Inca Khipu: The record and writing system made entirely of knots | Curator's Corner S6 Ep9

Everybody loves a spreadsheet, right? Well the Inca had their own version of a spreadsheet, and it is likely a major factor in why the Inca empire could expand so rapidly and so successfully. And also, it was done by tying knots in series of strings.
The khipu is an ingenious alternative device to a counting system, first introduced by the Wari and developed by the Inca. It was made up of a series of coloured, twisted and knotted cords that stored information, like the number of people in a community or the amount of food harvested. Honestly, the verdict is still out on exactly how these were used, but we do know from Spanish chronicles that they were also used to record histories, poems and even songs.
To find out more about khipus and many of Peru's greatest cultures check out our latest exhibition:
‘Peru: a journey in time’ is on display until 20 February 2022.
Tickets are selling fast - book yours now: ow.ly/XpUG30rZ9Qf
Supported by PROMPERÚ
Organised with the Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru
#PeruExhibition

[@kennethtaylor6084]

I am constantly amazed at the different and complex ways that humanity finds to communicate and code information.

[@rockets4kids]

But there is one thing most of them have in common: they were invented to record payment of taxes.

[@jeffhubbard4688]

@@rockets4kids Because taxes and death are two things you cannot avoid. You are a cave man 150,000 years ago; you kill a T Rex for breakfast and think it's all yours to eat? Think again. The tribe wants in. You've just been taxed!! Even Jesus said pay your taxes, and he knew a thing or all.............

[@oldi184]

Really? This thing really amazes you?

[@MrAdryan1603]

@@oldi184 It doesn't just blow you away??

[@oldi184]

@@MrAdryan1603 kzbin.info/www/bejne/o6KpfYuXrqlpm5o

[@logos4929]

Greetings from Lima, Peru. Khipu is still a mistery for us Peruvians, for centuries our best scholars have tried to come up with theories about how to decode quipus from the Inca age. Great to know some advancements are being made regarding this meaninful subject not only for Peru but for the entire South American history.

[@JaneDoe-ci3gj]

Hi from Sweden, cool info.👍

[@indulgentenhydra5997]

Yes! Khipu, much like so many ancient technologies and languages, are so complex and to this day we still aren't sure if we are completely correct. Like language, symbols change over time. Who's to say that modern Inca khipu mean the same thing? It's such a fascinating thing to study to past!

[@spmoran4703]

When translated they are going to give out a great deal of information.

[@dark_messiah8183]

@@spmoran4703 if I recall correctly, much of the scholarship now considers the Qipu as something of an advanced rote memory device, with the knots representing the beginnings of longer phrases that were memorized. If true, it means it’s likely impossible or nearly so to accurately decode the info, bc it was likely lost for the most part when the conquistadors either killed or banned the traditional record keepers :( (hope to be wrong, of course)

[@grovermartin6874]

This is meaningful for the entire world.

[@MsMousepusher]

How clever this is! And difficult to meddle with, but lightweight and long lasting. Ideal for transmitting long distances.

[@amyqiu8137]

I like to imagine that when they were created, they would have been quite colorful, and they’re only brown and beige because the colors faded.

[@jorgeguberte]

maybe the colors even had meanings. like accents. yellow was a happy "text", blue was a serene poem, etc, etc.

[@PinkBroBlueRope]

I think their meanings are a bit boring since it seems like they're just supposed to count things, so they were basically stone age spreadsheets. I don't think you'd have bought expensive dyes to colour a ledger or an inventory unless you really really liked it

[@charlesrosenbauer3135]

@@PinkBroBlueRope Khipus were frequently dyed (with different colors recording different information), and about 20% of khipus are considered "narrative khipus" because they break most of the formatting rules that other khipus follow and were used by the Incas for recording stories. Whether or not it was a full writing system or simply a mnemonic device is currently debated, but consensus seems to be moving toward them being a full writing system. Further, the structure of khipus could get shockingly complex. Strings could be tied to other strings into trees as much as seven layers deep, the color, material, and even the way in which strings were twisted was used to store information. This looks much less like simple, flat spreadsheets, and much more like the full complexity of data structures used in modern computing. So khipus were way more than just an accounting system.

