You Say Khipu, I Say Quipu (ca. 1400 AD)
No matter which what you call it, Incan khipu/quipu were recording devices created and used throughout the Incan Empire, made out of colored strings – generally spun and plied from alpaca or llama hair – with information encoded on them by a complex system of knots. It was originally believed that these khipu only contained numeric values, however there are theories that some strands of knots contained a form of binary code that was capable of recording words, or “logographic” information. If that is the case, that may mean that the Incan khipu contain stories of the people’s history and past.
Unlike other Bronze Age civilizations, the Incan Empire did not seem to develop their own written language. They created monumental structures, accomplished incredible architectural feats, invented excellent pieces of technology and were highly skilled at urban planning, and definitely knew how to mobilize people and resources to maximize their effectiveness when needed – needless to say, the Incans were very intelligent people. However… it seems that they just simply didn’t feel the need to write anything down. As a result, they created their own recording system through knotted strings and cords, which was likely developed simply due to the practical need for resource tracking.
The problem is, no one has yet been able to completely decipher the vast amounts of khipu left behind by these people. There’s no doubt that some of the knotted strands were used for things like tax accounting, census records, and general numerical information concerning livestock and farming resources, and these records would have been under the care of basic community administrators. Historians know that the Incans used a decimal or base 10 system of counting, and so the khipus that contain this numerical information have been “read”…but the tide of thought about whether this was the only use is beginning to change.
Since the Incan people were using a decimal system of counting, there is a distinct possibility that they learned how to utilize a binary system to convey other information – much like the way that computers work with information, using distinct combinations of the numbers 1 & 0. After all, of the 700 or so known khipu that still exist, only about 2/3 of them are thought to be arranged in a numerical pattern – leaving open the distinct possibility that the other third may be narrative material that holds the key to stories and information about Incan history.
In 2005, researchers at Harvard University in Boston found that several khipu contained a repeated 3-knot pattern in some of the strings, and after a great deal of investigation, they concluded that this kind of knot pattern may in fact be indicative of a place-name, or ‘toponym’. Even if this place-name identification is only found in some of the accounting documents, it still marks the first time that an actual word has been identified rather than simply a number – and if the Incans were able to convey specific place names… why wouldn’t they have been able to record additional information with words in other khipu?
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