Quipu (Latin American Studies)

Introduction

The quipu (also khipu) is a system of knotted, colored, cotton or camelid fiber cords used by the Incas and other Andean cultures to record information. The earliest known quipus, which were used by the Wari culture during the second half of the first millennium CE, appear to employ primarily chromatic patterns created by wrapping different colored threads around the cords of the quipu. The much simpler color patterns in later Inca quipu are produced by the use of colored cords rather than thread wrappings. The most prominent conventions employed by Inca-period quipu also involve cord configuration and knots tied into the strings using a decimal place system. Wari quipus remain completely undeciphered, and the only portion of the Inca-era quipu that has been deciphered is the decimal place system through which knots recorded numbers. The quipu is normally implicated in responses to what has been called the Inca paradox: the fact that the Incas developed a highly complex and extensive empire without a form of writing, at least as that term is normally defined. The prominence of the numerical dimension of the quipu has been used as a basis for dismissing this medium as a mnemonic device that, while not writing, made possible the level of socioeconomic and political complexity that characterized the Inca empire. While such arguments emphasize the numerical function of the quipu, colonial sources indicate that it was used for a wide variety of purposes, including tribute and storehouse records, censuses, laws, and even histories. Some scholars have used such sources to argue that the quipu was in fact a form of writing. Since the 1990s, interest in the quipu has grown as evidenced by an increase in the number of publications by a greater number of scholars working on this topic. Work on the quipu exhibits several trends or approaches: 1) detailed physical descriptions of quipu in museum collections; 2) decipherment projects; 3) research that explores the history of the quipu; and 4) textual analyses that focus on the characteristics and implications of the discourses associated with quipu transcriptions from the colonial period. The continued use of quipus in indigenous Andean communities, most often as patrimonial objects, has also attracted the attention of investigators. These quipus serve as the basis for ethnographic research into the communities that have preserved them, but in some cases they may also provide valuable clues about the nature of Prehispanic and colonial quipu.

General Overviews

Given that our understanding of how quipus work is fairly limited, general introductions to the quipu focus primarily on the physical characteristics of this device, the nature of the decimal system, and/or the historical contexts of its use. Early discussions of the quipu in Locke 1923 and Radicati di Primeglio 2006 are still useful. But Ascher and Ascher 1981 produced a much more comprehensive introduction to the khipu as a physical object, what is known about how it worked, and the theoretical possibilities of the medium. Urton 2003a is a more recent, updated, bilingual introduction to the quipu. Urton 2003b proposes a new approach to the quipu, arguing that this device employed a much more diverse set of conventions as part of a binary code. Brokaw 2005 presents a detailed critique of Urton’s binary code theory. Urton 2008 presents a historical overview of scholarly work on the quipu and discusses future directions for quipu research.

Ascher, Marcia, and Robert Ascher. Code of the Quipu: A Study in Media, Mathematics, and Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981.
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A detailed description of the physical features of the quipu, its known conventions, and how it might have represented different types of information. This book is an obligatory starting point for scholars; its clear style makes it perfectly accessible to non-specialists.
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Brokaw, Galen. “Toward Deciphering the Khipu.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35.4 (2005): 571–589.
DOI: 10.1162/0022195043327381Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An in-depth discussion, analysis, and critique of the seven-bit binary code theory proposed by Urton 2003b. Argues that while most of the individual binary features identified by Urton may have had conventional values, the proposed seven-bit binary code is both internally contradictory and externally uncorroborated.
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Locke, Leland. The Ancient Quipu or Peruvian Knot Record. New York: The American Museum of Natural History, 1923.
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The first in-depth, book-length study of quipu. Provides a general physical description of the quipu, and explains the decimal place system used to record numbers. Includes a compilation of excerpts from published texts that deal with the quipu from colonial times through the early 20th century. See entries in Descriptions of Quipu and Quipu Decipherment.
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Radicati di Primeglio, Carlos. Estudios sobre los quipus. Edited by Gary Urton. Lima, Peru: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos/COFIDE/Instituto Italiano di Cultura, 2006.
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A compilation of Carlos Radicati’s seminal studies of the quipu. Radicati describes the physical features of the quipu, but he also explores the conceptual field to which the quipu and other Andean signifying practices belonged.
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Urton, Gary. Quipu: Contar anudando en el imperio Inka/Knotting Account in the Inka Empire. Santiago, Chile: Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, 2003a.
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A brief, but updated description of the quipu, produced as a catalog for a quipu exhibit at the Chilean Museum of Precolumbian Art.
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Urton, Gary. Signs of the Inka Khipu. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003b.
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Discusses the issue of mnemonics. Then describes seven binary features of the quipu and argues that they functioned in a seven-bit binary code. See Brokaw 2005 for a detailed critique of this theory. It is important to note that the conventional significance of individual binary features, for which there is some evidence, is not necessarily dependent upon the theory of a seven-bit binary code, for which there is no evidence.
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Urton, Gary. “Andean Quipu: A History of Writings and Studies on Inca and Colonial Knotted-String Records.” In Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies, 1530–1900. Vol. 1. Edited by Joanne Pillsbury, 65–86. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008.
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A detailed overview of what colonial sources say about the quipu, and a summary of modern research on this medium. Concludes with a discussion of future directions for research on the quipu.
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Anthologies

