{"id":228697,"date":"2017-08-25T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T16:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=228697"},"modified":"2023-11-08T20:59:18","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T01:59:18","slug":"a-students-mines-voices-from-the-incan-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2017\/08\/a-students-mines-voices-from-the-incan-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices from the Incas\u2019 past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tScience & Tech\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t

\n\t\tVoices from the Incas\u2019 past\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\tJill Radsken\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

\n\t\t\tUndergrad deciphers meaning of knots, giving native South American people a chance to speak\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\t\t

For centuries, Diego couldn\u2019t be heard. A peasant who had lived in a remote village in the Inca Empire in the late 1600s, he existed only as a nameless number recorded in a khipu, a knotted rope system kept for census counting and bookkeeping.<\/p>\n

But a discovery by Manny Medrano, a College junior who lives in Eliot House, has begun to reveal Diego\u2019s secrets, details about not only the man\u2019s identity and class status in his village, but also his way of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s giving the Incas their own voice,\u201d said Gary Urton<\/a>, chair of the Anthropology Department and Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies, who guided Medrano in his research. \u201cI could never figure out the hidden meanings in these devices. Manny figured them out, focusing on their color, and on their recto or verso (right-hand and left-hand) construction. This was the only case we have discovered so far in which one or more (in this case six) khipus and a census record matches.\u201d<\/p>\n

The findings, made during spring break of Medrano\u2019s freshman year, led him and Urton to publish their research in Ethnohistory<\/a>, an anthropological and historical journal. In an extraordinary achievement for a college undergraduate, Medrano is the lead author of the article, which is due out in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis constitutes the first instance of \u2018reading\u2019 information from khipu attachment knots,\u201d states the paper, titled \u201cToward the Decipherment of a Set of Mid-Colonial Khipus from the Santa Valley, Coastal Peru.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\t\n\n\t

\"\"
A model of khipu knots, representative of many khipus from pre- and post-Conquest Peru.\u00a0Jon Chase\/Harvard Staff Photographer\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\n\t\r\n\n

\u201cHaving a document that we\u2019ve written go into history in the same way a book might, and get peer reviewed, is really exciting,\u201d said Medrano, now 21.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Urton explained that the discovery was \u201can important step\u201d in understanding Inca life. Long known as the only Bronze Age civilization without a written language, the Incas used khipus, which were dyed in an array of colors and hung from a horizontal cord, as repositories of numerical and narrative information. During his freshman year, Medrano took an introductory course from Urton, who has compiled a database<\/a> of hundreds of khipus from museums around the world.<\/p>\n

The professor later hired Medrano to help organize citations in his recently published book, \u201cInka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources.\u201d During class one day, Urton mentioned six khipus recently rediscovered in a museum in Lima, Peru. These ropes were unique because their existence affirmed a written census the Spanish had recorded in 1670 about 132 Recuay Indian tributaries, and Urton hoped to find help investigating them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been studying some 600 khipus across North America and Europe \u2014 not just their color, but the way the cords are spun to the left or to the right, and other such features. There is a lot of structural variation,\u201d Urton said. \u201cI knew we would have our greatest possibility of deciphering these in a match with one or more with a Spanish document that recorded the same information.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medrano told him, \u201cI have spring break coming up and nothing to do.\u201d He studied the khipus, hypothesizing that the recto or verso knots contained meaningful information about the division of the Recuay people into moieties, or halves. These halves not only divided the village geographically, but also reflected social status.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now know not only that there were six clans in the valley, but also what social status each clan and each villager held in Recuay society,\u201d said Medrano, who leveraged his concentration in applied mathematics and fluency in Spanish to connect the khipus with the census names. \u201cI loved the idea that there might be numbers or words encoded in these knotted cords.