Signs of the Inka Khipu: Binary Coding in the Andean Knotted-String Records (The Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies)

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Description

In an age when computers process immense amounts of information by the manipulation of sequences of 1s and 0s, it remains a frustrating mystery how prehistoric Inka recordkeepers encoded a tremendous variety and quantity of data the usage of only knotted and dyed strings. Yet the comparison between computers and khipu may hold a very powerful clue to deciphering the Inka records. On this book, Gary Urton sets forth a pathbreaking theory that the manipulation of fibers in the construction of khipu created physical features that constitute binary-coded sequences which store units of information in a system of binary recordkeeping that was once used all through the Inka empire.

Urton begins his theory with the making of khipu, showing how at every step of the process binary, either/or choices were made. He then investigates the symbolic components of the binary coding system, the amount of information that could have been encoded, procedures that can have been used for reading the khipu, the nature of the khipu signs, and, in spite of everything, the nature of the khipu recording system itself—emphasizing relations of markedness and semantic coupling. This research constitutes a major step forward in building a unified theory of the khipu system of information storage and communication in response to the sum total of construction features making up these odd objects.

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