Quipu: Counting with knots in the Inka Empire – 2003
- Record-keeping with knots
- The quipu and writing
- Tawantinsuyu , the Inka Empire
- The Quipu, and the needs of an empire
- Quipus and tribute
- Basic parts of a Quipu
- Making a Quipu
- Quipus and numerical values
- Narrative Quipus?
- Los distintos usos del Quipu
- Quipu of Arica
- Quipucamayoc , Lord of the Knots
- Quipus in the colonial era
- Epilogue
- To know more about Quipus
- Crédits and acknowledgements
Recreation of a quipu (detail), in the showroom exhibition, Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino.
Epilogue
The scientific study of the quipus started in earnest at the beginning of the twentieth century, and research on these devices continues at an accelerated pace today.
It is hoped that through the careful and patient study of the remaining quipu samples, as well as through mining the Spanish archives containing ancient transcriptions of quipu readings, we will one day succeed in understanding more clearly how the Inka quipucamayocs used these remarkable record-keeping devices. Surely, they contain important information concerning the organization and history of the Inka Empire, last and greatest of the pre-Hispanic states of the Andes.