Slide 1
Inca records could be made from cords and knots
Inca quipus stored information in cords and knots rather than alphabetic text.
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An Inca administrator could hold a record made from cords. The knots were not decorative additions to a message written elsewhere: their arrangement helped carry the information itself, in a form trained readers could interpret.
Slide 2
Specialist readers made those records useful
Quipus supported Inca administration and accounting. Reading them required specialists who understood the shared conventions.
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Quipus served administrative and accounting purposes, with specialists responsible for reading them. Their usefulness depended on shared conventions and human expertise. A bundle of cords became a record because people knew which differences to attend to.
Slide 3
Readers needed more than a count of knots
A knot’s form and position worked with the cord’s characteristics to distinguish information. These features had to be read together.
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A knot's form, its placement and the characteristics of its cord could distinguish information. These features worked together. Counting visible knots alone would miss the organization that made the whole arrangement meaningful to its readers.
Slide 4
Surviving cords do not preserve every meaning
Museum quipus preserve cords and knots that researchers can examine. But seeing their arrangement does not mean every surviving example can be fully read.
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A museum quipu preserves actual cords and knots that can be examined closely. That does not mean every surviving example can be completely read. Observing an arrangement and recovering all of its intended meaning are different achievements.
Slide 5
An archive needs both records and ways to read them
Quipus show that an archive need not use alphabetic writing. They also show why preserving a record and preserving the knowledge to read it are different tasks.
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Quipus widen the idea of what a record can be: information need not take the form of alphabetic writing. They also reveal a vulnerability of every archive. An object may survive after some of the knowledge required to interpret it has been lost.
Sources
- Inca Quipus
Museo Larco