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Science 12 August 2005:
Vol. 309. no. 5737, pp. 1065 - 1067
DOI: 10.1126/science.1113426
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Reports

Khipu Accounting in Ancient Peru

Gary Urton and Carrie J. Brezine

Khipu are knotted-string devices that were used for bureaucratic recording and communication in the Inka Empire. We recently undertook a computer analysis of 21 khipu from the Inka administrative center of Puruchuco, on the central coast of Peru. Results indicate that this khipu archive exemplifies the way in which census and tribute data were synthesized, manipulated, and transferred between different accounting levels in the Inka administrative system.

Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)