A number of valuable anthologies of articles have been published, especially since the 1990s. Mackey, et al. 1990 collects a number of seminal articles that had been published previously in venues that were not always easily accessible to other scholars along with more recent scholarship on the quipu. Similarly, Radicati di Primeglio 2006 is a compilation of early seminal studies of the quipu that had a relatively limited distribution, especially outside of Peru. Quilter and Urton 2002, Arellano Hoffman and Urton 2011, and Curatola Petrocchi and Puente Luna 2013 are all collections of more recent, original articles that originated as presentations prepared for symposia or conference panels dedicated to the quipu. Quilter and Urton 2002 in particular contributed to raising the awareness about the quipu and the issues and research problems associated with it.

Arellano Hoffman, Carmen, and Gary Urton, eds. Atando Cabos. Lima, Peru: Ministerio de Cultura/Museo Nacional de Arqueología, Antropología e Historia del Perú, 2011.
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A collection of articles that discuss Wari quipu, Inca quipu, the collection of quipu from Laguna de los Cóndores, quipu from the colonial and postcolonial periods, and the way in which early modern philosophical ideas influenced the perception and understanding of quipu by the Spaniards.
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Curatola Petrocchi, Marco, and José Carlos de la Puente Luna, eds. El quipu colonial: Estudios y materiales. Lima, Peru: PUCP, 2013.
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A collection of essays by various scholars focusing on the quipu during the colonial period. See entry under History of the Quipu.
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Mackey, Carol J., Hugo Pereyra, Carlos Radicati, Humberto Rodríguez, and Oscar Valverde, eds. Quipu y yupana. Lima, Peru: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología/Ministerio de la Presidencia, 1990.
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Original and republished essays focusing on Pre-Inca quipu, Inca quipu, modern quipu, the yupana device associated with the quipu, instruments similar to the quipu, and an essay on the grammar of Quechua numbers.
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Quilter, Jeffrey, and Gary Urton. Narrative Threads: Counting and Recounting in Andean Khipu. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.
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A collection of articles covering the history of the quipu in the colonial period, the nature of Quechua discourse structure, the physical features of the quipu and their possible significance, the representation and use of the quipu in colonial documents, and the survival of quipu into modern times.
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Radicati di Primeglio, Carlos. Estudios sobre los quipus. Edited by Gary Urton. Lima, Peru: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos/COFIDE/Instituto Italiano di Cultura, 2006.
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A republication in one volume of all four of Carlos Radicati’s seminal studies of the quipu with an introductory study by Gary Urton. Radicati’s observations about quipu conventions and the Quechua concept of quilca are still relevant.
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Descriptions of Quipu

The most compelling questions related to the study of the quipus deal with approaches to decipherment, but decipherment projects require data. Altieri 1941 argued that attempts at decipherment should be put on hold in favor of the compilation of systematic descriptions of as many quipus as possible. Locke 1923 and Altieri 1941 both made small contributions to this endeavor. But Ascher and Ascher 1978 and Ascher and Ascher 1988 make a much more thorough attempt to compile a comprehensive set of quipu descriptions. Building on the Aschers’ work, Gary Urton’s Khipu Database Project created, and continues to update, an online database containing the most comprehensive and detailed descriptions of quipus to date. Pereyra Sánchez 2006 contributes detailed descriptions of thirty-two quipus from Pachacamac, which Urton has incorporated into his database. While attempts at decipherment continue, arguably the most important work continues to be that of compiling data.