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medrano, whose family is Mexican-American and who has added a minor in archeology to his studies as a result of this research, said he feels a personal connection to the work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I talk to my friends about the work I do, they tend to have isolated notions of how history can be told \u2014 either written down or in pictures. This research collapses and combines the notions of what we think of as recording the past. What we grab from the Spanish sources is a colonial reading of history. It\u2019s important to move away from what European history says about these people to what the indigenous people say about themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my grandparents came here a couple of generations ago, they didn\u2019t think someone in this family would write something that would go down in history. I think it\u2019s important to get people into these research spaces who look more like those under study.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An undergraduate deciphers the meaning of Incan knots, giving long-dead native South American people a chance to speak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108352576,"featured_media":229345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gz_ga_pageviews":21,"gz_ga_lastupdated":"2022-05-13 07:35","document_color_palette":null,"author":"Jill Radsken","affiliation":"Harvard Staff 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class=\"wp-block-post-author\">\n\t\t\t<address class=\"wp-block-post-author__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"author wp-block-post-author__name\">\n\t\tJill Radsken\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-post-author__byline\">\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t<time class=\"article-header__date\" datetime=\"2017-08-25\">\n\t\t\tAugust 25, 2017\t\t<\/time>\n\n\t\t<span class=\"article-header__reading-time\">\n\t\t\t4 min read\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-header__subheading wp-block-heading\">\n\t\t\tUndergrad deciphers meaning of knots, giving native South American people a chance to speak\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n"},"2":{"blockName":"core\/group","attrs":{"templateLock":false,"metadata":{"name":"Article content"},"align":"wide","layout":{"type":"constrained","justifyContent":"center"},"tagName":"div","lock":[],"className":"","style":[],"backgroundColor":"","textColor":"","gradient":"","fontSize":"","fontFamily":"","borderColor":"","ariaLabel":"","anchor":""},"innerBlocks":[{"blockName":"core\/freeform","attrs":{"content":"","lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n\t\t<p>For centuries, Diego couldn\u2019t be heard. A peasant who had lived in a remote village in the Inca Empire in the late 1600s, he existed only as a nameless number recorded in a khipu, a knotted rope system kept for census counting and bookkeeping.<\/p>\n<p>But a discovery by Manny Medrano, a College junior who lives in Eliot House, has begun to reveal Diego\u2019s secrets, details about not only the man\u2019s identity and class status in his village, but also his way of life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s giving the Incas their own voice,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/anthropology.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/gary-urton\">Gary Urton<\/a>, chair of the Anthropology Department and Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies, who guided Medrano in his research. \u201cI could never figure out the hidden meanings in these devices. Manny figured them out, focusing on their color, and on their recto or verso (right-hand and left-hand) construction. This was the only case we have discovered so far in which one or more (in this case six) khipus and a census record matches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The findings, made during spring break of Medrano\u2019s freshman year, led him and Urton to publish their research in <a href=\"http:\/\/ethnohistory.dukejournals.org\/\">Ethnohistory<\/a>, an anthropological and historical journal. In an extraordinary achievement for a college undergraduate, Medrano is the lead author of the article, which is due out in January.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis constitutes the first instance of \u2018reading\u2019 information from khipu attachment knots,\u201d states the paper, titled \u201cToward the Decipherment of a Set of Mid-Colonial Khipus from the Santa Valley, Coastal Peru.\u201d<\/p>\n","innerContent":["\n\t\t<p>For centuries, Diego couldn\u2019t be heard. A peasant who had lived in a remote village in the Inca Empire in the late 1600s, he existed only as a nameless number recorded in a khipu, a knotted rope system kept for census counting and bookkeeping.<\/p>\n<p>But a discovery by Manny Medrano, a College junior who lives in Eliot House, has begun to reveal Diego\u2019s secrets, details about not only the man\u2019s identity and class status in his village, but also his way of life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s giving the Incas their own voice,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/anthropology.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/gary-urton\">Gary Urton<\/a>, chair of the Anthropology Department and Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies, who guided Medrano in his research. \u201cI could never figure out the hidden meanings in these devices. Manny figured them out, focusing on their color, and on their recto or verso (right-hand and left-hand) construction. This was the only case we have discovered so far in which one or more (in this case six) khipus and a census record matches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The findings, made during spring break of Medrano\u2019s freshman year, led him and Urton to publish their research in <a href=\"http:\/\/ethnohistory.dukejournals.org\/\">Ethnohistory<\/a>, an anthropological and historical journal. In an extraordinary achievement for a college undergraduate, Medrano is the lead author of the article, which is due out in January.