Quipu
The Inca leader, Tupac Inca Yupanqui with his accountant holding a 'Quipu' in an Inca storage warehouse called a 'Collca'. A Quipu is an amazing system of knitted cords used by the Incas to store massive amounts of information. The colours, the way cords were connected, the space between the cords and the knot type were all part of a logical numerical recording system, i.e a gold strand= maize, the second cord= children. The Quipu system consists of a 7-bit binary code capable of conveying more than 1,500 separate units of information. The accountants, known as 'Quipucamayocs', created and deciphered the Quipu knots. Tupac Inca Yupanqui the 10th Sapa Inca of the Inca Empire (1471-1493) and the son of the Inca Pachacuti. The administrative, political and military centre of the empire was located in Cusco. From 1438-1533, the Incas used conquest and peaceful assimilation to incorporate western South America centered on the Andean mountain ranges: including large parts of modern Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. The Inca empire was larger than Imperial Rome!
Illustration by the chronicler Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, "Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno" (New Chronicle and Good Government- 398 pen-and-ink drawings), 1615.
posted by Lou @ 1:22 PM
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