Altieri, Andrés Radames. “Sobre 11 khipu peruanos.” Revista del Instituto de Antropología de la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán 2.1 (1941): 177–211.
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A physical description of eleven quipus. Altieri was the first to expand the set of features that Locke used to describe archaeological quipu to include anomalies in the decimal place system, cord groupings based on spacing and color patterns, and cord wrappings.
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Ascher, Marcia, and Robert Ascher. Code of the Quipu Databook. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1978.
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A detailed description of 200 quipus in museums and private collections around the world with an introduction containing a general description of the quipu, a list of known specimens and their locations, and an explanation of the format employed in the descriptions.
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Ascher, Marcia, and Robert Ascher. Code of the Quipu Databook II. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1988.
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A detailed description of fifteen quipus in museums and private collections around the world with an updated version of the introduction from the first databook.
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Khipu Database Project.
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A website containing general information on the quipu and more specific information about data drawn from analyses of quipu produced by querying an extensive database of formatted quipu descriptions. This database incorporates and updates the information from other sources such as Ascher and Ascher 1978 and Ascher and Ascher 1988.
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Locke, Leland. The Ancient Quipu or Peruvian Knot Record. New York: The American Museum of Natural History, 1923.
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This book-length study of the quipu contains a list of forty-five quipus with descriptions, drawings, diagrams, and photos, including modern and possibly fake quipus. Locke was the first to systematically analyze archaeological quipus to identify and explain how they employed knots in a decimal place system.
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Pereyra Sánchez, Hugo. Descripción de los quipus del Museo de Sitio de Pachacamac. Lima, Peru: Consejo Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Tecnológica/Proyecto Especial Arqueológico Caral-Supe/INC, 2006.
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Contains a detailed description using a standardized format of thirty-two quipus from Pachacamac, an important administrative center in the Inca empire. This collection is particularly important, because these quipus are all verifiably from the same place. Thus they constitute what Gary Urton has called a quipu archive.
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Quipu Conventions

Descriptions of quipus require certain assumptions about what physical features of the quipu are significant. Locke 1923 and other early quipu researchers explain how the knots function in a decimal place system. Even prior to the decipherment of the decimal system, Rivero y Ustariz and Tschudi 1851 was the first to comment on spin/ply direction and possibly knot directionality in quipus, and Conklin 1982 reiterates this observation. Radicati di Primeglio 1949–1950 includes ply direction in its description of quipus. Altieri 1941 emphasizes the importance of conventions involving color, cord groupings, and thread wrappings. Ascher and Ascher 1981 summarizes what was known about quipu conventions at the time, but it leaves out the more speculative observations about such things as spin/ply direction and knot directionality. Urton 2003 provides a more comprehensive treatment of quipu conventions, including the more speculative ones observed by earlier researchers as well as a few new ones such as color categories. Urton’s Khipu Database Project goes even further to record other characteristics such as the diameter of the cords in an attempt to document as many physical features of the quipu as possible in order to accommodate any future discoveries that might uncover additional conventions.

