Recording the Offerings: The Khipus of Pachacamac
The significance of the Pachacamac and how the offerings were recorded using Khipus
Khipu found at The sanctuary of Pachacamac in Lurín (1400/1532) by Inca CultureMALI, Museo de Arte de Lima
Located 31 kilometers south of the city of Lima, at the arrival of the Spanish troops, Pachacamac was the most important sanctuary on the Peruvian coast. The place was related to the powerful oracle of the same name.
The importance of the sanctuary during the expansion of Tawantinsuyo is also reflected in the amount of khipus found in the different excavations carried out on the site. Most of the findings of khipus and fragments of khipus came from structures outside the ceremonial area.
Khipu (1400/1532) by Inca CultureMALI, Museo de Arte de Lima
Urton proposes the existence of a “wide range of variation in sizes, structural characteristics, color patterns and other peculiarities”, possibly differentiated by the presence of pilgrims from different regions, which “seems to result from different traditions of khipus making throughout the empire”.
By Frank ScherschelLIFE Photo Collection
In Pachacamac it has been possible to identify a series of rectangular enclosures considered as possible deposits, usually associated to the administrative buildings of the Late Intermediate period of the central coast, when the pyramids with ramp were built.
By Frank ScherschelLIFE Photo Collection
Like previous cultures, the Inca administration imposed the stockpile of products that were subject to a detailed state registry of what was delivered to administrative centers.
That was the role of the khipus as a pillar of an intensive administrative policy in Pachacamac and in all conquered regions, in which important administrative centers were built with a large number of deposits.
By Frank ScherschelLIFE Photo Collection
In Pachacamac a deposit system has been identified that probably served to store the goods in the immediate vicinity of the Pilgrims’ Square, next to the Pyramid with Ramp 13, behind the Pyramid with Ramp 1 and in the northeast part of the monumental area.
Wooden rod with holes and grooves from the Plaza de los Peregrinos at the sanctuary of Pachacamac in the Lurín Valley (1400/1532) by Inca CultureMALI, Museo de Arte de Lima
Wooden rod
A Pachacamac khipu from the Berlin collection has a rectangular wooden object at the top with holes and sculptural designs at the ends, where the cords hang. Within the museum’s collection there is a similar instrument that probably had the same function related to the khipus.
It is a wooden artifact from the Pilgrims’ Square, 23 centimeters long and 3,7 centimeters high, carved and shaped like a rectangular four-sided bar with nine pairs of diagonal holes arranged in each corner.
Each hole measures approximately 0,5 centimeters and is separated from each other by 1,5 centimeters. The device features grooves on two opposite faces and culminates in two small handles at the ends. It has seven pairs of small holes in one of the faces.
This rectangular wood provided with diverse holes allowed, according to colonial references, the count, through the knots, of the recorded amounts of income and expenses of products in official.
[Denise Pozzi-Escot, Susana Abad y Rommel Ángeles]
