The only known form of pre-Columbian "writing" in South America is the Incan quipu. Incan clerks, known as quipucamayo, were trained to record and translate these quipus as "memoranda or registers made from strands of cord, in which different knots and colors signify different things. It is incredible what they have comprehended in this way, for what books can say of histories, laws, ceremonies, and business accounts... is provided very precisely by the quipu," wrote a Spanish colonial observer. This 51-strand quipu is typical of surviving examples, which date from the 13th and 16th centuries.
Title sort:
Quipu, [before 1600].
Edm rights:
No Known Copyright
Subject:
Quipu—Peru
Identifier:
ark:/88435/s7526g75v
Format:
Visual material
Extent:
1 item (a fifty-one strand Inca quipu) ; 78 x 101 cm.