Altieri, Andrés Radames. “Sobre 11 kipu peruanos.” Revista del Instituto de Antropología de la Universidad Nacional de Tucumán 2.1 (1941): 177–211.
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An early description of general quipu conventions along with a detailed description of eleven quipus. Altieri was the first to describe anomalies in the decimal place system, and he argued that these anomalies indicated the non-numeric use of knots. Also argues for the classification of quipus based on differences in conventions such as the use of color, cord groupings, cord wrappings, and so forth.
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Ascher, Marcia, and Robert Ascher. Code of the Quipu: A Study in Media, Mathematics, and Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981.
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A detailed description of the physical features of the quipu, its known conventions at the time, and how it may have recorded different types of information. While somewhat outdated, this book is still a useful and highly accessible introduction for both scholars and lay readers.
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Conklin, William. “The Information System of Middle Horizon Quipus.” In Ethnoastronomy and Archaeoastronomy in the American Tropics. Edited by Anthony F. Aveni and Gary Urton, 261–281. New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1982.
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The first study to identify the distinctive thread-wrapped style of quipu with the Middle Horizon Wari culture based on the archaeological context in which a set of such quipu were found. Also discusses spin and ply direction and direction of cord attachment, both of which will figure later in Urton 2003.
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Khipu Database Project.
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A website dedicated to all things quipu, including a detailed description of quipu conventions. Created and maintained by Gary Urton at Harvard University, this website contains an updated compilation of previous quipu descriptions as well as extensive new data on previously unpublished quipu. The most comprehensive source of raw data on archaeological quipu from museums and private collections around the world.
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Locke, Leland. The Ancient Quipu or Peruvian Knot Record. New York: The American Museum of Natural History, 1923.
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The first explanation of how the decimal place system works on quipu. See entries in General Overviews, Descriptions of Quipu, and Quipu Decipherment.
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Radicati di Primeglio, Carlos. “Introducción al estudio de los quipus.” Documenta: Revista de la Sociedad Peruana de Historia 2 (1949–1950): 244–339.
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An early description of quipu conventions, more thorough than Locke 1923. Includes a discussion of ply direction, which will figure later in Urton 2003.
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Rivero y Ustariz, Mariano, and Johann Jakob von Tschudi. Antigüedades peruanas. 2 vols. Vienna: Imprenta de la Corte del Estado, 1851.
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Nineteenth-century discussion of quipu and its conventions in Volume 1, pp. 103–106. Comments on spin/ply direction and possibly knot directionality, both of which will figure in Urton’s binary code theory in Urton 2003.
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Urton, Gary. Signs of the Inka Khipu. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
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Proposes a theory of binary coding that involves seven features of the quipu that function as binary elements (See entry under Quipu Decipherment). The viability of the idea that these individual features might function in a conventional way on quipu does not depend upon the validity of the larger theory of binary coding, which has been critiqued by Brokaw 2005 (cited under General Overviews).
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The Quipu in Inca Administration

Any large-scale organization such as a state or an empire requires some kind of material medium for recording and managing information. In the Inca empire the primary medium used for this purpose was the quipu. It is not uncommon for archaeologists and historians to discuss the Inca administration without taking into consideration the implications of the quipu recording system. John Murra was one of the first scholars to analyze quipu transcriptions from the colonial period as a way to understand state-level information control. Murra 1968 examines a transcription of a preconquest-era quipu containing census data of an Aymara area under Inca control. In Murra 1974 the analysis of another quipu transcription leads to the identification of quipu conventions involving a hierarchy of ethnocategories that shed light on the nature of information control in the Inca state. Murra 1982 builds on the analysis of ethnocategories introduced in Murra 1974 in an analysis of a more extensive set of quipu transcriptions. Julien 1988 establishes a more direct connection between decimal-based organization of the Inca state and quipu conventions. Pärssinen 1992 is an ethnohistorical study that begins and ends with a serious treatment of the quipu and its role in the Inca state. Brokaw 2010 discusses both Prehispanic and colonial quipus that reveal information about Inca administration. Gary Urton has published several recent studies that advance our understanding of administrative quipu in the Inca state. Urton 2006 analyzes a quipu transcription of census data in conjunction with an archaeological quipu. And Urton and Brezine 2007 examines a set of quipus from Puruchuco that reveals an administrative hierarchy.

