quipu
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈkiːpu/
- Specialized
- Each quipu used by the Incas was crafted with unique colored cords to represent different types of information.
Examples
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The cords are dyed a variety of colors: when it's bundled up, a quipu looks like a multicolored mop; when it's spread out, it resembles a long rope necklace or a grass skirt.
Academic text (2003) -
A third talked about the quipu, the Incas' mathematical tool that made it all possible.
Academic text (2006) -
The quipu served as a kind of database among the Incas.
Academic text (2003) -
A quipu might include as many as 2,000 cords, in some fifty or sixty different colors.
Academic text (2003) -
This is a quipu.
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- ...Quipu.
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You translated the Quipu!
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This quipu is from the Chancay culture, which flourished in a coastal valley of Peru from the thirteenth until the fifteenth centuries.
Academic text (2003) -
The Incan quipu is an unusual object, an assemblage of slender, knotted cords tied along a thicker, main cord.
Academic text (2003) -
The quipu was an essential tool for the Incas to keep detailed records of their agricultural production.
Surface Forms
Etymology
Quipu comes from the Quechua word khipu, which means 'knot', and it named the Inca system of knotted cords used to record numbers and information. So, think of a quipu as a 'knot notebook' where different knots and colors kept the records.