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
Quipucamayoc with a quipu and an Andean calculation board, called yupana. Drawing from the indigenous chronicler Guamán Poma de Ayala [1615].
Does the quipu was analogous to a system of calculation?
The quipu was never used as an instrument of calculation. Years of study show that the numerical values identified in the quipus were calculation annotations made through another system. Researchers believe that one of the methods that the Incas had to make accounts was using small stones for more complex mathematical operations by a kind of ‘abacus’, called yupana. The results of those calculations would have been after recorded through quipu knots.