Talk:Quipu

Tzitzit Section
The cryptic references in this article to gematrical information encoded in tzitzit are 1) a bit irrelevant and 2) inaccurate. That is, the article refers to them as "widely speculated". In fact, the original Talmudic and Halakhic sources for the order of tying tzitzit state right out that they are gematrical. There is no mystery or hidden message here. I'm sorry I do not have the sources to able to quote them, but a simple google search or Chabad.org will prove my point. Ask your local orthodox rabbi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.235.240.40 (talk) 18:59, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Name of article
I was wondering when we'd use quipu instead of khipu... --Merovingian (t) (c) 12:47, August 12, 2005 (UTC)


 * Yep. English texts I've read always referred to the object as quipu, not khipu. And Use common names says that we go by the most common name. Quipu gets 67,200 Google hits, as opposed to only 28,300 for khipu. &mdash;Lowellian (talk) 17:17, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

About the name of the article
The thing is the word quipu is the Spanish way to talk about the Quechua word Khipu. So one has to choose form which language the loanword is going to be taken. I prefer the first one, that is, quipu. But many American anthropologists use the second one.

Missing picture?
I get the title "Rewodslpresentation of a quipu" as aa subtitle to its own text. Refreshing didn't seem to help.

Color Image
I don't have Quipus of my own, but I do know that color is fundamental to the process. Does anyone have a higher--quality image for the Commons? Thanks, Gchriss 02:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Knot theory category?
I don't think this should be in the knot theory category. Quipus are knots in the colloquial sense of the word but not in the knot theoretic sense of the word. So if no one objects, I'll remove that category. JoshuaZ 20:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

los quipus eran instrumento d contabilidad para los incas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.43.244.188 (talk) 21:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Khipu a semiotic system that stands in for writing?
Dr. Galen Brokaw argues in A History of the Khipu (Cambridge U P, 2010), that the khipu is a semiotic system that stands in for writing, despite traditional allegations that Andean peoples had no writing but were only oral cultures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocdnctx (talk • contribs) 01:35, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Remembered Television Show
Back in the 80s or early 90s, I remember a TV program discussing quipu. I believe it was on PBS. In that show, they talked about everything that is in this article but they also had interviews with a couple of old Quechua speakers who explained that quipu had also been used to encode messages through a syllabary based on a long and well-known Quechua poem. Each set of knots specified certain syllables of the poem which could then be used to create messages. Some words had to be approximated by puns and wordplay since the right syllables did not occur in the poem.

I've never seen this information anywhere else and I've looked but I certainly do remember the television program. Anyone have information on that? Halfelven (talk) 18:53, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Museum Question
I reformatted all of the museum information in the Archeaological investigation section into a table. While doing so, I noticed that the reference for the museum redirects to the domain page, which looks like a blog that started in February 2012. The reference for the database, which seems to be where the locations and such came from, has data entries for the Leymebamba provenance with the museum name "Centro Mallqui, Leymebamba, Amazonas", which was enough evidence for me to change the location in the wiki to be Leimebamba. However, another site seems to advertise a Centro Mallqui in Lima. It's very possible that the museum moved to Lima in the 9 years between data collection and now, but I'm not sure how to go about verifying this short of emailing the museum in Lima. --jandew (talk) 14:29, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

I suddenly got the idea to check the way back machine, and sure enough, the old page seems to support the idea that the museum exist(ed/s) in Leimebamba, possibly as a branch of sorts of the Centro Mallqui in Lima. Not entirely sure, though. Also not sure if it's appropriate to change the reference to go to the way back machine link. --jandew (talk) 03:59, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I can confirm the museum still existed last month, since me and my wife visited it then. 86.95.178.109 (talk) 17:17, 8 September 2013 (UTC).

QUIPU COLORS
The main article states "other features, such as color, are thought to represent non-numeric information, which has not been deciphered".

