Threads That Speak: How The Inca Used Strings to Communicate | National Geographic

(Wind blowing) (Solemn music) (Engine humming) When you work with archaeological objects, you are like entering the world of your ancestors. (Mysterious music) I like to think that in a way, they talk to us. (Mysterious music) A Quipu is an accounting device made of cotton strings that used knots to represent numbers. (Mysterious music) A Quipu is the accountance of life (laughs). (Mysterious music) The Quipus were made in Inca times by Quipucamayocs. (Mysterious music) The Quipucamayocs, the only ones who were able to read it, die and didn't pass the knowledge to the next generations. There's a lot of questions still to get answered. My biggest hope for Inkawasi is to be able to excavate all the site.

(Gentle bell music) The Quipus are very well preserved because the environment of the Peruvian coast is very arid. So you have a very good preservation of any organic remain. (Gentle bell music) This must be 600 years old. And as you can see, the preservation is very well. (Gentle bell music) We know that the numbers found in the Quipus are the counts of these products. (Gentle bell music)

[Woman] They have been buried for 600 years and so what we do is the conservation. That means keep them clean and straight so the analyzer can come and study them. I think this discovery would bring a better understanding of Quipus and also in how the Incas dominate and control these local populations. Many people say that because we had no writing, our culture was not developed. But we really have things like Quipus that show that it was a very developed culture.

Every time it's exciting because we are finding them in different contexts and in different situations. And different sizes, different shapes, colors, knots. So we can have a very big data of these Quipus. So we can compare them and get any kind of insight to see how to read them or how to understand them. (Gentle bell music) The first one when you see them like really dirty spaghetti and then they are just like "take me a picture," they are so pretty. (Laughs) I think the Quipus are grateful (laughs). (Gentle upbeat music)

(Paper tearing) (Paper tearing)