What was the Inca quipu?
Quick Answer
A quipu was an Inca system of knotted cords used for record-keeping and accounting. It was especially important in the Inca Empire of the Andes.
The Full Story
Quipus were made of strings of different colors, lengths, and knots, and were used by Inca administrators to track tribute, censuses, supplies, and perhaps historical information. The system relied on decimal counting and was handled by specialists called quipucamayocs. Because the Inca used no widely known alphabetic writing system for administration, quipus were essential to state control. Scholars still debate exactly how much information some quipus could encode beyond numbers.
Key Facts
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