Brokaw, Galen. A History of the Khipu. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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Discusses the quipu in the context of the development of the Inca state. Also analyzes a large corpus of quipu transcriptions from the colonial period, some of which were created prior to the conquest. Discusses the differences evident between the Prehispanic and colonial administrative quipu records.
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Julien, Catherine. “How Inca Decimal Administration Worked.” Ethnohistory 35.3 (1988): 257–279.
DOI: 10.2307/481802Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Reconstructs Inca administrative principles and practices based on colonial transcriptions of administrative quipus. Argues that the Incas reconfigured the territories that they conquered by imposing a decimal-based organization reflected in, and one could argue informed by, the quipu.
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Murra, John V. “An Aymara Kingdom in 1567.” Ethnohistory 15.2 (1968): 115–151.
DOI: 10.2307/480555Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discusses a quipu census transcribed in the 16th century. The information pertains to an Aymara area under Inca control. Given the labor-based tribute system of the Inca empire, this type of census data was central to Inca administration.
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Murra, John V. “Las etnocategorías de un khipu estatal.” In Homenaje a Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán. Vol. 2. By Gonzalo Aguirre Beltran, 167–176. Mexico City: Universidad Veracruzana e Instituto Indigenist Interamericano, 1974.
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Analysis of a quipu transcription from 1561. Identifies a hierarchy of ethnocategories reflected in the quipu transcription. These ethnocategories would have provided the basis for the kind of conventional consistency that would have facilitated the level of information control required by the Inca state.
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Murra, John V. “The Mit’a Obligations of Ethnic Groups to the Inka State.” In The Inca and Aztec States, 1400–1800. Edited and translated by George A. Collier, Renato I. Rosaldo, and John D. Wirth, 237–262. New York: Academic Press, 1982.
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Builds on the analysis of ethnocategories in Murra 1974. An analysis of several quipu transcriptions from the 16th century that illuminate the nature of the Inca administration in the Prehispanic period and how the quipu changed in response to the changes imposed by the colonial system after the conquest.
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Pärssinen, Martti. Tawntinsuyu: The Inca State and Its Political Organization. Helsinki: Societas Historica Finladiae, 1992.
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A study of the Inca state that begins with a discussion of the quipu, including a speculative reconstruction of a quipu based on a colonial document containing information that was originally taken from a quipu. Includes a chapter on decimal organization, which was reflected in, and informed by, the structure of quipus.
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Urton, Gary. “Censos registrados en cordeles con ‘Amarres’: Padrones poblacionales pre-hispánicos y coloniales tempranos en los khipu inka.” Revista andina 42 (2006): 153–196.
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A discussion and analysis of Prehispanic and colonial censuses based on quipu records. Analyzes a quipu from Chachapoyas and establishes an approximate correlation with a colonial census from that area that would have been based on quipu records. This is the closest anyone has come to correlating an actual quipu and an alphabetic document.
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Urton, Gary, and Carrie Brezine. “Information Control in the Palace of Puruchuco: An Accounting Hierarchy in a Khipu Archive from Coastal Peru.” In Variations in the Expression of Inka Power. Edited by Richard Burger, Craig Morris, and Ramiro Matos Mendieta, 357–378. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2007.
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A methodologically innovative study that examines a collection of administrative quipu from Puruchuco. Identifies a hierarchical relationship between the quipus in which information from lower levels is summarized at higher levels of the administrative hierarchy.
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Quipu Transcriptions

During the early colonial period, the information from many quipus was transferred—whether directly transcribed or more indirectly reformulated—to alphabetic documents. Most of the documents that explicitly identify direct quipu origins are statistical records of tribute and/or census data from both the Prehispanic and colonial periods. But most narrative histories of the Inca empire also make reference to quipu sources, and a few of them cite quipus more directly. Pärssinen and Kiviharju 2004–2010 is an extensive corpus of these transcriptions in two volumes, with a third possibly in the works. These volumes make available a wide range of texts that are of particular value for those interested in historical and ethnographic information as well as those interested more specifically in the quipu. Murra 1982, for example, analyzes such documents in order to reconstruct the tribute system of the Inca state. Using the same kinds of documents, Murra 1974 also discovered a hierarchy of ethnocategories used in state administration and that derive directly from quipu conventions. Brokaw 2003 has done the same for historical narratives transcribed from quipus, identifying a quipu genre of imperial historiography consisting of a series of Inca biographies characterized by an ordered set of information categories. Urton 1998 has used quipu transcriptions to argue that the difference between the records of Prehispanic labor tribute requiring the use of various verbs and the colonial system of tribute levied in quantities of goods effectively caused an impoverishment in quipu conventions. Brokaw 2010 contends that even in the Prehispanic period there existed different quipu genres with varying degrees of complexity and corresponding levels of quipu literacy. Thus, differences in quipu conventions used for Prehispanic and colonial tribute may merely reflect the use of different preexisting genres. Loza 1998a, Loza 1998b, and Brokaw 2010 draw on quipu transcriptions to construct a history of the quipu in the early colonial period (see History of the Quipu). Documents containing quipu transcriptions are also used by literary scholars interested in the nature of Spanish and indigenous discourses. Brokaw 2003 and Brokaw 2010 analyze the nature of the discourses that appear in quipu transcriptions. In some cases, this type of analysis may have implications for an understanding of the physical quipu and its conventions, but it holds an interest in its own right as well.

