Khipu Archives: Duplicate Accounts and Identity Labels in the Inka Knotted String Records

Accounts from the Spanish chronicles regarding Inka record-keeping practices by means of the knotted string devices called khipu (“knot”) indicate that these accounts were compiled in a system of “checks and balances.” Each community in the empire had a minimum of four khipu accountants, all of whom are said by the chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega to have kept the same records. This study examines several examples of matching khipu accounts identified among sets of two or three khipu. The identification of matching khipu accounts has been facilitated by the recent development of a khipu database at Harvard University. It is argued that certain three-term numerical sequences recorded in one set of three matching khipu from Chachapoyas, northern Peru, represent a type of numerical signifier that may have served as identity labels of the information recorded in this set of khipu. The long-range objective of this research is to investigate the information recorded on khipu from various provenience zones around the former Inka Empire that may represent the remains of khipu archives.