Item Summary

The only known form of pre-Columbian "writing" in South America is the Incan quipu. Incan clerks, known as quipucamayo, were trained to record and translate these quipus as "memoranda or registers made from strands of cord, in which different knots and colors signify different things. It is incredible what they have comprehended in this way, for what books can say of histories, laws, ceremonies, and business accounts... is provided very precisely by the quipu," wrote a Spanish colonial observer. This 51-strand quipu is typical of surviving examples, which date from the 13th and 16th centuries.

Descriptive Information

Title
Quipu, [before 1600].
Call Number
North 9, C0940 (Princeton Mesoamerican Manuscripts, no. 5)
Identifier
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/s7526g75v
Date Created
[before 1600].
Format
Visual material
Extent
1 item (a fifty-one strand Inca quipu) ; 78 x 101 cm.
Source Acquisition
Gift of Gerard B. Lambert, ca. 1975.
Rights Statement
No Known Copyright

Discovery Information

Subject
Quipu—Peru

Physical Characteristics

File Count
1

Institutional Information

Collection
Mesoamerican Manuscripts
IIIF Manifest URL

https://figgy.princeton.edu/concern/scanned_resources/615021be-558c-4512-be19-c56618c0d0fe/manifest