Brokaw, Galen. “The Poetics of Khipu Historiography: Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s Nueva corónica and the Relación de los quipucamayos.” Latin American Research Review 38.3 (2003): 111–147.
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A comparison between Guaman Poma’s history of the Inca empire and that of the Relación de los quipucamayos. Identifies a genre of quipu historiography consisting of a series of Inca biographies that exhibit a consistent set of information categories that appear in the same order.
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Brokaw, Galen. A History of the Khipu. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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The second half of this book is based largely on analyses of quipu transcriptions and organized according to what the author identifies heuristically as different quipu genres. See entry under History of the Quipu.
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Loza, Carmen. “Juger les chiffres: Status des nombres et pratiques de comptage dans les dénombrement andins, 1542–1560.” Histoire & Mesure 13.1–2 (1998a): 13–37.
DOI: 10.3406/hism.1998.888Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Employs quipu transcriptions to make an argument about the relationship between the use of quipu by native Andeans and the colonial administration. See entry under History of the Quipu.
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Loza, Carmen. “Du bon usage des quipus face à l’administration colonial espagnole (1550–1600).” Population 53.1–2 (1998b): 139–160.
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Building on Loza 1998a, further develops an argument about the use of the quipu during the 16th century and its relationship to the colonial administration. See entry under History of the Quipu.
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Murra, John V. “Las etnocategorías de un khipu estatal.” In Homenaje a Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán. Vol. 2. 167–176. Mexico City: Universidad Veracruzana e Instituto Indigenist Interamericano, 1974.
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Discussion of a quipu transcription from 1561. Argues that there seems to be a hierarchy of ethnocategories reflected in the quipu transcription. Murra identifies for the first time unique discursive features in quipu transcriptions that derive from quipu conventions.
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Murra, John V. “The Mit’a Obligations of Ethnic Groups to the Inka State.” In The Inca and Aztec States, 1400–1800. Edited and translated by George A. Collier, Renato I. Rosaldo, and John D. Wirth, 237–262. New York: Academic Press, 1982.
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Explains that tribute in the Inca empire took the form of labor service while Spanish tribute was imposed as set quantities of goods. This difference effected a change in the nature of quipu records during the colonial period. Early quipu transcriptions indicate the labor-based nature of tribute records while later quipu transcriptions reveal a focus on quantities of commodities delivered.
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Pärssinen, Martti, and Jukka Kiviharju, eds. Textos Andinos: Corpus de textos khipu incaicos y coloniales. 2 vols. Madrid: Instituto Iberoamericano de Finlandia/Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2004–2010.
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An introductory study of the quipu followed by transcriptions of colonial documents identified as having derived from quipu. Many of these documents had been published previously in other venues. But these volumes bring them all together, making them more readily available for researchers.
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Urton, Gary. “From Knots to Narratives: Reconstructing the Art of Historical Record Keeping in the Andes from Spanish Transcriptions of Inka Khipu.” Ethnohistory 45.3 (1998): 409–438.
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An extensive discussion and analysis of quipu transcriptions in the colonial period. Argues that there was an impoverishment of quipu conventions in the colonial period due to the difference between Spanish and Inca tribute systems: the labor tribute of the Incas required verbs while the commodity tribute of the Spaniards only required nouns. For a different perspective on this shift, see Brokaw 2010.
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History of the Quipu

Quipu transcriptions are also one of the primary bases for constructing histories of the quipu. However, relatively little work has been done in this area. Issues related directly or indirectly to decipherment have tended to distract attention from the equally interesting but less sensational history of this medium. Assadourian 1998, Urton 1998, and Platt 2002 all examine colonial documents containing quipu transcriptions, and they all contribute to an understanding of the history of the quipu in the colonial period and its relationship to the Spanish administration. Loza 1998a and Loza 1998b were the first attempts to formulate a larger project focusing on the diachronic history of the quipu in the colonial period. In the first book-length history of the quipu, Brokaw 2010 builds on and revises some of the arguments made by Loza, particularly the claim that the Third Lima Council banned all quipu, thus effectively driving the use of quipu underground. Topic 2003 presents an innovative archaeological analysis that identifies a possible connection between architectural media and the quipu. Brokaw 2010 draws from and builds on this argument in his speculative history of Andean media leading up to the development of the quipu.

