khipu

plural khipus

1. alternativeAlternative form of quipu.

   Few of the world’s so-called lost writings have proved as daunting to decipher as khipus, scholars say, with chroniclers from the outset of colonial rule bewildered by their inability to crack the code.

   2010 August 16, Simon Romero, “High in the Andes, Keeping an Incan Mystery Alive”, in The New York Times

   1 more example

   But a more searching analysis of some 450 of the 600 surviving khipu has called into question this interpretation. Although they were probably mainly accounting tools, a growing number of researchers now think that some khipu were nonnumerical and may have been an early form of writing.

   2003 December 8, John Noble Wilford, “String, and Knot, Theory of Inca Writing”, in The New York Times