Migrating ancient Inca data to an opensource database | Khipu to Excel | Curator's Corner S6 Ep10

Have you ever tried putting a series of very specific knots into an Excel spreadsheet? Conservator Nicole Rode hadn't, up until she was asked to do some conservation work on a khipu in the British Museum Collection. This is the story of Nicole's unusual conservation project, and how it became her favourite object in the British Museum. This episode is a follow on from the last episode of Curator's Corner, which you can watch here: • Inca Khipu: The record...
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 #AFrayedKnotThatSimpleAConservationJob

[@TheSaneHatter]

QUIPU: It's a system of writing, and at the same time, it's knot.

[@_Wombat]

Big shout out to the editors of these videos for the incredible graphics. It really helps me to get a full understanding. Great work!

[@lovelettertothewest]

Dear Nicole Rode. I am very impressed about your passionate and careful preparation work. Thanks to your systematic approach, the Khipukamayuqs will hopefully one day be able to tell us more about this enigmatic data. I also admire the video editor for her/his didactic preparation of the video material. Summarized: You guys are amazing! An admirer from Switzerland.

[@MortimerDuke83]

Dear Julian, Your command of the English Language is superior compared with most English natives. Bravo old chap and thank you for your toblorone and time keeping devices. God bless.

[@lovelettertothewest]

@@MortimerDuke83 Dear Jay, Thank you for your generous compliment. Lucky for both of us, you haven't heard my spoken English yet. In fact, I have the greatest respect for languages. I am convinced that these are our most valuable and most complex cultural goods that we possess. This treasure must be protected, especially in times of gender madness. God bless you, the British Museum and British literature.

[@farvista]

When I was 17, I was given a strange baskety-spinny-thingy that had belonged to my grandmother. I kept it up on a shelf for years, although I didn't know why. Eventually, my kids played with it. I don't really know what happened to it. Didn't bother me, since it was kind of useless. NOW....I took up knitting a few years ago, I learned that it was a swift, and I very much wish I had it back. Here, something that others would have thought of as perhaps an item of clothing (?), has been truly revealed, shattering all expectations. To know the use and meaning of something (although I'd never be able to read one) brings its place in the world, and its true worth, out of the the dust and shadows that surround forgotten things, and back into the light.

[@Indajen]

Do you mean it was "a swift" or it was "a swift "? I can't find any reference to something called "a swift" other than the bird.

[@farvista]

@@Indajen Look up an image of a "yarn swift".

[@Indajen]

@@farvista Thanks for the 'swift' reply. 👍

[@Zeno_Evil]

What an amazing hard drive! And they didn't have to worry about magnets.

[@Ice_Karma]

It's been fantastic, watching the decipherment of khipu:s in my lifetime!

[@stoneageprude3021]

This would have been useful when I was researching khipus for the 16 page paper I turned in yesterday

[@AstralMarmot]

How'd it go?

[@judgeholden6761]

I can't even untangle my fucking headphones!

[@doorknob3937]

its really cool to see physical evidence of one of the original cultures of the americas, seeing as how most of it was destroyed. quick question though... howd the british museum get it, and why do they still have it? 🤔

[@mauroacastello6351]

Amazing display of ingenuity! Thank you for this video

[@gaslitworldf.melissab2897]

Brilliant work. Until this moment, I understood that khipus had not yet been deciphered. Without context, anything is impossible to decipher fully. Imagine finding cute khipu in a stocked warehouse. That's a fantasy.

[@vloguidice3932]

There's a great Numberphile video about deciphering these things

[@anahitafarshchi1818]

Thank you! It was incredible! ☀️💜

[@TheSuzberry]

As a knitter and yarn fan, I’m interested in the details of the khipu cords. Thank you.

[@jesuscostantino2925]

So incredible. Thank you.

[@davidcorbett7015]

Brilliant. Thanks Nicole & BM for this video. Really thought provoking, I'll definetly look into the repository. I think it would be interesting to explore 'Sonification' as another method to reveal patterns, especially now this is being scaled into excel data spreadsheets. Thanks again.

[@hansolo-mx4xt]

Amazing work. you are very lucky to have a job that is so interesting

[@EuryBartleby]

Untangling that must have been like surgery. I'm very impressed by that feat alone.