Assadourian, Carlos Sempat. “La creación del quipu con las cuerdas de los precios.” Población y sociedad 5 (1998): 5–75.
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Study of a court case in which quipu records were used to support the testimony of native officials. But the article has larger implications for understanding the history of the quipu in the colonial period, its relationship to the colonial administration, and even the nature of its conventions.
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Brokaw, Galen. A History of the Khipu. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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First book-length study of the history of the quipu. Draws on archaeological and ethnohistorical sources to trace a largely speculative history of the quipu in the Prehispanic period and its relationship to other forms of Andean media. Also traces the history of the quipu in the colonial period through 1650.
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Curatola Petrocchi, Marco, and José Carlos de la Puente Luna, eds. El quipu colonial: Estudios y materiales. Lima, Peru: PUCP, 2013.
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A collection of essays by various scholars focusing on the historical development of the quipu, the relationship between the quipu and alphabetic writing, the adaptation of the quipu for ecclesiastical use, and the nature of the reaction by the Spaniards to the quipu in the 16th century.
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Loza, Carmen. “Juger les chiffres: Status des nombres et pratiques de comptage dans les dénombrement andins, 1542–1560.” Histoire & Mesure 13.1–2 (1998a): 13–37.
DOI: 10.3406/hism.1998.888Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Through an analysis of quipu transcriptions, argues that in the early years after the conquest, the quipu was “validated” by the colonial administration by virtue of its acceptance of quipu records in court cases. See Brokaw 2010 for a different perspective on this issue.
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Loza, Carmen. “Du bon usage des quipus face à l’administration colonial espagnole (1550–1600).” Population 53.1–2 (1998b): 139–160.
DOI: 10.2307/1534240Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Employs quipu transcriptions from legal cases to reiterate the “validation” of the quipu by colonial officials and the official incorporation of the quipucamayoc into the colonial administration by Francisco de Toledo in the 1570s. Argues that the Third Lima Council later banned the quipu. See Brokaw 2010 for a different perspective on this issue.
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Platt, Tristan. “‘Without Deceit or Lies’: Variable Chinu Readings during a Sixteenth-Century Tribute-Restitution Trial.” In Narrative Threads: Accounting and Recounting in Andean Khipu. Edited by Jeffrey Quilter and Gary Urton, 225–265. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.
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While this article focuses on a legal case in which chinu, the Aymara term for quipu, is used, it is also a historical and theoretical study. Platt documents the use of the quipu by native Andeans in their interactions with the colonial administration, and he explores its theoretical implications.
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Topic, John. “From Stewards to Bureaucrats: Architecture and Information Flow at Chan Chan, Peru.” Latin American Antiquity 14.3 (2003): 243–274.
DOI: 10.2307/3557559Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A diachronic archaeological analysis of the various stages of construction at the Chimu site of Chan Chan. Identifies a correlation between the quipu and the use of certain archaeological features as control and record-keeping mechanisms.
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Urton, Gary. “From Knots to Narratives: Reconstructing the Art of Historical Record Keeping in the Andes from Spanish Transcriptions of Inka Khipus.” Ethnohistory 45.3 (1998): 409–438.
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Argues that the difference between Prehispanic labor tribute and colonial tribute in the form of goods effected a change in the nature of quipu conventions: specifically a decrease in the use of verbs and general narrative content. See Brokaw 2010 for a different perspective on the differences between Prehispanic and colonial quipu practices.
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Quipu Decipherment

The fact that the quipu remains mostly undeciphered is probably the most alluring and exciting aspect of the field, but scholars have made remarkably little progress in deciphering this medium. The biggest breakthrough in decipherment came with Locke 1923 and its explanation of how the quipu employed knots in a decimal place system to record numbers. In fact, the demonstration of how the decimal place system worked, which allows the reading of numbers on quipu strings, is the only discovery in the field of quipu studies that can definitively be called decipherment. Ascher and Ascher 1981 expands and refines Locke’s description of quipu conventions, but the authors do not discover any new information that would advance our ability to read other types of information encoded on quipu. Urton 2003, while not contributing directly to decipherment, proposes a completely new understanding of the quipu and its conventions: Urton argues that the quipu employed a seven-bit binary code similar to modern computer ASCII code. Brokaw 2005 is a detailed critique of this theory while recognizing that individual binary features may have functioned as conventions that worked in conjunction with other known conventions. Urton 2001 pursues a different approach that is the closest we have come to matching up an actual quipu with a quipu transcription from the colonial period. Urton and Brezine 2005 claims to have identified a toponym in a quipu from Puruchuco. Burns Glynn 2002 is representative of decipherment projects that are mostly ignored by serious scholars, because they make controversial claims that are not backed up with rigorous or justifiable arguments.

