Why “Life of Khipus”?

wikipedia sez:

khipus (sometimes called talking knots) were recording devices used in the Inca Empire and its predecessor societies in the Andean region

At the time of the spaniard conquest, the Incas used these devices for their census and accounting activities. Researchers believe these knot devices could have been used in other disciplines as a documentation format.

Some of the knots, as well as other features such as colour, are thought to represent non-numeric information, which has not been deciphered. It is generally thought that the system did not include phonetic symbols analogous to letters of the alphabet.  However Gary Urton has suggested that the quipus used a binary system which could record phonological or logographic data.

Want to know more about khipus?

• String and knot, theory of Inca writing
• MIT Khipu Research Project
• Gary Urton, “String Theorist” at  Harvard