Khipu Field Guide - Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Home

Table of Contents

Sketchbook

🔎︎ Search Khipu by Name

🔎︎ Search Khipu by Image

Guidebook

Introduction

Khipu Decipherment

Khipu Signs & Schematics

Notebook

🔎︎ Fieldmark Browser

🔎︎ Ascher Sum Browser

Khipu Fieldmarks

Statistical Fieldmarks

Relational Fieldmarks

Analytical Fieldmarks

Current Conclusions

Appendices

TextosBook

Paper Khipu

DataBook

The KFG Database

KFG Excel Specification

Reading a Khipu

Rendering Khipu

Methods and Tools

Learn More

Blog

Bibliography

About the KFG

The Field Guide Affiliates

History of the KFG

On this page

Preface:
Welcome:

Table of Contents

Preface:

“The KhipuFieldGuide democratizes khipu research, making the wonder of khipus available to everyone.”

Sabine Hyland

“Readers interested in visualizations and computational analyses of OKR data are encouraged to explore the Khipu Field Guide (KFG), a new project by independent researcher Ashok Khosla. In addition to highly-detailed symbolic renderings of over 600 OKR khipus, users can explore interactive graphics accompanying Khosla’s exploratory data analysis. The KFG investigations are a welcome addition to previous computational work on the OKR carried out by Carrie Brezine and Jon Clindaniel.”

Keys to Mathematical Treasure Chests: Andean Khipus – Quantitative Research and Digital AnalysisManuel Medrano (Harvard University)

“I love The Khipu Field Guide by Ashok Khosla, because it presents diagrams of khipus that are easier to analyze than photos.”

ArchaeoEd - A Podcast about Ancient Civilizations of the Americas - Dr. Edwin Barnhart

KH0279 - A “banded” khipu.

KH0279 - A schematic drawing of the same Khipu, arranged to show its primary cord, pendant cords, and subsidiary cords.

Welcome:
Welcome to The Khipu Field Guide - Travel back in time to the Inkan empire of the 14th through 16th century. Explore how the Inkas used cloth to communicate and record commitments. Journey with me, as I work with other khipu scholars, to decipher the enigma behind a knotted mop of camelid yarn.
This site has seven sections.

GUIDEBOOKStart here, if you’re not familiar with how to read a khipu, the history of khipu research, or how the process of decipherment works.

Khipus - A Soft and Fuzzy Introduction
A Brief History of Khipu Research
The Decipherment Process
Khipu Signs and Schematics

SKETCHBOOKUse the web to view the khipu using a schematic likeness of the original cords and knots. Our highly curated database, the world’s largest collection, currently contains 703 khipus.

🔎︎ Search by Data (Name, Museum, Number of Cords, etc.)
🔎︎ Search by Image

NOTEBOOKReady to adventure into the technical details, and start deciphering? Put on your thinking cap and journey with me. Some of the decipherment work described here has been recently published by co-researcher Manuel Medrano and myself. Our article “How Can Data Science Contribute to Understanding the Khipu Code?”, in the professional archaelogical journal Latin American Antiquity, presents our unearthing of common decipherment patterns throughout this site’s khipus. Many of those patterns are revealed in the Notebook. More exciting pattern breakthroughs are on their way to being presented!

Fieldmarks - Exploring the Distribution of Signs

Statistical Fieldmarks

Relational Fieldmarks

Analytical Fieldmarks

Current Results

🔎︎ Fieldmark Browser

🔎︎ Ascher Sum Browser

TEXTOSBOOKTextos Andinos, a two-volume book set written by Marti Pärssinen and Jukka Kiviharju, is a translation of original court documents from the Spanish archives, where the plaintiffs used khipus in their court recitations. Called “Paper Khipus”, by Manuel Medrano, these paper khipus were the subject of his Bachelor’s thesis project at Harvard.
DATABOOK With over two years of work curating and database restoration (affectionately known in the trade as yak-shaving), the Khipu Field Guide now contains the world’s most accurate and largest digital database of Inka khipus - currently 703 khipus. Digitizing is a difficult process. This page describes the painstaking, and still continuing, task of digitizing existing khipus, and restoring malformed digitizations using newly gained knowledge about khipu. For example, if you don’t know how to read Arabic, how can you tell it’s read from right to left? The problems are similar with khipu. Why do I believe some khipus have been accidentally recorded backwards? As you journey through investigations developed in the notebook, you’ll learn about the intriguing patterns that reveal khipu order, even when the khipu is broken, and missing its ends.

Yak-Shaving - Assembling the Khipu Field Guide Database

The Challenges of Archaeological Rendering

Methods and Tools

BIBLIOGRAPHYMuch has been written about khipu. This fieldguide builds on Marcia and Robert Ascher’s work summarized in their wonderful book, republished in 1997 by Dover Books, entitled Mathematics of the Incas: Code of the Quipu. Want to learn more? Karen Thompson’s Bibliography work is a great place to start.
ABOUTThe researchers behind the Khipu Field Guide.

The Khipu Field Guide (KFG) is positioned as a resource designed to democratize the study of khipus, making the complexities of this ancient recording system accessible through visualization and computational analysis. The project introduces readers to the history of khipu research, the methods of decipherment, and the symbolic systems involved. The guide draws upon the work of various scholars, including Ashok Khosla, who developed highly detailed symbolic renderings of over 600 khipus, and builds upon previous computational work by Carrie Brezine and Jon Clindaniel, as well as the quantitative research conducted by Manuel Medrano.

The structure of the field guide encompasses several distinct methodological and informational areas. The guidebook begins by providing foundational knowledge through sections covering an introduction, an overview of khipu history, the decipherment process, and schematic representations of khipu signs and schematics. A sketchbook component allows users to interact with khipus via schematics of original cords and knots, supported by a massive, curated database containing 703 khipus.

The guide delves into advanced analytical techniques through the Notebook section, which details the technical aspects of decipherment, including patterns that emerge when analyzing khipu data, as explored by co-researchers Manuel Medrano and the author. This section connects the practical application of data science to understanding the khipu code. Further analytical depth is provided by exploring Fieldmarks, which are categorized into Statistical, Relational, and Analytical Fieldmarks, linking the distribution and relationships of signs within the khipus. The guide also includes tools like the Fieldmark Browser and the Ascher Sum Browser for exploration.

The guide integrates textual and archival resources, featuring the TextosBook, a translation of court documents containing khipu usage, and the Paper Khipu section, referencing the work of Manuel Medrano regarding paper khipus from Spanish archives. A central component is the DataBook, which functions as the Khipu Field Guide's massive digital database, containing the world’s most accurate and largest digital repository of Inka khipus. The process of creating this database involves painstaking work, including the difficult task of digitizing existing khipus and restoring malformed data based on emerging knowledge.

The methodology and tools sections further elaborate on the practical execution of the research. The guide references the foundational work of Marcia and Robert Ascher concerning the mathematics of the Incas, and provides biographical and historical context through the bibliography and the history of the KFG. Ultimately, the KFG serves as a comprehensive resource integrating symbolic representation, historical context, and modern computational analysis to explore the enigma behind the knotted yarn of the Incan empire.