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
Environmental history
In Kazakhstan, ‘atomic lakes’ still scar the landscape decades after Soviet nuclear tests
13 minutes
video
Architecture
A 3D rendering of the Colosseum captures its architectural genius and symbolic power
17 minutes
video
Language and linguistics
Do button-pushing dogs have something new to say about language?
9 minutes
video
Art
When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer
9 minutes
video
Making
On the Norwegian coast, a tree is transformed into a boat the old-fashioned way
6 minutes
video
War and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
22 minutes
video
History of technology
Curious singles and tech sceptics – what ‘computer dating’ looked like in 1966
6 minutes
video
Computing and artificial intelligence
Why large language models are mysterious – even to their creators
8 minutes
video
Design and fashion
A ceramicist puts her own bawdy spin on the folk language of pottery
14 minutes