[@hazelsegnitz3254]

Interesting facts !🤗

[@anthill4329]

Fascinating

[@barbarahuff117]

Super show .

[@drejlangseth2579]

Incredible!

[@Vardagaladhiel]

This was so interesting!

[@SouthPoleAntarctica]

are there any sorts of ZIP codes suspected/speculated? i mean, the accounting of goods and labour only makes sense if you know who /what entity gave or received them.

[@britishmuseum]

So we're fairly convinced that sequences of coloured cord represent certain communities, or groups of people. Not sure it's quite a zip code, but it's the equivalent. If you want to know more about this aspect, our other video on khipus covers this aspect: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fqPJfIKHgN6ZnKc

[@luisbeck007]

@@britishmuseum Hi, I will like to open my own Museum and I am looking for partnership. If you help me with the budgets or finding investors we can make partnership and I can explain you how to use the Khipus. They have a spiritual use; not only for accounts. Inside my channel at the ABOUT section is the e-mail for business Proposals if you are interested on improving your research. Best Regards !

[@queefelizabeth4497]

@@britishmuseum How about return stolen artifacts you looted?

[@wilsonthewarrior]

Got great ASMR when she was zoomed in on the knots

[@gabethet8458]

Yeay excel saves the day again.

[@ashpowell9451]

Fascinating, I'd never heard of these before.

[@dactylntrochee]

Deciphering the genetic code is probably easier -- at least you can test the meaning of every combination. This looks like deciphering hieroglyphics without a Rosetta stone. (I've heard that most of the cuneiform tablets are also accounting systems.) Good luck with this!

[@marcteenhc9793]

Well, Andean communities still use Khipus today (to some extent) and even the Spanish after conquering Peru recorded some aspects of Khipus use and interpretation. It is not something totally new or totally unknown.

[@dactylntrochee]

@@marcteenhc9793 Ah! Now my understanding is fleshed out much better. Thank you.

[@bedewedwithpleasure]

Amazing

[@nefelibatacomingthrough2707]

This was interesting. Totally new thing for me.

[@k.gardner2991]

very nice

[@tonyk1584]

Bravo, brilliant!

[@Mnimosa]

Nicole, Excel is notorious for sudden and unannounced changes that make your previous files unreadable. There are indeed open source software and related public formats that you can more rely on (not completely immune though). I would go on the say that Excel is the very antithesis to open source. At this stage of your work, it is still mundane to convert your files to more trustable formats. There are plenty, keep your files in a few of them, comma delimited etc. You can still work on them with a software like Excel if convenient, since it is widely used, but take care of the format you save them to for the sake of future generations, if not just for yourself in a few years from now.

[@britishmuseum]

Hey there (Nick answering as Nicole is currently off for the holidays) - I think the way in which we edited this video has mislead everyone slightly, as we didn't get deeply into the Open Khipu Repository, and how data is stored there. Our focus was much more on the transmission of data from one medium to another. Excel was used in the first instance to get a clear understanding of the data held within the khipu. As it's readily available on most PCs, Excel was the easiest format for academics attached to the wider khipu project to check that the data conformed to the system built for the Open Khipu Repository. However, Excel, as I understand it, was used simply as the easiest tool for translating and checking the data from khipu, not as the final format once the data was deemed correct. It was then uploaded to the Open Khipu Repository in a serverless SQLite relational database. I'll check with Nicole in the new year and update this comment in case there's additional information to add to this. If you want to find out more about the OKD here's a link to the github: github.com/khipulab/open-khipu-repository

[@Mnimosa]

@@britishmuseum Hi Nick, thank you for a detailed and comprehensive reply. It makes much more sense to me now. And thanks for the link to the github repository.

[@gyozakeynsianism]

Firing up Stata for the holidays! Thank you guys!

[@TM-rk5dj]

Love these segments

[@justmyplaylists2046]

So, in a way, this is a bit like braille? They could run their hands over it and read it by touch. That is ingenious.

[@ducklame]

For the record there is a well-known branch of mathematics known as knot theory. Knots are classified using things like crossings. Very large knot tables can be found in some mathematics texts. That might be of interest to some Khipu experts. Knot theory has applications to things like DNA strands etc.

[@Rust_in_Time]

I'm already imaging a Horrible Histories skit for which this would be perfect..... Anyone been sold Microsoft Khipu by a shouty man lately?

