Khipu and Ceques Museo Central. Banco Central de Reserva del Perú

Cuzco’s political, social, and ceremonial life was organized using ceques, a system of forty-one imaginary lines that ran in different directions from the Temple of the Sun, or Coricancha, in the center of Cusco, toward the horizon. Along each line, or ceque, there was a variable number of sacred places, or huacas, each one of which played an important role in the capital’s ritual calendar. This system was probably recorded using khipus, where the huacas on each line were represented by knots in the cords. Here we see a khipu containing five exemplars joined to one another, two of which present an similar organization to that of the ceque system.