46 DISCOVERMAGAZINE.COM
SABINE HYLANDliving memories and written documents, which
provide clues to deciphering them.
And the cords appear to support Urton’s theory.
“I’m studying these khipus, and I don’t know how
many times I said to myself, ‘Oh shit, Gary was
right,’ ” says Hyland.
For example, Urton knew that Andean people
classify things into pairs of higher and lower
value, such as milking cows versus dry cows, or
labor done by men versus women. (Sorry, fellow
women; in some villages, our work is worth only
half that of men.) Observing patterns of knot
direction on ancient khipus, he hypothesized that
S- and Z-knots indicated the higher- and lower-
ranked components of a pair.
Hyland found this to be true for a khipu board,
a device used by post-colonial Andeans familiar
with both letters and strings. Khipu boards listed
names in alphabetic script; each written name was
accompanied by a cord representing that person’s
fulfillment of community and religious obliga-
tions, such as attending a ritual or participating
in the annual village-wide task of cleaning an
irrigation canal.
Hyland studied a board that dates back to the
1800s. Although many names were faded by bat
urine and dirt, she was able to read most through a
camera that combines visible, ultraviolet and infra-
red light, revealing trace pigments that can’t be seen
by the human eye. Then, working with the four old-
est community members, she assigned the names to
social groups. Among the identifiable names, those
with S-knots belonged to one social group, those
with Z-knots to another.In another case, Hyland found
archival notes from an interview in
1935 between an archaeologist and
a local khipu expert. She was able
to compare this testimony with the
actual khipus discussed, now in a
Lima museum, and to further ques-
tion the expert’s grandson, who still
resides in Huarochirí.
The results confirmed that individ-
ual data, such as the goods or services
of a single person, were represented
by color banding along the primary
cord: a series of pendants in one
color, followed by a series of pendants
of another color. Aggregated data —
for example, a summary accounting
for a whole village — were denoted
by a primary cord with a different
color pattern: a single pendant of one
color, followed by a single pendant of
another color, and so on.PHONETIC POTENTIAL
However, Hyland’s most recent research into
the Collata khipus suggests the cords may do
something that Urton did not anticipate: They
may symbolize sounds.
The two Collata khipus have strings of 14 col-
ors, made from six different animals, including
alpaca, llama and vizcacha, a rabbit-like rodent.
Combinations of color, fiber and ply create 95
distinct symbols. That number is within the range
of logosyllabic writing systems, which use signs
to represent both sounds and full words, such as
Japanese kanji.
Hyland believes, based on discussions with com-
munity members as well as colonial manuscripts
in the same box, that these khipus were messages
between Collata and the nearby village of Casta
about their revolt against the Spanish in the late
1700s. Andeans likely used khipus at that time to
ensure that Spanish authorities could not intercept
their communications.
As messages, these khipus probably end with the
names of the senders. According to the villagers,
one of the khipus was created by the Alluka lin-
eage. Relating the sounds in this name to variables
in the final strings, Hyland proposed a phonetic
decipherment of it. For instance, she hypothesized
that the final “ka” sound is represented by a blue
S-ply cord of llama wool. The correlation makes
sense because ankas was the regional dialect word
for blue.
Astonishingly, when she applied this phonetic
code to the final strings of the second khipu, they
read Yakapar — the name of one of the only two
family lineages in Casta.The Ancash khipu
board, from the
Peruvian village
of Mangas, features
both Inka-style khipu
cords and alphabetic
writing.