Catalog: KH0083 (UR035, AS070)

1. Provenance: One of a collection of four khipu originally in the collection of Percy Dahlsberg, in Arica, Chile. These khipu were said to have been found in the administrative center of Mollepampa, which is located some 30 km up the Lluya River from Arica and Playa Miller. However, I was told by Carlos Aldunate, the Director of the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolumbino that he believes that this khipu derives from an Inka site at the Playa Miller (Carlos Aldunate, personal communication, 2001).
2. Khipu KH0083 is currently displayed in an arrangement designed by the staff of the Museo Chileno to most effectively display the structure of the khipu; however, to achieve this appearance required moving the pendant strings along the primary cord to give more room to pendants and pendant groups that were originally arranged differently (generally, more closely spaced together than now). Thus, no interpretive value should be given to the spacing between pendants and pendant groups. However, the museum staff insists that the order of pendants, and the total length of the primary cord, were not changed in the arriving at the present arrangement.
3. In most cases, what I have called DB could also be called LK. In many instances it is difficult to distinguis say MG:LK (med. gray mixed with black) and MG:DB (medium gray mixed with dark brown).