Gary Urton (Harvard): New Evidence for Inka Storage, Record Keeping and Accounting Practices, Inkawasi, Cañete Valley, Peru

Date: 

Wednesday, November 18, 2015, 12:00pm to 1:00pm

Location: 

Anthropology

Recent archaeological excavations at the site of Inkawasi, in the Cañete Valley on the south coast of Peru, uncovered a trove of 32 khipus – Inka knotted-string recording devices – in a large state storage facility. Inkawasi was built by the Inkas for their military campaign to conquer populations on the south coast. Many khipus were found covered with agricultural produce (beans, chili peppers, and peanuts). The site shows evidence for a previously unknown method of creating standardized units for accounting for such products. Study of the khipus also brings to light evidence for a new body of accounting practices and procedures unknown from earlier discoveries of khipus. After detailing the newly discovered accounting procedures, comparisons are drawn to accounting practices in early Renaissance Western European accounting of the time.