Building Pathways into Khipu Research: Openness, Access, and the Next Generation

Opening the Gates 

(Mackinley FitzPatrick)

The study of any sub-field can often feel like a closed club—usually because it is, whether intentionally or not. The study of khipus, Andean knotted-cord records, is a textbook example, with only a handful of scholars working on these records full time. That scarcity stems partly from the obvious limitations of time and resources, but also from the esoteric aura that has long surrounded both the objects and their study.

At Harvard, this exclusivity is especially palpable. Yet, in the past few years, my colleagues and I have made an effort to begin dismantling the barriers often maintained by earlier scholarship. Through initiatives such as the Open Khipu Repository, we track and host open source khipu data, and as part of the Khipu Field Guide project, I work with an interdisciplinary team to make khipu datasets more accessible and to advance both decipherment efforts and broader awareness of the field.

While these initiatives are a strong start, they’re not enough on their own. Eliminating the field’s exclusivity requires making khipus genuinely legible and approachable to anyone—not only through open datasets and transparent methods, but through a real commitment to teaching the material from the ground up—and this goes beyond collaboration among specialists. I have personally found outreach through volunteering at Peabody museum fairs, running classroom and workshop sessions for adults and children, and mentoring interested students to be some of the most rewarding means. Rather than distractions from my research efforts, these activities have acted to further sharpen my research questions and improve how I communicate with both scholars and the public.

Khipus sit at the crossroads of archaeology, fiber technology, mathematics, linguistics, colonial history, data science, and more—an intimidating mix for any newcomer. That’s why mentorship matters. Over the past few years, I’ve worked with several high-school students, most recently Sahil Jain, often using the Peabody Museum’s khipu collection to give them hands-on experience with real materials. Sahil’s trajectory captures exactly what I hope khipu studies—and many other fields—can foster: someone with no background willing to dive in, ask hard questions, and figure out how new methods, such as computational analysis, can push our existing knowledge further.

What follows is Sahil’s account of entering khipu studies not through coursework or inherited expertise, but through curiosity—and why accessibility and hands-on experience with collections, like those at the Peabody Museum, matter.

Starting in Khipu Research 

(Sahil Jain)

I first learned about khipus when I was in my ninth grade history class. They were interesting to me and I had hoped that they would be the subject of some further research, but as my history test came and went, so too did my memory of these mysterious knots. 

The story of how my interest in khipus was reignited is somewhat serendipitous. While I was pursuing my interests in anthropology and archaeology, I happened upon a paper about using declassified CIA spy satellite imagery for surveying archaeological sites (see Hammer et al.). At the time, I did not know a whole lot about surveying; yet, it was fascinating to look through a declassified CIA database. One of the authors on that paper was Mackinley FitzPatrick, a Harvard PhD student, who is now my research mentor. As I explored further, I quickly learned about his work on the decipherment of the Santa Valley khipus, and it once again revived my curiosity from ninth grade.

I found khipus fascinating on multiple fronts. First, they contained encoded information, representing a whole new knowledge system waiting to be explored. At the same time the work done on their decipherment intersected with math and computation, bridging my various interests together. Second, they represented a multisensory medium of communication—using visual elements like color, and uniquely incorporating an element we do not often see in our communication mediums today—that of touch! This tactile medium which khipukamayuqs (“khipu keepers or knot keepers”) so adeptly used to “read” encoded numbers, and possibly words, opened a realm of possibilities, adding a novel dimension to how we commonly think about transmitting knowledge today. Third, khipus were objects not simply created as works of art, but ones that served an important purpose in the governance of one of the most widespread and important empires of its time—the Inka Empire (ca. 1400–1532). Learning about khipus also granted me a window into Inka history, a period of keen interest to me, transporting me back to my ninth grade history class.

I quickly realized the allure of research: filling in the gaps in our understanding and thinking critically on my own. The process of research was an exciting complement to my high school courses. A true opportunity to learn, applying what I had absorbed in school. As a researcher, I was not just covering and applying; I was uncovering the secrets of the past. 