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis constitutes the first instance of \u2018reading\u2019 information from khipu attachment knots,\u201d states the paper, titled \u201cToward the Decipherment of a Set of Mid-Colonial Khipus from the Santa Valley, Coastal Peru.\u201d<\/p>\n"],"rendered":"\n\t\t<p>For centuries, Diego couldn\u2019t be heard. A peasant who had lived in a remote village in the Inca Empire in the late 1600s, he existed only as a nameless number recorded in a khipu, a knotted rope system kept for census counting and bookkeeping.<\/p>\n<p>But a discovery by Manny Medrano, a College junior who lives in Eliot House, has begun to reveal Diego\u2019s secrets, details about not only the man\u2019s identity and class status in his village, but also his way of life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s giving the Incas their own voice,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/anthropology.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/gary-urton\">Gary Urton<\/a>, chair of the Anthropology Department and Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies, who guided Medrano in his research. \u201cI could never figure out the hidden meanings in these devices. Manny figured them out, focusing on their color, and on their recto or verso (right-hand and left-hand) construction. This was the only case we have discovered so far in which one or more (in this case six) khipus and a census record matches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The findings, made during spring break of Medrano\u2019s freshman year, led him and Urton to publish their research in <a href=\"http:\/\/ethnohistory.dukejournals.org\/\">Ethnohistory<\/a>, an anthropological and historical journal. In an extraordinary achievement for a college undergraduate, Medrano is the lead author of the article, which is due out in January.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis constitutes the first instance of \u2018reading\u2019 information from khipu attachment knots,\u201d states the paper, titled \u201cToward the Decipherment of a Set of Mid-Colonial Khipus from the Santa Valley, Coastal Peru.\u201d<\/p>\n"},{"blockName":"core\/image","attrs":{"sizeSlug":"full","align":"none","id":229346,"caption":"A model of khipu knots, representative of many khipus from pre- and post-Conquest Peru.\u00a0Jon Chase\/Harvard Staff Photographer","blob":"","url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/042417_quipus_027.jpg","alt":"","lightbox":[],"title":"","href":"","rel":"","linkClass":"","width":"","height":"","aspectRatio":"","scale":"","linkDestination":"","linkTarget":"","lock":[],"metadata":[],"className":"","style":[],"borderColor":"","anchor":""},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/042417_quipus_027.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-229346\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A model of khipu knots, representative of many khipus from pre- and post-Conquest Peru.\u00a0Jon Chase\/Harvard Staff Photographer\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t","innerContent":["\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/042417_quipus_027.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-229346\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A model of khipu knots, representative of many khipus from pre- and post-Conquest Peru.\u00a0Jon Chase\/Harvard Staff Photographer\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t"],"rendered":"\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/042417_quipus_027.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-229346\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A model of khipu knots, representative of many khipus from pre- and post-Conquest Peru.\u00a0Jon Chase\/Harvard Staff Photographer\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t"},{"blockName":"core\/freeform","attrs":{"content":"","lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n<p>\u201cHaving a document that we\u2019ve written go into history in the same way a book might, and get peer reviewed, is really exciting,\u201d said Medrano, now 21<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Urton explained that the discovery was \u201can important step\u201d in understanding Inca life. Long known as the only Bronze Age civilization without a written language, the Incas used khipus, which were dyed in an array of colors and hung from a horizontal cord, as repositories of numerical and narrative information. During his freshman year, Medrano took an introductory course from Urton, who has compiled a <a href=\"http:\/\/khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu\/\">database<\/a> of hundreds of khipus from museums around the world.<\/p>\n<p>The professor later hired Medrano to help organize citations in his recently published book, \u201cInka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources.\u201d During class one day, Urton mentioned six khipus recently rediscovered in a museum in Lima, Peru. These ropes were unique because their existence affirmed a written census the Spanish had recorded in 1670 about 132 Recuay Indian tributaries, and Urton hoped to find help investigating them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been studying some 600 khipus across North America and Europe \u2014 not just their color, but the way the cords are spun to the left or to the right, and other such features. There is a lot of structural variation,\u201d Urton said. \u201cI knew we would have our greatest possibility of deciphering these in a match with one or more with a Spanish document that recorded the same information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Medrano told him, \u201cI have spring break coming up and nothing to do.\u201d He studied the khipus, hypothesizing that the recto or verso knots contained meaningful information about the division of the Recuay people into moieties, or halves. These halves not only divided the village geographically, but also reflected social status.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe now know not only that there were six clans in the valley, but also what social status each clan and each villager held in Recuay society,\u201d said Medrano, who leveraged his concentration in applied mathematics and fluency in Spanish to connect the khipus with the census names. \u201cI loved the idea that there might be numbers or words encoded in these knotted cords.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Medrano, whose family is Mexican-American and who has added a minor in archeology to his studies as a result of this research, said he feels a personal connection to the work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I talk to my friends about the work I do, they tend to have isolated notions of how history can be told \u2014 either written down or in pictures. This research collapses and combines the notions of what we think of as recording the past. What we grab from the Spanish sources is a colonial reading of history. It\u2019s important to move away from what European history says about these people to what the indigenous people say about themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen my grandparents came here a couple of generations ago, they didn\u2019t think someone in this family would write something that would go down in history. I think it\u2019s important to get people into these research spaces who look more like those under study.\u201d<\/p>\n","innerContent":["\n<p>\u201cHaving a document that we\u2019ve written go into history in the same way a book might, and get peer reviewed, is really exciting,\u201d said Medrano, now 21<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Urton explained that the discovery was \u201can important step\u201d in understanding Inca life. Long known as the only Bronze Age civilization without a written language, the Incas used khipus, which were dyed in an array of colors and hung from a horizontal cord, as repositories of numerical and narrative information. During his freshman year, Medrano took an introductory course from Urton, who has compiled a <a href=\"http:\/\/khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu\/\">database<\/a> of hundreds of khipus from museums around the world.<\/p>\n<p>The professor later hired Medrano to help organize citations in his recently published book, \u201cInka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources.\u201d During class one day, Urton mentioned six khipus recently rediscovered in a museum in Lima, Peru. These ropes were unique because their existence affirmed a written census the Spanish had recorded in 1670 about 132 Recuay Indian tributaries, and Urton hoped to find help investigating them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been studying some 600 khipus across North America and Europe \u2014 not just their color, but the way the cords are spun to the left or to the right, and other such features. There is a lot of structural variation,\u201d Urton said. \u201cI knew we would have our greatest possibility of deciphering these in a match with one or more with a Spanish document that recorded the same information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Medrano told him, \u201cI have spring break coming up and nothing to do.\u201d He studied the khipus, hypothesizing that the recto or verso knots contained meaningful information about the division of the Recuay people into moieties, or halves. These halves not only divided the village geographically, but also reflected social status.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe now know not only that there were six clans in the valley, but also what social status each clan and each villager held in Recuay society,\u201d said Medrano, who leveraged his concentration in applied mathematics and fluency in Spanish to connect the khipus with the census names. \u201cI loved the idea that there might be numbers or words encoded in these knotted cords.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Medrano, whose family is Mexican-American and who has added a minor in archeology to his studies as a result of this research, said he feels a personal connection to the work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I talk to my friends about the work I do, they tend to have isolated notions of how history can be told \u2014 either written down or in pictures. This research collapses and combines the notions of what we think of as recording the past. What we grab from the Spanish sources is a colonial reading of history. It\u2019s important to move away from what European history says about these people to what the indigenous people say about themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen my grandparents came here a couple of generations ago, they didn\u2019t think someone in this family would write something that would go down in history. I think it\u2019s important to get people into these research spaces who look more like those under study.