QU017/KH0605 - Catalog Information

Section Information
Statistics:
Original Name:   QU17
Original Author:  Kylie Quave
Museum:  Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX, USA
Museum Number:  B395/1983.W.2179
Provenance:  Unknown
Region:  Inka, Late Horizon
# of Cords:   52 (44p, 8s)
# of Unique Cord Colors:  16
Benford Match:  0.2864
# Ascher Sums (pps, ips, cps, sps,...):  3 (2, 0, 0, 0,...)
Similar Khipu:  Previous (QU013)  Next (QU016)
   QU017/KH0605
Pendant Pendant Sum
Ascher Decreasing Group
DataFile:
QU017

Notes:
Fragmentary khipu with three main cords and subsidiary cords. Three main cords tied together. End of Main C is severed.

Primary Cord


There are 3 S-plied main cords knotted together (by single overhand knots?). Main A- mon lt tn. Main B - mot md br/lt tn. Main C - mon lt br.
Main A and B are read right to left and Main C is read left to right.
Measurements (going from without the knotted sections, so excluding the part of the main cord that is held up in a knot)
Main A 35.3; Main B - 28 with 2.5 at kntted end coming out of knot with MA; Main C - 32.5 with 1.2 coming out of plied end knotted with MB.
Main A knotted end is at far left, MA plied end is tied to MB knotted end and some pendants come out of this knot. Main B plied end is knotted with Main C plied end and object's far right side is severed end of Main C.
How would it have been held up and read?
There doesn’t seem to be a real register system in use.
Does not seem like this khipu can be read numerically; does not follow register system
There are tricolor and 4 color mottled cords -- unusual
2 pendants on Main B are tied up inside knot with Main A -- indicates that these were three khipu created separately and then tied together because somehow related
Main A and Main B are whole khipu; Main C is a fragment of a khipu
Last cord has long knots in 2 different directions
White thread wrapped around p1-p7, p8-p17, and p18-p28, which are all rust brown cords. Are these white threads the remainders of detached subsidiaries?
Bibliography:

Bibliography for QU017/KH0605:

Year Author Title Pages
2009 Quave, Kylie. Confronting Anomaly in the Khipu Structure: Cultural and Individual Variations from Two Museum Collections. In Actas: IV Jornadas Internacionales sobre Textiles Precolombinos, edited by Victòria Solanilla Demestre, pp. 241-251. Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona. 246
2017 Urton, Gary. Inka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources. University of Texas Press, Austin. 262