[@weareallbornmad410]

@@PinkBroBlueRope Just because something looks strange to you doesn't mean it's isn't "stone age," dumbass. Inca Empire arose in early 13th century and lasted all the way to the Spanish colonisation period. Edit: and if you didn't listen closely enough to notice, kipus outlived that empire and lasted up until today. They are most definitely not "stone age."

[@blixten2928]

@@PinkBroBlueRope Not stone age. Bronze age: they could smelt metals, just didn't have a lot of them (I seem to remember that zinc, in particular, was scarce).

[@leeloooooooooo]

It bugs me that main stream history docs are obsessed with war and royal families/historical figures. THIS fascinates me! Thank you!!

[@kingoliever1]

Yeah but writing systems are part of this as an tool of the elite to control and tax the population. While this is a known issue but just the best we can do as the only people writing a lot where ether aristocrats or doing it for them. There are just very few exceptions like Pompeii which got frozen in time really quickly or Herculem which was buried by the same eruption, also got a great documentary about it on YT.

[@godofchaoskhorne5043]

That's because 99% of history and important historical events etc are about war and upper-class in fighting etc

[@inthefade]

It is because historians didn't really bother with documenting regular people and mundane things for thousands of years. With ancient history we only know what was left behind for us to interpret.

[@Icetea-2000]

This is just natural based off how the world was. Big events such as war affected so many people that more was written about them naturally meaning there’s a higher chance that we know about them today. Also wars are like the most important events in human history anyway, don’t know what your point is. And royal families reigned most parts of the world for a long time, it only makes sense that if individuals are mentioned, the head would be named first. When two kingdoms wage war, the name of the two kings is rather important don’t you think? I don’t really know what there is to bug yourself, this is just reality and it makes sense why it was that way for historians. If you don’t like it I’d suggest not spending time studying history

[@Icetea-2000]

@@inthefade Not true either, it was just less of a focus because of how naturally unimportant it is next to a war that everyone in their social environment experiences. But you have many other documents of regular people that are just less popular and less known. One of the earliest known non-monarchal individual representations is the egyptian "seated scribe" of about 2500 BC. Or scholars such as Herodot, the great philosophers of Socrates, Plato and Aristoteles, Ptolemy etc. Not even only the greates are known, details such as the members and heads of the academies that Aristoteles was part of over 2350 years ago are known today are known. Also a lot of knowledge has been lost in the burning of the great library of Alexandria. It is estimated that a lot of works from ancient greece had been stored there by the romans not to mention contemporary works. A ton of information has been lost through there and still we know of many non-royal individuals from ancient times (at least in europe). So I say that it is wrong to assume that historians didn’t bother with anything else. Sure, the most mundane things of life weren’t recorded but why would they have been? It was of no importance for nobody, not even the regular people. Papyrus was sparse and expensive, wasting space writing down how some guy in a tavern ate a steak is just a waste, and also not something that happened that we couldn’t have guessed today. Also it’s not like we can’t reconstruct much of ancient regular life with what we have anyway. Pompeji helps and is great, but even without that we could’ve found that out.

[@jarniwoop]

I've read of the Khipu knot records for years, but this is the first real explanation of how they worked I've encountered. Thank you for this.

[@92Pyromaniac]

Pretty ingenious! Compared to ink-on-parchment or similar methods, I imagine this would be much more durable and able to travel without risk of water/ mechanical damage. In a scoiety which didn't rely on some kind of centralised repository for information, this must have been essential.

[@lonestarr1490]

But it's subsceptible to unknotting.