Ascher, Marcia, and Robert Ascher. Code of the Quipu: A Study in Media, Mathematics, and Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1981.
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Marcia and Robert Ascher expand and refine Locke’s explanation of the quipu based on a much larger corpus of specimens. The book covers in much more detail the various physical features of quipu beyond the decimal system, and the authors speculate about how those features might have functioned.
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Brokaw, Galen. “Toward Deciphering the Khipu.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35.4 (2005): 571–589.
DOI: 10.1162/0022195043327381Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed critique of Urton 2003. Argues that the seven-bit binary code theory is internally contradictory and externally uncorroborated. Acknowledges, however, that individual binary features may have functioned as conventions in conjunction with other known conventions such as the decimal place system and color coding.
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Burns Glynn, William. Decodificación de Quipus. Lima, Peru: Banco Central de Reserva del Perú/Universidad Alas Peruanas, 2002.
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This book represents the culmination of Burns’s work on the quipu. Burns argues that the quipu employed an alphabet, and he claims to decode ten quipus using a methodology informed by this alphabetic theory. Serious scholars of the quipu have ignored Burns’s work, because the reasoning of his arguments are specious at best.
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Locke, Leland. The Ancient Quipu or Peruvian Knot Record. New York: The American Museum of Natural History, 1923.
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Contains the first detailed description of how the khipu recorded numbers using a decimal place system. Subsequent studies have refined our understanding of this system, but the essentials have not changed.
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Urton, Gary. “A Calendrical and Demographic Tomb Text from Northern Peru.” Latin American Antiquity 12.2 (2001): 127–147.
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This study is the closest anyone has come to matching up a quipu transcription to an actual quipu. Urton correlates an actual quipu from Chachapoyas to a colonial census taken in the early years after the conquest. The two texts are not identical, but the similarity is compelling.
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Urton, Gary. Signs of the Inka Khipu. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
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A completely new perspective on the quipu from that expounded by Locke 1923 and Ascher and Ascher 1981. Argues that the quipu employed a seven-bit binary code to record information. See Brokaw 2005 for a critique of this theory.
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Urton, Gary, and Carrie J. Brezine. “Khipu Accounting in Ancient Peru.” Science 309.12 (2005): 1065–1067.
DOI: 10.1126/science.1113426Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Analysis of a set of quipu found together at Puruchuco. Identifies a relationship in which the numbers recorded on some of the quipus are summarized by other quipus, indicating different levels of administration. Also suggest that the use of three long knots on a single cord is a toponym for Puruchuco.
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Ethnographic and Patrimonial Quipu

“Ethnographic quipu” refers to modern quipus in actual use, while “patrimonial quipu” refers to quipus preserved in modern-day communities as symbolic objects rather than active recording devices. Uhle 1897 describes the conventions of modern quipu from Cutusuma, Bolivia. The author believed that such quipus could help decipher Inca-era quipus. Mackey 1970 describes and documents similar pastoral quipus in Cuzco and La Libertad. Pimentel offers an ethnographic study based on the recollections by two men about the conventions and use of modern quipu. And Salomon 2004 is another ethnographic study that focuses on the patrimonial quipus preserved by the community of Tupicocha. Unlike the Bolivian specimens, these quipus are very similar to those from the Inca and early colonial periods. Such discoveries may yet provide clues to a better understanding of Prehispanic quipu conventions.

Mackey, Carol. “Knot Records in Ancient and Modern Peru.” PhD diss., Department of Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California, 1970.
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The major contribution of this study is the description and documentation of modern quipus employed by native Andeans in the Departments of Cuzco and La Libertad to record pastoral information. Includes a detailed description of nine of these quipus.
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Pimentel, Nelson D. Amarrando colores: La producción del sentido en khipus aymaras. Oruro, Bolivia: Centro de Ecología y Pueblos Andinos/Latinas Editores, 2005.
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An ethnographic study of reproductions of quipus by two indigenous men from Oruro, Bolivia. The quipus in question are reproductions based on the memory of the two men who had learned something about them from elders who still employed quipus. The informants make interesting comments about quipu conventions, including a number of binary elements.
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Salomon, Frank. The Cord Keepers: Khipus and Cultural Life in a Peruvian Village. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822386179Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the quipus preserved as symbolic objects by the community of Tupicocha in the Province of Huarochirí. Analyzes the relationship between the quipus and the information recorded in the community books that replaced them.
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Uhle, Max. “A Modern Quipu from Cutusuma, Bolivia.” Bulletin of the Free Museum of the University of Pennsylvania 1.2 (1897): 51–63.
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Following up on observations of modern quipus made by 19th-century travelers, Max Uhle acquired two quipus from a native official who used them to keep track of livestock. Argues that modern quipus may provide clues to understanding the older ones.
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