AS059/KH0070

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Khipu Notes Exist - See Below

Original Author: Marcia & Robert Ascher
Museum: O. Nunez del Prado, Cuzco
Museum Number: 5B
Provenance: Unknown
Region: Unknown
Total Number of Cords: 8
Number of Ascher Cord Colors: 2
Benford Match: 0.771
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Datafile: AS059

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Khipu Notes

Ascher Databook Notes:
  1. By spacing, this khipu bas 2 groups of 4 pendants each. The first group is subdivided by color into 2MB, 2W and the second group is all one color.
  2. All values on the khipu are between 7 and 13.
  3. This khipu, along with AS060-KH0080, was found with a cloth bag at Chala. Dorothy Menzl, one of the excavators at Chala, deposited the bag and its contents with Oscar Nunez del Prado in Cuzco. Also in the collection were a set of 13 prepared blank pendants tied together, a set of 48 prepared blank pendants tied together with a fragment of a broken khipu, and several individual broken pendants tied together. This collection is also discussed in Knot Records in Ancient and Modern Peru, C. J. Mackey, University of California, Berkeley, Ph. D. thesis, 1970, Chapter 4, pp. 83-99. Details of portions of AS061/MA036 and KH0080 are further described by the author on pp. 259-262.
  4. There is some similarity of colors used in this collection of khipus but no one color is very distinctive. For example, KB appears on AS062-AS066 and MB appears on AS059 and AS065-AS066.
  5. Top cords appear on AS066 and KH0080. In AS066, both common f orms of top cords are used--those uniting pendant cords and those attached to the main cord. In KH0080, the only f orm used is attachment to the main cord. Both khipus have these top cords centered within groups of 8 pendants.
  6. AS063, AS064, AS066, and KH0080 all have the twisted end of the main cord knotted.
  7. Several of the khipus in this collection have restricted values. AS059 has values 7-13; AS060 has values 1-8; AS061/MA036 has values less than 7; AS062 has values 6-15; and AS064 has values 0-10.
  8. Most of the khipus in this collection have groups that are set off by spacing and color (AS059-AS061/MA036, AS065-KH0080). However, three of the khipus also have groups subdivided in half by color. On AS059, the first group of 4 pendants is 2MB, 2W and the second is all W; on AS060 the second group of 4 pendants is 2YB:W, 2W and the third is all W; and on AS066 some groups are 4 pendants of one color, followed by 4 of another color, while the rest are 8 of one color.