[@indulgentenhydra5997]

@@lonestarr1490 Tell that to my headphones, cause it seems like strings just love to stay as tightly wound as possible. Plus, the real issue with Khipu is that they are woven from natural fibers, therefore still degradable. Albeit slower to degrade than paper and ink.

[@ababababaababbba]

You mispelled indigenous

[@unvergebeneid]

@@lonestarr1490 if you mean accidental unknotting then I don't think so. If you mean intentionally changing the information after the fact then yes, I would believe so.

[@notNajimi]

@@ababababaababbba ghdjfk that’s what I read at first

[@blazertundra]

We all know about the Roman Empire and how they went about the census, or the English with the Doomsday Book. But it's fascinating to see how people on the other side of the world addressed the exact same issues of running a large, multicultural empire and figuring out how to properly collect taxes on it. What's especially cool is to see how each empire developed their own unique systems of accounting according to their own unique challenges in collecting information.

[@pimpompoom93726]

Absolutely fascinating. The Khipu was like a layered database, I had no idea so much information was codified in them.

[@jcortese3300]

This is magical. I remember having a dream when I was very little that I was able to "read" fabric patterns. This is like that, only real. And it makes sense that they'd have used more robust, more easily carried ways of recording information, considering where they lived. Can't be hauling stone or clay tablets up and down mountains!

[@leeloooooooooo]

Omg, so true! ⛰

[@MrAdryan1603]

I'm a linguist (random) and that is absolutely the most incredible system I've ever seen. I'm blown away. I've heard about this before, but I've never been shown how intricately it was done, and the sheer amount of information contained in one little strip like that... It's genius. Too bad I'm HORRIBLE with math and numbers, I would love to learn at least the fundamentals of the system... God, I wish I could learn this. Just wow.

[@Imperiused]

Excellent explanation. Props to the people who helped decode this thoroughly unique record system!

[@ben8557]

Also props to the people who created it!

[@yagruumbagaarn]

It was used for taxation records and to present at meetings of higher ups? Sounds just like Excel.

[@JoelChenFa]

They just made up whatever they want. it was just knots. Humans see patterns in random all the time, like Jesus in my toast

[@llanitedave]

@@JoelChenFa So much easier to deny reality than to make the effort to understand it.

[@beth12svist]

@@JoelChenFa Oh, right. Very comparable. The Incas had cords that randomly knotted themselves up on their own. And that randomly made pictures of themselves in use by people.

[@johnfallas3627]

While walking the Inca trail (yes, there’s more than one) from La Paz to Coroicho in 1994, I was told about the quipu’s ability to tell great stories which had been lost forever. I was fascinated and saddened by the loss about such a wonderful place the Andes are. Now seeing this I am so happy. Muchas gracias.

[@aalisonprada]

wow!!! the same way yarn is woven and knotted to make the textile, it is woven to make words and produce information. No wonder both Text and Textile share the same root word!! my ancestors were brilliant!!!

[@arasandthevolodkas]

As nice as the knots are this is the most beautiful historian I've ever seen

[@jimr9499]

This simply blows my mind. The first time I heard of a Khipu was on the show Numb3rs. But I never knew how complex they could be...simply amazing.

[@-Deena.]

The best and clearest explanation I have ever heard as to the decoding of a khipu based on our current knowledge. Fantastic. Thank you Cecilia. 🧡

[@elihinze3161]

Such an ingenious system. Much harder to damage than something like a sheet of paper!

[@eyuin5716]

More resilient than paper but not as indestructible as stone inscriptions.

[@JaneDoe-ci3gj]

Greetings from Sweden! I've heard of this knotsystem, I think I learnt about it at school. Cool to see it so well explained! A truly intricate and and very cool system!👍

[@daveseddon5227]

Absolutely fascinating, thank you so much for introducing me to something else I knew nothing about! A very good introduction to the subject and well presented. 😊

[@eirikmellesdal]

This is a great corner

[@lisajahn6839]

Fabulous computing! Much data in small space!

