Word: quipu
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...found a quipu...
When the Museum's Director Stephen Chapman Simms heard that, he hastened upstairs to find Assistant Curator J. Eric Thompson of Central & South American Archeology brandishing a cluster of knotted strings. Few of the world's museums have even one quipu, and probably none has more than two. A quipu is a long cord, made of plant fibre, to which are tied other cords. The ancient inhabitants of Peru used them to count population, military reinforcements, llama flocks. Knots in the dependent cords represent units of 100, 10 and 1, depending on position. "An expedition might spend months...
...Thompson found the quipu in a basket of weaving materials included in a collection purchased ten years ago. As the Museum then boasted no expert on Peruvian archeology, the collection was stored. Lately Dr. Thompson has been combing it for exhibition items. He announced he would try to ascertain what this particular quipu was used for, began with a guess that it might have belonged to an oldtime sorcerer who employed it in horoscope-casting...
...Inca tomb near Cajamarca, Peru, Francisco Loaysa, of Lima, found an elaborate " quipu," or knotted and decorated cord 16 yards long, used by the Incas as a calculating device for their decimal arithmetic system...
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