[@williamkao5747]

My feeling is it’s is a form of record keeping developed by the blind of visually challenged. Maybe due to the high altitude UV, the Incas have high rate of cataract or vision problems in the elders.

[@mandelorean6243]

When the smithsonian puts wahnbubu's passed down wig on display as a archaic document

[@oaktree__]

How do you determine which side is the recto and which is the verso? I'm familiar with these terms mostly from manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza (I work on one of the projects related to handwritten text recognition of geniza manuscripts), and it's usually evident which side of a piece of papyrus or parchment is recto and which is verso because it's handwriting, but how is this done for a khipu?

[@PhoenixBeI]

The top/primary string from where all other strings fall from. The knots made on that one string indicates which way it goes. If you pay attention to the quipu on screen, you'll see that the the first cord tied to the primary chord is larger that those at the end.

[@edwardlane1255]

also it seems that the first pendant cord is tied at an end of the primary cord, and subsequent cords have been tied adjacent along the primary cord, so that the tail of the primary cord is always a'way' from the first pendant cord, and if you pick the first pendant chord to be leftmost then you get an 'obvious' front/back, good question though :)

[@asthmen]

This is really interesting! Are there any plans to create a qipu replica that visitors could interact with?

[@gaslitworldf.melissab2897]

That would be even better as something to sell from the museum store. It would be a brilliant learning aid too. Remember the sliding beads once used for counting and learning placement? Kids catch on to things so quickly when it's interactive.

[@gyozakeynsianism]

I would love that.

[@gyozakeynsianism]

@@gaslitworldf.melissab2897 I would love that too! You listening, British Museum? 🙂

[@markkilmartin352]

Interesting and could be read by the blind like an early form of braille

[@earl-grey-milk-tea]

i would love to hear more about how the British Museum (and others) are involved in digital humanities!

[@britishmuseum]

The British Museum has quite a few research projects that are digital first, some digital only. We'll try to add a couple to the filming calendar next year. Cheers for the suggestion.

[@myaccount99000]

Was anyone else surprised when she said she looked at this piece for 47 hours as though it was a long time? I for some reason expected they'd spend weeks or months with each piece in the museum figuring it out.

[@tweedledumart4154]

Awesome!

[@cassopsnoxdigger614]

well what a fantastic subject for you to learn...that must have taken up a lot of your time, as well as Untangleing all those chords.. you must have had to dry out or re hydrate the yarn ?...also where and when was this item found...as it's discovery place would have been very important to the actual item, to establish a link to whatever activity was taking place...very important work so...well done you...all the best GL&HH.... Gordon.

[@robertprado5125]

👏🏽👏🏽

[@AroAceEnbyTaste]

I find it fascinating that they created a recording system that anyone with the ability to touch the cord could read simply by all the different factors that went into recording.

[@pqsk]

Where is this open source database? I can't find it so far doing an internet search.

[@pqsk]

Never mind. Found it, but the page is offline. I got an archive from Jan 2021 and found other projects (one using SQLite). This is amazing. I never knew it was available. I'm Peruvian and a CS grad. It shall be lovely to play with this data

[@Nick-ye5kk]

Really interesting accent.

[@julzgulz1992]

Wasn't there a similar system used by medieval Europeans using knotches on sticks? The tally stick? So interesting to see how humans come to similar solutions to problems the world over.

[@tnmoe-]

Also a notch system used in college dorms, but on bedposts.

[@dan79600]

Yepp tally stick. The lebombo bone is the earliest tally stick ever discovered at ~43,000 years old. They were used until the early 20th century in some rural areas.

[@hebeigucci5367]

People be kicking themselves in a couple of weeks for refusing to invest in Stocks or Crypto.

[@vargaskenneth8837]

Are Stocks really that profitable? Heard so much about the fluctuating market prices and complexity of reading chats and all that. I'll appreciate your feedback.

[@donald245]

@@vargaskenneth8837 Yes it is but it's risky to do it yourself if you are inexperienced go get yourself someone good or you could look up *Nancy* *Lynn* *Lewis* on the internet.

[@p.kmccain6297]

Wow! I know Nancy. Met her sometime ago here in North Carolina during a fundraiser. Great speaker, full of humor and rhetorics too…”Mrs buy the dip “. Lol

[@august9050]

I remember her from Fenner & Smith great woman.

