![Writing in rope
Quipu (Khipu), Incan empire, approximately 1400-1532 CEMuseum of World Cultures, Göteborg, Sweden
I am fascinated with methods other than writing that people have retained ideas, text, and oral tradition. One of the most fascinating is through the use of knots to record ideas and texts—a technique commonly used in the Inca empire and the South Pacific. What is perhaps even more fascinating is that now, we are left with these intricately knotted ropes, and no one understands how they were meant to be read. They just remain as mute artifacts, speaking in a language that no one can yet unravel.
For more pictures of Quipu/Khipu from the Harvard Khipu Database, click here.From about.com
Quipu (also spelled khipu or quipo) is the only known precolumbian writing system in South America—well, perhaps writing system isn’t quite the correct phrase. But quipus were clearly an information transmittal system. A quipu is essentially a group of wool and cotton strings tied together. The strings are dyed in many different colors, and they are joined together in many different manners and they have a wide variety and number of knots tied in them. Together the type of wool, the colors, the knots and the joins hold information that was once readable by several South American societies.
Quipus were a tool used by the Inca empire to communicate some kinds of information throughout the Inca Empire. When they arrived in 1532, the Spanish conquistadors viewed the quipu with great suspicion. Thousands of quipus were destroyed in the 16th century. […]
Quipus have not yet been deciphered, but some educated guesses about what they represent have been attempted. Certainly they were used for administrative tracking of tributes. They may have represented maps of the ceque system and/or they may have been mnemonic devices to help oral historians remember ancient legends.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxt18v1XcC1qcj4vwo1_1280.jpg)
Writing in rope
Quipu (Khipu), Incan empire, approximately 1400-1532 CE
Museum of World Cultures, Göteborg, Sweden
I am fascinated with methods other than writing that people have retained ideas, text, and oral tradition. One of the most fascinating is through the use of knots to record ideas and texts—a technique commonly used in the Inca empire and the South Pacific. What is perhaps even more fascinating is that now, we are left with these intricately knotted ropes, and no one understands how they were meant to be read. They just remain as mute artifacts, speaking in a language that no one can yet unravel.
For more pictures of Quipu/Khipu from the Harvard Khipu Database, click here.
From about.com
Quipu (also spelled khipu or quipo) is the only known precolumbian writing system in South America—well, perhaps writing system isn’t quite the correct phrase. But quipus were clearly an information transmittal system. A quipu is essentially a group of wool and cotton strings tied together. The strings are dyed in many different colors, and they are joined together in many different manners and they have a wide variety and number of knots tied in them. Together the type of wool, the colors, the knots and the joins hold information that was once readable by several South American societies.
Quipus were a tool used by the Inca empire to communicate some kinds of information throughout the Inca Empire. When they arrived in 1532, the Spanish conquistadors viewed the quipu with great suspicion. Thousands of quipus were destroyed in the 16th century. […]
Quipus have not yet been deciphered, but some educated guesses about what they represent have been attempted. Certainly they were used for administrative tracking of tributes. They may have represented maps of the ceque system and/or they may have been mnemonic devices to help oral historians remember ancient legends.
