Quipu Record-Keeping
Learn about quipu — the Inca system of knotted strings used for record-keeping, administration, and possibly narrative in a civilization without writing.
The quipu (also spelled khipu) was a system of knotted, colored strings used by the Inca Empire and earlier Andean civilizations for record-keeping and communication. In a civilization that governed millions of people across 4,000 kilometers of mountainous terrain without a writing system, the quipu was an essential administrative technology — and possibly much more.
A quipu typically consisted of a main cord from which hung pendant strings of various colors, each bearing a series of knots at specific positions. The knots encoded numerical data using a decimal positional system: different knot types represented ones, tens, hundreds, and higher values. Color, string direction, and the arrangement of subsidiary cords added additional layers of meaning. Spanish colonial records confirm that quipus recorded census data, tribute payments, military inventories, and calendar information.
The tantalizing question is whether quipus also encoded narrative and historical information — functioning, in effect, as a writing system. Some Spanish sources describe quipu-keepers (quipucamayocs) reciting histories and stories from their strings. Modern researchers have identified structural patterns in some quipus that suggest non-numerical encoding, but definitive decipherment remains elusive. Of the roughly 600 surviving quipus, most were found outside their original context, making interpretation extraordinarily difficult.