At the museum in Leimabamba, in the childrens education corner, colors are used to explain the use of the quipu. I'm not sure if these have any scientific background, but anyway, here they are:

Yellow mineros (miners)

Violet tejedores (weavers)

Red pastores (shepherds)

Green agricultores (farmers)

Blue artesanos (artists)

Black soldados (soldiers)

Rommelebom (talk) 17:42, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Ancient Chinese quipus?
I got to this page from the page on Cangjie, who supposedly invented Chinese writing. I understand that for the most part he and his "inventing" the Chinese characters is considered mythological, but the article directed me to this page in the sentence where it claimed "Shortly after unifying China, the Yellow Emperor, being terribly dissatisfied with his "rope knot tying" method (e.g., Quipu) of recording information, charged Cangjie with the task of creating characters for writing.". Does this not suggest that this method was in use in Ancient China as well? Cangjie might be legendary, but the fact that the legend itself mentions "rope knot tying" suggests that the Chinese knew what it was and how to use it. Is there no actual evidence for this anywhere?.45Colt 20:09, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

There are sources, see the below section.Rajmaan (talk) 20:52, 29 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I added a mention of it, along with the Old Hawaiian knot records. I wouldn't be surprised if there were other instances too. It's a big world. Tarchon (talk) 20:44, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Jiesheng (Chinese Quipu)
Jiesheng was an ancient method of recording information before writing in China, through the means of knotted cords similar to Incan Quipu. thry are mentioned in the Dao De Jing by Laozi and the Yijing.

http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Script/hanzi.html

jiesheng 結繩

http://books.google.com/books?id=qY32-zfTU9AC&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=ERnrQq0bsPYC&pg=PA374#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=Lb7jyuLpd0YC&pg=PA379#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=4nsuagMdMo0C&pg=PA99#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=T8Vamu2IrpwC&pg=PT131#v=onepage&q&f=false

CHINESE SCRIPT AND THOUGHT

Paul Carus

The Monist, Vol. 15, No. 2 (April, 1905), pp. 271-293

Published by: Hegeler Institute

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27899583

http://books.google.com/books?id=Z5suAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=j6oLAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA271#v=onepage&q&f=false

Non english

http://books.google.com/books?id=g6xjibbGhNcC&pg=PA28#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=tj-dNfQIUzAC&pg=PA118&dq=jiesheng+quipu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ARI0UfK1Bqfv0QHTxoHwDA&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=jiesheng%20quipu&f=false

Links
The 'Manual of writing in quipus: Apendix. Constructive Logic in Quipus by Miguel Angel Calvo Rodriguez', 'History of Counting-PlainMath.Net' and the 'Quipu: A Modern Mystery' (it stuck) links no longer work. Jackiespeel (talk) 09:40, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 6 one external links on Quipu. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060427121825/http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8633818/ to http://khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060427121825/http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8633818/ to http://khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060427121825/http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8633818/ to http://www.datascope.be/sog.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060427121825/http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8633818/ to http://pop-khipu-project.blogspot.com/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060427121825/http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8633818/ to http://www.plainmath.net/index.php?page=counting
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060427121825/http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8633818/ to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~tcrnmrf/khipu.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 15:45, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Quipu. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added tag to http://pachacamac.perucultural.org.pe/puert.htm
 * Added tag to http://museonacional.perucultural.org.pe/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070808202924/http://centromallqui.org.pe/ley_index_en.htm to http://centromallqui.org.pe/ley_index_en.htm
 * Added tag to http://museopuruchuco.perucultural.org.pe/
 * Added archive https://www.webcitation.org/611uplB3W?url=http://www.conservationregister.com/christening.asp?id=4 to http://www.conservationregister.com/christening.asp?id=4
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070610050002/http://www.athm.org/home_framemiddle1.htm to http://www.athm.org/home_framemiddle1.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 23:53, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Sister systems incorrect
Why are there other systems listed in the sister system box? Sister systems are systems that share a common ancestor. Chinese knots and Wampum beads are not related to Quipu. DGeisz (talk) 07:54, 2 July 2024 (UTC)