The Inka Empire stretched over much of the length and breadth of
the South American Andes, encompassed elaborately planned cities
linked by a complex network of roads and messengers, and created
astonishing works of architecture and artistry and a compelling
mythology--all without the aid of a graphic writing system.
Instead, the Inkas' records consisted of devices made of knotted
and dyed strings--called khipu--on which they recorded information
pertaining to the organization and history of their empire. Despite
more than a century of research on these remarkable devices, the
khipu remain largely undeciphered.
In this benchmark book, twelve international scholars tackle the
most vexed question in khipu studies: how did the Inkas record and
transmit narrative records by means of knotted strings? The authors
approach the problem from a variety of angles. Several essays mine
Spanish colonial sources for details about the kinds of narrative
encoded in the khipu. Others look at the uses to which khipu were
put before and after the Conquest, as well as their current use in
some contemporary Andean communities. Still others analyze the
formal characteristics of khipu and seek to explain how they encode
various kinds of numerical and narrative data.
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