Jane Hartley Fine Art

In different cultures and different epochs, knots served as symbols to denote numbers.  Enclosing information into knotted strings became one of the most important cultural techniques in the highly developed Incan culture - comparable to that of other writing cultures. These knotted cords were called "quipus", the Quechua word for "knot".

This is my interpretation of the ancient accounting system employed by the Incas and how they used what are called “quipu” to record quantities and keep track of items.  The quipu is made of up of one main cord with other cords and knots attached. 

The colors of the cords had meaning to distinguish one object from another.  For instance, one cord could represent llamas, while a different cord might represent sheep.  Also, numerical information was often assigned to the position of the knots on the cords. For instance, the corks in the painting signify 123 bottles of wine. 

The ability to read the quipu became a complicated task, so specially trained individuals did this job. They were called Quipucamayoc - in other words - accountants, and they were essential to figuring the tax issues of the day.

The illustrations below are from a 1615 text about quipu titled "The Indian Chronicler" by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala.  For the archaeologist, Guaman Poma's drawings of native Incan life are like photographs from the past.  

Left: The Incan Yupanqui is interviewing his accountant who is extending the quipu which records what is in his warehouse. 

Right: The chief accountant and treasurer of the kingdom.  The abacus type device in the lower portion was used to perform computations which then transferred to the quipu. 

Below is a photo of a quipu from from Cambridge Mathematics article called "Talking Knots" by Lucy Rycroft-Smith, 12 July 2018.

There are Inca scholars who generally agree that the quipu possibly served as more than just accounting devices or memory aids. They may have been a medium for recording historical information, and they may also have been some sort of writing system.