The Incas Didn’t Have A Written Alphabet, But They Had Khipu

Quechua is largely a spoken language and has always been. Scholars and linguists have been actively developing a written Quechua language since the Spanish conquest in the early-mid 16th century. They employed the Roman alphabet, but most modern spellings of Quechua terms are still debatable.

So, how did the Incas disseminate such massive volumes of data (quantitative and qualitative) over such a vast empire? One of the interesting facts about the Incas and their empire is they didn't have a written alphabet, instead, they utilized a contraption known as a khipu (or quipu in different spellings) that was extremely distinctive and complicated. Various societies in Andean South America used the interesting old Inca writing device of quipu. The Incas employed a quipu, which is constructed of knotted strings, to collect data and retain records. They were accustomed to determining who owned what and preserving information about dates and plans.

No one has been able to make these knots talk after a century of research. Recent advancements, however, have begun to unravel the Andes' tangled riddle, revealing the first clues of phonetic symbolism within the threads. Two anthropologists are now on the verge of discovering the Inca counterpart of the Rosetta Stone. This could be the key to unlocking the code and revolutionizing our understanding of a civilization whose history has so far been told solely through the perspective of the Europeans who attempted to destroy it.