Kipusu The portable information archives created by the Incas may evoke memories of 1970s macrame knitting with long strands of intricately knotted earth-toned fibers, but their functionality more closely resembled that of densely plotted computerized spreadsheets.
Cecilia Pardo-Grau, head curator of current exhibitions at the British Museum Peru: A journey through time This is explained in the Curator’s Corner episode above. Kipus It was used to track everything from inventories and censuses to historical narratives, using a system that assigned meaning to things like the type and position of knots, the spaces between them, the length of the cord, and the color of the fibers.
Much of the information is stored internally Kipus Although it has not yet been deciphered by modern scholars, open Kipu repository — Computational anthropologist John Clindaniel’s open source database — allows you to compare hundreds of patterns Kipus It is held in museum and university collections.
Few people, even in the Inca Empire, had the ability to understand it. Kipu. This task now looks like this: Kipukamayoku, High-ranking government officials have been trained in creating and interpreting these organic spreadsheets since childhood.
known as the messenger of the fleet chaskis transported KipuThey walked from one administrative center to another, creating an information superhighway that predates the advent of the Internet by nearly five centuries. Kipus‘Durable organic cotton native camelid The fibers were well suited to withstand the rigors of both time and the road.
500 year old composite materials Kipu The piece, which was delivered to British Museum organic conservator Nicole Lord before the exhibition, was intact but severely tangled and fragile, belying its age. She explains that: Kip’s The spell was cast during the painstaking process of restoring it to a state where researchers could collect some of its secrets.
visit National Museum of Precolumbino Website to learn more Kipu It was featured in a series of fascinating short articles that accompanied the 2003 landmark exhibition QUIPU: Counting in Knots of the Inca Empire.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on the site in 2022.
Related content:
How the Incas were more successful at skull surgery than American Civil War doctors
How the Incas used intricately tied strings called quipu to write history, send messages, and keep records
Explore the Florentine Codex: The glorious 16th-century manuscript documenting Aztec culture has been digitized and made available online
Ancient maps that changed the world: See world maps of ancient Greece, Babylon, Rome, and the Islamic world
Ayun Halliday He is New York City’s chief primatologist.
Source: Open Culture – www.openculture.com
