finlandia and Departamento de Filología
Española I, Facultad de Filología, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid.
Pereyra S., Hugo, 1996, Acerca de dos quipus con características numéricas excepcionales. Bulletin de l’Institut
Français d’Etudes Andines 25 (2): 187–202.
, 1997, Los quipus con cuerdas entorchadas. In Arqueología, Antropología e Historia en los Andes:
Homenaje a María Rostworowski, edited by Rafael Varón Gabai and Javier Flores Espinoza, pp. 187–198.
Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Lima.
, Hugo, 2001, Notas sobre el descubrimiento de la clave numeral de los quipus incaicos. Boletín
del Museo de Arqueología Antropología 4 (5): 115–123.
Pizarro, Hernando, 1920 [1533], A los Señores Oydores de la Audiencia Real de Su Magestad. In Informaciones
Sobre el Antiguo Perú, edited by Horacio H. Urteaga, pp. 16–180. Colección de Libros y Documentos
Referentes a la Historia del Perú, 3 (Second Series). Imprenta y Libreria Sanmartí, Lima.
Quilter, Jeffrey and Gary Urton (eds.), 2002, Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in Andean Khipu.
University of Texas Press, Austin.
Radicati de Primeglio, Carlos, 1964, La ‘Seriación’ como posible Clave para Descifrar los Quipus Extranumerales.
Biblioteca de la Sociedad Peruana de Historia, Serie: Monografías, VI. Universidad Nacional Mayor de
San Marcos, Lima.
, 1979, El Sistema Contable de los Incas. Libreria Studium, Lima.
The Inca Khipu: Knotted-Cord Record Keeping in the Andes
Salomon, Frank, 2004, The Cord Keepers: Khipus and Cultural Life in a Peruvian Village. Duke University Press,
Durham and London.
Shady, Ruth, Joaquín Narváez, and Sonia López, 2000, La antigüedad del uso del quipu como escritura: las
evidencias de la Huaca San Marcos. Boletín del Museo de Arqueología y Antropología [Año 3] 10: 2–23.
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima.
Urton, Gary, 1990, The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origin of the Inkas. The University of Texas
Press, Austin.
, 1994, A new twist in an old yarn: variation in knot directionality in the Inka khipus. BaesslerArchiv Neue Folge, Band XLII: 271–305.
, 1998. From knots to narratives: reconstructing the art of historical record-keeping in the Andes
from Spanish transcriptions of Inka khipus. Ethnohistory 45 (3): 409–438.
, 2001, A calendrical and demographic tomb text from northern Peru. Latin American Antiquity
12 (2): 127–147.
, 2002, An overview of Spanish colonial commentary on Andean knotted-string records. In
Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in Andean Khipu, edited by Jeffrey Quilter and Gary
Urton, pp. 3–25. University of Texas Press, Austin.
, 2003, Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records. The
University of Texas Press, Austin.
, 2005, Khipu archives: duplicate accounts and identity labels in the Inka knotted string records.
Latin American Antiquity 16 (2): 147–167.
, n.d., A history of studies of Andean knotted string records. In Guide to Documentary Sources for
Andean Art History and Archaeology, edited by Joanne Pillsbury. Center for Advanced Study in the Visual
Arts, Washington, D.C. (in press).
and Carrie J. Brezine, 2005, Khipu accounting in ancient Peru. Science 309: 1065–1067.
Villacorta Ostolaza, L.F. (ed.), 2005, Puruchuco y la Sociedad de Lima: Un Homenaje a Arturo Jiménez Borja.
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Lima.
von Hagen, Adriana, 2000, Nueva iconografía Chachapoyas. Iconos: Revista Peruana de Conservación, Arte y
Arqueología 4: 8–17. Lima.
Wachtel, Nathan, 1977, The Vision of the Vanquished. Translated by Ben and Sian Reynolds. The Harvester Press
Ltd., Hassocks, Sussex.
Zuidema, R. Tom, 1989, A quipu calendar from Ica, Peru, with a comparison to the ceque calendar from Cuzco. In
World Archaeoastronomy, edited by Anthony F. Aveni, pp. 341–51. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
843