[@NeonsStyleHD]

Absolutely fascinating. Such a complex system, and how they managed to keep track of it all for the information to be useful. Thank you so much. These NEW Style Curator Corner series is just what I have been asking for for so long on this channel to get access to the deep info you have. Every single one of these videos is an education and a mind opening. Thank you so much! :D

[@roxtrox7]

Language is such an amazing tool. Humans all across the globe have found so many ways to express language. It’s a truly beautiful thing. Also the human urge to hold your arms wide when describing something large is so funny.

[@guillermozepeda9967]

I've always been fascinated by the resemblance of the khipu to the Hebrew tzizit; especially with regards to amount of information that can be encoded. I would be curious to see how someone skilled in reading the tzizit would "read" the khipu.

[@TearyEyesAnderson]

I first learned about these in the Animated series "The Mysterious Cities of Gold", and after the episode which have a mini 2 minute documentary about one topic from that episode. Subjects, and locations such as "The Strait of Magellan", "Machu Picchu", and the "Nazca Lines".

[@MsKathleenb]

I loved that show! It was one of the things that taught me how amazing history is.

[@TearyEyesAnderson]

@@MsKathleenb I remember watching "The Mysterious Cities of Gold", and "Mr. Wizard's Word" and loving the science and learning parts of the show. I wish they would release season 3 on DVD, Season 4 seems to have aired about a year ago. And Mr. Wizard Studios has just recently uploaded 74 of the shows 78 episodes on their Free KZbin channel, before you had to pay to watch them on iTunes, or Amazon Prime. From there I also enjoyed "Beakman's World", and then science fiction stories and essays of Isaac Asimov, he covered nearly every science topic in one of his books or essays. Sadly, he is mostly known for his "Foundation" series sort of a 'Chosen one' story of prophesy, based on his idea of stopping the fall of Roman Empire but set in the future. A interesting idea that even got tired of, because it became too much of a religion type idea. The other thing he is known for is "Night Fall" a story about religion going bad, and scientists just wanting to see the stars. While most of his sci-fi stuff like his "Lucky Starr" series I enjoy better than the Star Wars, and new Star Trek movies. His "Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery" was one of those books to find interesting new topics to learn about, from when certain writing systems were invented, to dinosaur tracks, to star observations type things. He also just loved writing mysteries.

[@indulgentenhydra5997]

I've never heard of this show! Where is it available, I'd love to take a look :)

[@spmoran4703]

Yes, it was a great Japanese anime . That honoured another ancient culture.

[@cosmicpolitan]

I love learning about the pre Columbian Americas. So much of my ancestors history , language, and culture was lost, so any knowledge that survived is so precious to those of us with native blood.

[@DarkMoonDroid]

I can't wait until these are completely understood. They have fascinated me for years. Thank you!

[@wolfiemac32]

That was so interesting! Must has seemed like magic to your average person when someone read from these.

[@blixten2928]

Wow. That's amazingly important information. I had no idea the Incas had a decimal system, and used spacing as well as "symbols" (knots) to denote number magnitude. And that they're still used today. Really, really interesting!!

[@JLandavega]

Absolutely amazing and unfortunately there are some things from the past we have lost Thanks for all the info!

[@aljohnson2838]

Her slow deliberative tone is great.

[@christianfrommuslim]

Fascinating! I love learning something real yet beyond my imagination.

[@murraykriner9425]

Its essentially a ledger, or an account record kept for reasons of conservation of the resources and from where the cities could draw these valuable stuffs. It only makes sense that it had administrative uses that may be summoned by all who had use of the commodities in the empire. Brilliant artiface for a society with vast land holdings. My thanks.

[@stevenlangdon-griffiths293]

I could listen to this lady all day. She is clever at explaining her subject.

[@thehellezell]

i just told my daughter about this fascinating system (she’s learning to write now) and this is such a great explanation of it. thanks from alabama usa ❤️

[@greypoet2]

This is amazing, not only the Khipu itself but that they survived intact for so long. Can you give any insight as to how they were kept for so long without any degradation?