For less than 200 years, the Inka ruled a vast empire, connected by 40,000 km of roads. The Inka did not have beasts of burden—the closest they had to a horse or camel was the llama—and instead messages were carried along the Inka Chapac Ñan (“royal road”) by chasquis, professional runners. The Inka also did not use paper, opting instead to record data using a series of strings and knots, dubbed khipu. With only around 1400 extant khipus known today, archaeologists have a small dataset, but a vast number of tools at our fingertips to be able to unravel the mysteries of the Inka.

As I started my research, I had to quickly come up to speed on the details—colors, types of knots, the numerical interpretations, current research, and connections beyond decipherment into knot theory and general cordage and textiles. In my research, I made use of data provided by the Khipu Field Guide database, which contains translations for over 600 of these complex sets of knotted cords as Excel spreadsheets. These datasheets record common khipu attributes, like colors, knot patterns, dimensions, and fiber types. I began using statistics and data science techniques to study this data as a means to understand the level of standardization within Inkan khipu construction.

My progress skyrocketed when I had the opportunity to finally connect the numbers I had been analyzing to the artifacts themselves. As I lightly ran my fingers down khipu 32-30-30/53 at the Peabody Museum, the numbers I had once analyzed on a screen appeared in front of me. As I learned the origin story and how the data on this artifact aligned with the spreadsheet, I began to ask about the provenience, where the Ascher sums were, and what seriation patterns the khipu exhibited. Just a year before, these terms would have been foreign to me. Viewing khipus for the first time at Harvard inspired me to consider khipus not as just a set of numbers, but meticulously crafted works of functional art.

As I dove even deeper, I discovered that understanding how to craft khipus created interesting paths of exploration. Taking inspiration from videos created by Dr. Jon Clindaniel, a former Harvard PhD student now teaching at the University of Chicago, I began learning about the process of creating a khipu. These processes helped spark new ideas in my analysis, such as how the number of cords on a khipu affected the lengths of cords. Although this theory did not prove fruitful, it provided me with insight into how khipus may have been used and the incredible talent and precision that went into creating each. The videos also sparked thoughts about how Inka khipukamayuqs may have tied khipu knots at incredible speed: was each cord hand-crafted, or was there a standard-issue cord that was used? In order to test this theory, I worked to understand how much the cord shortened with the addition of each knot type. Using this information, my research revealed that there was not just one “standard-issue” cord. Rather, khipukamayuqs may have used multiple different lengths, planning to make sure that when they start tying knots, the cord’s final length would end close to the cord lengths of other cords within the khipu. 

Further reading proved fruitful, as I realized that the khipu bundling process—used to store and transport them—would lead to cords tending to have similar lengths, as unusually long cords would be susceptible to damage during transport. Therefore, each khipu has a very standardized length, even more apparent when filtering the data to pendant cords. 

One thing that always struck me was how researchers have taken complex, unique objects, such as khipus, and deconstructed them into a series of numbers on an Excel sheet. What if computation could illuminate, rather than erase, the human stories behind khipu knots? Could algorithms trace not just patterns, but relationships—between people, histories, and forms of memory?

I have also begun conducting my own personal explorations beyond Mack’s guidance, looking at individual khipus, such as AK002 and Stanford khipu 80.1012. AK002, in particular, has some abnormalities due to the horrible treatment it has faced—being cut and hot-glued to fit a piece of felt. Still, learning about different khipus and their histories brought them back to life for me, turning them from a mere set of numbers on an Excel sheet into complex histories and markers of their time. 

I have learned so much about myself through this process of research: my limits, my patience, and my drive to stay curious even when the answers are elusive. Working with khipus has taught me that progress in discovery often happens slowly—through threads of persistence, not flashes of brilliance. I now understand that research is most rewarding when answers lead to more questions, following the knots where they lead.