Inca writing and record keeping

The history of Inca civilization is difficult to piece together, because no conclusive writing system has been discovered. Although it is generally believed such a large empire could not be administered without some form of written communication, archeologists have not found any evidence that the Incas had such a system, despite circumstantial evidence suggesting otherwise.

Khipu

A method of keeping records the Inca did have was the khipu, knotted strings hanging from horizontal cords that represented numbers for the purpose of imperial accounting and bookkeeping. Although many khipu were destroyed by the Spanish after the conquest, some still exist, and today's anthropologists and archeologists continue to work at decoding what these enigmatic textile tools were recording.

Although the conventional belief is that the khipus hold straightforward numerical data for the empire's bureaucrats, more recent research has challenged this view. One new theory is that the khipu appear to use numbers as both numbers and as labels, estimating that around 20 percent of existing khipu are "non-numerical" and could be an example of an early form of written record. An account from the colonial times would appear to backup this theory: Spanish travellers came upon an old Indian man who tried to hide a khipu he was carrying. When questioned, the Indian claimed the khipu recorded the actions of the conquerors, "both the good and the evil". The Spanish then burned the khipu.

Dr. Gary Urton, an anthropologist at Harvard, has continued with this line of research, postulating that further choices in the weaving of a khipu such as the color of the string enable a more complex semantic system. In his book, "Signs of the Inka Khipu", he proposes the Inca used a seven-bit binary system to encode information, perhaps recording in full subject-object-verb notation.

A definitive advance with research into the khipu as a writing form would be the discovery of a khipu "Rosetta stone". Another account from colonial times describes a colonial governor ordering a khipu maker to "read" some strings while a Spanish scribe recorded the contents, but the khipu was not preserved. Another prospective Rosetta stone was announced by an Italian historian in 1996, who claimed to have found a Spanish translation of a song encoded in a khipu, but other researchers were not allowed to examine the material and doubt was cast on its authenticity.

Until recently, historians believed the Incas did not have any form of writing, and that the khipu recorded quantitative data on subjects like harvests, the contents of warehouses and census information. Research by Urton and his contemporaries has shed new light on the nature of khipu however, indicating that perhaps the Inca did in fact have some form of recording more detailed information such as historic narratives. The Khipu database maintained by Urton, ethnological research into khipu of the Tupicocha community by Frank Salomon, and even controversial theories such as the tapestry-alphabet of William Burns demonstrate a renaissance of anthropological thought concerning the literacy of the Inca people.

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