[@jcortese3300]

I suspect it was partly because no one imagined they were anything to be concerned with, especially the conquistadores. They would be looking for written things since that's what they'd expect to carry information. A qipu wold just look like some decorative fringe or something.

[@greypoet2]

@@jcortese3300 I was thinking that cordage of that type would normally have rotted away in a few hundred years. Conversely, a leather shoe from Roman Britain was found nearly intact because it had been deposited in wet soil. No oxygen, no rot.

[@jcortese3300]

@@greypoet2 Maybe the altitude and dry air help?

[@VincentGonzalezVeg]

@@jcortese3300 it was kept in good use, I'd say its reasonably humid & nicely windy Like my home, so fabrics & ropes feel strong, I'm near an ocean with high wind, what a mountain feels like due to the ocean of clouds above them their landscape dips into Like how you need to moisturize leather, I'm saying that the rope was adequately moisturized and well dried

[@amourax]

@@greypoet2 the spanish knew that they were used for the Inca Empire administration. The written sources she metions are from the "cronistas de las indias". KZbin does not alow links, but look for yupana (another Inca mathematical instrumento )in the spanish Wikipedia and you you find links to those old chronicles. Some priests ordered the destruction of many quipus and other "heathen" objects, so one thousand of then is less then 10% of the cuneiform tablets found.

[@El_Bellota]

This video will be recommended to people 3 years from now.

[@michimacho73]

What I find very sad is, that most of the "experts" who try de descipher the khipu don't even fluently speak our runa simi (quechua language) nor do they master the different dialects of quechua. In the way the spanish cronicles describe the khipus, it is clear that it was a full writing siystem. But for the spanish conquistadores a writing system without paper and ink was not even a possibility. As far as I know, nobody desciphered a khipu yet. Numbers are more easy to descipher than whole sentences or a complete writing system, so khipus related to numbers are more easy to "guess". Until there is found a rosseta stone for this khipus, it will remain a mystery how they really function and work. To reduce the khipu to a mere tool of calculating numbers is not really cientific in my point of vew....

[@MrAdryan1603]

Wow, that is very sad. But.. given their robust nature, I imagine we will find many more eventually and figure the system out. It has been done before... Although this, I am particularly interested in. So fascinating...

[@pmboston]

On the other hand, the experts are what experts are in every discipline. People who are extremely interested and motivated to communicate about a particular aspect of reality. I remind you that the numeric analysis of the knots is very well done and isn’t a ‘guess’ as you put it. In our culture we use recorded information like dull stock reports and lists of things using the same symbols which record the most inspirational words of human kind.I have been fascinated for years by the quipu and have a particular animus for the book burning Europeans who destroyed most of them in a fit of superstitious fear of demonic devices used in pagan ritual. The tragedy of history destroying religions goes on to this day so I always applaud any effort to understand and re record it before it completely slips away. As to your wish for people who speak your language to be the only researchers that is a very unfair limitation of the right to be interested, as I call it.

[@michimacho73]

@@pmboston To decipher a whole unknown writing system you first have to master the language in which it is supposedly written, at least the modern version of it, better if you know the variants and dialects. How else will you understand or deciphier? We know that the khipukamayoq and the nobility also spoke another language than quechua, and aymara and other languages where also used. So there is also the possibility of khipus being written in different laguages. But if the "experts" speak only spanish, that is a very very poor approach. And I have met lots of "experts" of that kind. And regarding the "guessing" of numbers, you didn't get what I was saying (notice I wrote guess between " " ). If you have patterns in front of you, e.g. khipus, and you see units and bunch of 5s and 10s and 100s, it is more easy to "guess" that those may repesent numbers instead of whole words ..... When it comes to precolombian history, the most fancy and fatastic things are assumed by many (not all) westerners, who express more the fantasie of their minds, than the reality of arquelogical facts.... So they should at least learn one amerindian language and live for a time in a real autoctonous community to learn about the customs and rites of nowadays, which will help to understand the past in so many ways....

