Quipu Recording Cords

Timeline

1. c. 1200–1370Cusco Valley · CuscoThe kingdom of Cusco integrated local knot-accounting traditions into a court standard, encoding quantity and category information through different colors, knot types, and hanging arrangements, used to manage royal storehouses and ayllu tribute.
2. 1371–1380Cusco · CuscoIn the 1370s the royal court used quipus to record community mit'a labor rotations, granary entries and exits, and military requisitions; quipu readers relayed account copies along the road network to the localities, supporting increasingly complex royal administration.
3. c. 1438–1532Storage network across the Inca Empire · ChileAfter imperial expansion the quipu archive system extended to the provinces; the capital periodically consolidated local quipus to track population, produce, and labor obligations. Spanish conquerors captured large numbers of quipus, attesting that the kingdom practices of the 1370s had developed into imperial information infrastructure.