[@hilton4048]

Living off Uranium stocks currently. It's fun

[@98Zai]

It would have been really interesting to see this way of counting and keeping records evolve over time. Imagine if they had in isolation reached a level of organization without wars or otherwise interference to properly start bringing it out on a bigger scale, new discoveries of materials and ways to utilize this technique! It would be a different way of thinking about numbers and math, and it might have evolved some interesting perspectives on classic problems and equations like math and physics etc!

[@BarbaraMerryGeng]

How do we KNOW that this was meant to be interpreted as a record of counting ? And not a design detail ? As was used in pattern weaving & knitting ?

[@britishmuseum]

We have accounts of how these were used in Spanish accounts of Peru, as well as more recently having found khipus in archaeological contexts where the information relates to warehouses with stored goods in them. For an explanation of this, you can watch the previous Curator's Corner which is all about how we know what we know about khipus: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fqPJfIKHgN6ZnKc

[@beautifulmotivationvideos]

What I find interesting is how universal BASE 10 is: China, South America, India. I wonder if there are/were cultures who settle on something different. It seems the original BASE was 12, but it's globally been supplanted by 10, I guess you can argue that the Romans didn't have a BASE 10 system. True. Also, they didn't have a zero or any kind of mathematics - try LONG MULTIPLICATION with roman numerals! :)

[@bobrong9645]

No need to go very far for hints of base 20: French French (but not Belgian or Swiss French) from 60 to 99.

[@pawelchateau1825]

Strange, I was told Maya and Aztec used base 20 system.

[@JBigjake]

Babylonian base 60 (think 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour).

[@RDSwords]

Ten fingers and ten toes really makes it the most relatable system to develop

[@rdouthwaite]

Count your digits....

[@juanjuri6127]

inca officials were like "tired of touching bad knots, can't wait to get home and touch good knots"

[@joedavis4150]

... Nicole, interesting. Sounds really complicated.... check out the plain of jars. They are in the Golden Triangle. They are shaped like Poppy pods. They are scattered randomly, like poppies in a field.... go look at pictures of hill-tribe opium Harvest.... these jars are likely not for burials.

[@Dovebloud]

🤓🤓🤓🤓

[@vozkuskatan]

@TheBritishMuseum to piggyback on the comment from Kite Supreme do you think the quipus were useful for blind people just like braille? Because I do wonder if there was some form social acceptance to assist blind people or anyone with disabilities in general during those times. I’m just guessing here.

[@kitesupreme8907]

So even blind people could read it

[@vozkuskatan]

I was just thinking that.

[@TearyEyesAnderson]

All we need to do is find Zia, she can read these quite easily. Last time I heard she was flying over Japan in a Golden Condor, searching for the "Mysterious Cities of Gold". But that was in season 3, and I heard that season 4 aired sometime in 2020. Glad to see their study is still resulting in new discoveries.

[@JJONNYREPP]

Migrating ancient Inca data to an opensource database | Khipu to Excel | #CuratorsCorner S6 Ep10 1422pm 20.12.21 i saw this before... a proto abacus, if nought else... it would be a bit of a peeve to find that those "tangles" were meant to be tangled... and you'd unravelled a bit of inca history which you cannot re-read...

[@theperfectmoderate6995]

There is something in the british museum that actually came from Britain?

[@nameunavailable1330]

This museum is a monument to how great Britain USED to be.

[@JayJoestarr]

Damn, that American accent is getting smashed up with the English. 😂 Sounds so odd.

[@qboxer]

I am fairly certain that she isn't a Yank

[@dan79600]

@@qboxer Anyone from north or south America can be called an American. People from the USA don't own it.

[@qboxer]

@@dan79600 I am aware. She doesn't sound like she is from the Americas to me.

[@PhoenixBeI]

Every time I watch one of your videos, I go "wow! What would happen to that museum if it returned everything." A museum full of stolen things indeed.

[@andrewsilverxrp5882]

It's a shame the Smithsonian got rid of the giants in the early 1900s

[@MaggieTrudeau]

Give the khipu back. It is stolen

[@julzgulz1992]

How do you know that it wasn't bought? You can't just claim a crime with no evidence.

[@MaggieTrudeau]

@@julzgulz1992 such things are not for sale

[@toastysock]

@@MaggieTrudeau ??????