[@marythr2617]

@@michimacho73 there may be a flaw in assuming that the “experts” do not reach for people that do speak fluently the local languages. A lot of experts tend to have consultants that are locals. The expert may not be a local himself/herself…. but is very likely that he/she may be working with dozens of locals to try to decipher things. Imagine how Egyptian hieroglyphs are deciphered, everyone pitches in some knowledge little by little, decade by decade. Deciphering such works may not be a one person job, it may require hundreds of people and thousands of work hours/days.

[@michimacho73]

@@marythr2617 I agree, but the difference with egyptian hieroglyphs are that we have a rosetta stone where the first step to decipher it was set and there ist the coptic language to relate to. Experts who had knowledge of Coptic and other related laguages had a bigger chance to decipher the hieroglyphs of old Egypt. For the maya script we have the little list collected by Diego de Landa and the experts who deciphered the script also spoke a variety of maya. That is not the case in the Andes. The are many people who like the culture and people who do their research on it, but when it comes to the languages of the Andes, they skip this important tool, which gives so much insigt into the culture and way of thinking of the people in the Andes. Their excuse is "it is too difficult to learn". When I read what "experts" of western universities have written about andean culture, very often it is more fiction than fact. Would they have spent time in traditional communities and learned the language, they would have had a much better understanding. They don't even understand what their local informants tell them (mostly in an aymara or quechua version of spanish), not because they don't understand the language (in this case spanish), but because they culturally/semantically don't grasp what the local informants are telling them ......

[@rocksor83]

Thank you I will share this video with my computer science class. An ingenious way of encoding information!

[@izharfatima5295]

There is no doubt that each archeological artefact tells the extent of materials used and developed which sheds light upon the level of civilization.

[@LanternOneStudios]

Utterly fascinating! Thanks for producing and posting this video as an introduction.

[@InfiniteText]

that's how I keep track of overdue books at the library

[@redspec01]

Going to show this video to my math students when the semester starts, and have them do a census of their classes with strings to mimic these quipu

[@danielwalton5385]

Always fascinating to think that so much information can be held and expressed though nothing more than a few lengths of rope

[@JessHull]

I'm going to tweet only in Khipu now, thanks for the primer.

[@reverie6034]

What a fascinating video! People have so much ingenuity when it’s required. Thank you for sharing this!

[@ptonpc]

I've always been fascinated by these. Thanks.

[@bentemchine]

... and i love her necklace.

[@nahte123]

Thank you for explaining! Something I've heard about, but never investigated. I'm glad there wasn't a test at the end.

[@MrDiveDave]

I could watch her talk about knots all day.

[@flamencoprof]

So, we have the number these variables can represent: - Number knots = 10 Number multipliers = 10,000 knot kinds on the main cord, not described poss 10? colours = 5? knot spacing = maybe 5 So, conservatively we have storage capacity of 10 x 10,000 x 10 x 5 x 5 = 25Mb. A pretty capable system IMO. Correction: In My Impressed Opinion.

[@dlevi67]

Um, I think you are confusing the largest number that is expressible with the storage capacity... which doesn't take anything away from your final observations.

[@flamencoprof]

@@dlevi67 Please explain the difference. I thought the number of possible states of a storage medium was equivalent to its storage capacity?

