The khipu was a record-keeping device made from fibre strings that used knots to encode layers of information. They first appeared in Wari culture in modern-day Peru around 600 CE, and were later used across the Inka Empire. These remarkable, portable archives centralised and collapsed language, mathematics, history and accounting into a single object. So complex were the khipus that khipukamayuqs – or ‘readers of the knots’ – were trained specifically to decode them. Today, there are roughly 1,000 known khipus in museums around the world, varying greatly in both size and in purpose. And, as this video from the British Museum explores, these objects offer a remarkable window into pre-Columbian Andean culture and society – from military strategies to tax obligations – revealing much about the inner workings of the Inka Empire.
Video by the British Museum
video
Politics and government
‘Without a poster, you don’t exist!’ – on the curious political banners of Mumbai
20 minutes
video
Global history
The famed medieval map that stretched beyond Earth to heaven, history and myth
5 minutes
video
Design and fashion
Household items are reborn in a ‘visual symphony of everyday objects’
11 minutes
video
Human rights and justice
Meet the man who uncovered the scandal of nuclear testing in South Australia
13 minutes
video
Global history
The strange journey of the Parthenon Marbles to the British Museum
10 minutes
video
Animals and humans
Laura fights to protect the magnificence of wild horses running free
6 minutes
video
Film and visual culture
The old-time cinema experience endures in a quiet corner of Japan
5 minutes
video
Space exploration
Burning ice, metal clouds, gemstone rain – tour the strangest known exoplanets
31 minutes
video
Logic and probability
Chew over the prisoner’s dilemma and see if you can find the rational path out
6 minutes