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Inca Quipu Record-Keeping System

Type Object Region South America Time c. 1200–1532

Quipu (quipu/khipu) was the knotted-cord record system used by the Inca Empire, encoding numbers, inventories, population, and tribute information th…

Timeline

  1. c. 600–1200Andean region · AndesPre-Inca civilizations such as the Wari already used knotted cords for record-keeping; the Inca developed standardized decimal counting and administrative encoding systems on this basis.
  2. c. 1200–1420Cusco · Cusco RegionThe Inca established a class of knot-cord officials who managed archives in the capital and the provinces, recording census, storage, textile output, and labor service allocation data.
  3. 1421–1430Administrative center of the Inca kingdom · Cusco RegionIn the era of Viracocha the quipu system operated in full, regularly reporting each province's tribute and population data to the capital, supporting the kingdom's fiscal and military logistical decision-making.
  4. 1438–1532Provinces of the Inca Empire · AndesAfter conquest and expansion the quipu network covered the entire empire; Spanish chroniclers recorded that it could store historical narratives, and contemporary research is exploring whether quipu contained ideographic elements.

Sources