[@dlevi67]

@@flamencoprof Well, no, the storage capacity (in bits) of a system is the logarithm in base 2 of the number of states. 8 bits can be in 256 different states, but they remain 8 bits. The other issue with your calculation is that you are taking indicators such as the positional value of the knot (1/10/100/1,000/10,000) and you are multiplying that 10,000 as if there were 10,000 possible states of the system. In practice, there are only 5: the string is tied in one of 5 possible places, corresponding to a decimal digit position, so there are only 2.3 bits available from that information. It is a smart system for number storage, in as much as it manages to facilitate information storage retrieval, builds in some 'tamper resistance' and does so with very limited technology, but it isn't quite as good as taking the highest number it can express and equating it to its storage capacity. BTW - note that e.g. using positional information and 'knot-digits' together you need 3.3 x 5 (5 'digits') + 2.3 bits (positional multiplier) to express whole numbers up to 99,999 which are easier to retrieve (at least for us, used to decimal positional notation), but because of the decimal coding we waste a part of that information storage capacity: 18.9 bits in theory enable representation of whole numbers up to 500,000.

[@flamencoprof]

@@dlevi67 Thanks for your informative reply. I stand corrected, but happily so.

[@dlevi67]

@@flamencoprof You are most welcome. Have a very nice weekend!

[@annalisette5897]

WOW! Thank you! I had always read the khipu were indecipherable. Looks like they are combinations of abacus and computers made of yarn! Amazing! That would certainly help an empire, to have accurate accounting of food, supplies and people.

[@emanuelecanepa6312]

Really clear and interesting (as usual!). Thank you indeed

[@limerence8365]

KZbin is reading my mind again. Only this morning I was randomly thinking about this knot system and wanted to learn more.

[@solofjh]

Fascinating history. Perhaps later discovery might surprise us even more. Wow.. imagine if this system includes not just numerical information but words/phrases

[@erinm2765]

This is so cool! Thank you for making this :)

[@AnotherLostBall]

This is such an interesting and clear video - and your enthusiasm & interest shines through. Thanks

[@gardnep]

Thank you that was fascinating. I did not realise they were still used.

[@derbywinner6316]

I didn’t know about it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge of this writing ✍️ system in the Inca civilization.

[@forestreader]

Curators Corner is one of the coolest series on youtube but I keep developing crushes on the curators. Nerds explaining what they're passionate about is my Achilles' Heel

[@listofromantics]

Mind. Blown.

[@pathazanov6341]

Thank you. Most fascinating.

[@6friend]

Very cool to see the inspiration for the show See and how they convey their messages.

[@edgardocarrasquillo9]

Really amazing. Thank you or "Solpayki Urpichay sonqoy"

[@prdiludi4432]

Honestly this is way better than paper. At least for counting stuff.

[@idio-syncrasy]

Thank you for this interesting presentation.

[@kcta78]

Great job,, I wish we could be there! Greetings from Arequipa, Peru.

[@jerolvilladolid]

Im shocked how such amazing technology was not adopted for modern computing. I can just imagine how much easier the apollo missions might have been to prepare if only scientists used Khipu knots to make complex mathematical calculations.

[@lordcirth]

Well, Apollo did use core rope memory...

[@haylstorm6]

This is so interesting! Thank you for the video!

[@lwaldron9745]

Good job, Ms. Pardo. I learned a lot.

[@RuthLopez-tn3uv]

Fascinating!

[@kenc2257]

How interesting! I spent 9 months in Peru about 20 years ago--I don't recall hearing about the "khipu" during that time (and, I did visit 2 of the larger, national museums in Lima).

[@MeUrWishGranted]

Love this! ❤

[@jeanneblondewomanstamping9788]

Fascinating. Thank u.

[@AlisNinsky]

I didn’t know they were still in use. That’s super interesting!

[@Kargoneth]

This is quite interesting. Thank you for the upload.

[@aprilyoung5710]

Wow, I had no idea that they had a system like this. Thanks for the interesting and educational video :)

[@dr.zoidberg8666]

The Incan Empire in general is fascinating & peculiar. Their governance/economy was (for lack of a better word) a historically unique mix between feudalism & communism.

[@DelphiaStrickland]

I haven't heard of these before, fascinating!

[@TonyPstunts]

AMAZING!

[@chrishoo2]

Great video, thanks for the information.

[@graemesandstrom5654]

What a fascinating video. I loved the explanation how they were used but I really would have loved to have learnt how they were read. The numbers knots, for example could have been followed up with interpreting an actual number from perhaps the grain storage area. Besides numbers I would have love to have seen how words or letters or concepts were recorded. ‘Thank you for this wonderful video!

[@ggEmolicious]

I have learned about these but had never actually seen what they looked like! I always thought it was so weird and thought “how could they actually keep information logged with knots, but seeing them is pretty awesome.

[@beth12svist]

Fascinating! I learned about them in a book by Czech ethnographer Mnislav Zelený published in the 90s. It seems some more of the system has been decoded since then, because I only remember the numbers system from the book, maybe something about the colours but nothing about the levels. :-) I can imagine that, as in many other subjects, it's nowadays, with the internet, so much easier to put together info from objects held by various institutions around the world.

[@erwinjessealjas2826]

Very interesting method of record-keeping!

[@aou6499]

Amazing!

[@FeliciaFollum]

This is incredible!!

[@scraperindustry]

Fascinating

[@vadalia3860]

Fascinatingly complex!

[@sharinschwan4353]

The title immediately made me think of See (it's on Apple) it's soo amazing and really does a good job of portraying what the world would be like if the majority of us were blind

[@olgierdogden4742]

Lovely piece of Education. For some 50 + years I’ve been aware of the Ancient Knotting System used to record the details of accounting and much more, but never enquired an interest until this video on the Ancient Aztec accounting system known as Quipus. More please.

[@Maxops500]

Inka not Aztec

[@olgierdogden4742]

@@Maxops500 Global, I believe. Though the origins are there to.

[@Maxops500]

@@olgierdogden4742 What? The Mexica/ The Triple Alliance (The Aztecs) had a written language and number system. They are from two entirely different regions as well. While there is evidence of some contact between some Andean and Mesoamerican civilizations this is still relatively slim and doesn't really back up a shared writing system between the two, especially considering Nahuatl was spoken in Mesoamerica and Quechua & Aymara were the languages of the Andes.

[@olgierdogden4742]

@@Maxops500 Thankyou. Obviously you are tutored in this history as my knowledge is scant and this was my initial reason why I left my first comment on the subject. Great stuff. Have a peaceful, respectful time over the next few weeks. Cheers.

[@Sabundy]

This is quite amazing

[@steveqhanson6835]

So interesting. Thanks for this,

[@jerolvilladolid]

I never knew Jacinda Ardern was so interested in Khipu

[@TheFloatingSheep]

So this is where the series "See" took inspiration from. Cool.

[@atrain5197]

Fascinating- the kipu is way beyond seafaring knots, but the data recording principal is the same. Humans are ingenious creatures...

[@Han-rw9ev]

I learned about something I didn't quite understand till today. I hadn't realised this 'knot language' was that extensive, or that prominent. I was thinking religious type symbols but this is much more than than that. I'm also grateful they preferred written script on my side of the planet. I've never been an expert on knots, and I suspect I might have ended up 'Illiterate' in an Inca type culture.

[@indulgentenhydra5997]

Don't beat yourself up, since many Inca didn't read or "write" with Khipu either! Historians aren't sure yet, but they believe that most of the society did not know how to do or read it! There were specific people tasked with learning to do and read the khipu.

[@juch3]

@@indulgentenhydra5997 like scribes in other civilizations

[@indulgentenhydra5997]

@@juch3 Yep! Except these days we almost all read and write. Kipu are still not a widely read thing even within Inca communities today

[@Depressed_Dinosaur]

This is KNOT my corner. How do you keep from smiling?

[@jameslen83]

So this is like the show SEE where everyone is blind and send messages made of knots and such. very neat.

[@domdumdum5081]

Are they keeping you in the basement? Cough twice if you need rescuing.

[@Nick-ye5kk]

I thought she was in the roof space.

[@britishmuseum]

6th floor, but a conservation space, so natural light is all defused as so many objects are light sensitive