\u201d<\/p>\n"],"rendered":"\n<p>\u201cHaving a document that we\u2019ve written go into history in the same way a book might, and get peer reviewed, is really exciting,\u201d said Medrano, now 21<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Urton explained that the discovery was \u201can important step\u201d in understanding Inca life. Long known as the only Bronze Age civilization without a written language, the Incas used khipus, which were dyed in an array of colors and hung from a horizontal cord, as repositories of numerical and narrative information. During his freshman year, Medrano took an introductory course from Urton, who has compiled a <a href=\"http:\/\/khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu\/\">database<\/a> of hundreds of khipus from museums around the world.<\/p>\n<p>The professor later hired Medrano to help organize citations in his recently published book, \u201cInka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources.\u201d During class one day, Urton mentioned six khipus recently rediscovered in a museum in Lima, Peru. These ropes were unique because their existence affirmed a written census the Spanish had recorded in 1670 about 132 Recuay Indian tributaries, and Urton hoped to find help investigating them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been studying some 600 khipus across North America and Europe \u2014 not just their color, but the way the cords are spun to the left or to the right, and other such features. There is a lot of structural variation,\u201d Urton said. \u201cI knew we would have our greatest possibility of deciphering these in a match with one or more with a Spanish document that recorded the same information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Medrano told him, \u201cI have spring break coming up and nothing to do.\u201d He studied the khipus, hypothesizing that the recto or verso knots contained meaningful information about the division of the Recuay people into moieties, or halves. These halves not only divided the village geographically, but also reflected social status.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe now know not only that there were six clans in the valley, but also what social status each clan and each villager held in Recuay society,\u201d said Medrano, who leveraged his concentration in applied mathematics and fluency in Spanish to connect the khipus with the census names. \u201cI loved the idea that there might be numbers or words encoded in these knotted cords.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Medrano, whose family is Mexican-American and who has added a minor in archeology to his studies as a result of this research, said he feels a personal connection to the work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I talk to my friends about the work I do, they tend to have isolated notions of how history can be told \u2014 either written down or in pictures. This research collapses and combines the notions of what we think of as recording the past. What we grab from the Spanish sources is a colonial reading of history. It\u2019s important to move away from what European history says about these people to what the indigenous people say about themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen my grandparents came here a couple of generations ago, they didn\u2019t think someone in this family would write something that would go down in history. I think it\u2019s important to get people into these research spaces who look more like those under study.\u201d<\/p>\n"}],"innerHTML":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\">\n\n\r\n\t\n\t\r\n\n\n<\/div>\n","innerContent":["\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\">\n\n","\r\n\t","\n\t\r\n","\n\n<\/div>\n"],"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide has-global-padding is-content-justification-center is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n\n\n\t\t<p>For centuries, Diego couldn\u2019t be heard. A peasant who had lived in a remote village in the Inca Empire in the late 1600s, he existed only as a nameless number recorded in a khipu, a knotted rope system kept for census counting and bookkeeping.<\/p>\n<p>But a discovery by Manny Medrano, a College junior who lives in Eliot House, has begun to reveal Diego\u2019s secrets, details about not only the man\u2019s identity and class status in his village, but also his way of life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s giving the Incas their own voice,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/anthropology.fas.harvard.edu\/people\/gary-urton\">Gary Urton<\/a>, chair of the Anthropology Department and Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Pre-Columbian Studies, who guided Medrano in his research. \u201cI could never figure out the hidden meanings in these devices. Manny figured them out, focusing on their color, and on their recto or verso (right-hand and left-hand) construction. This was the only case we have discovered so far in which one or more (in this case six) khipus and a census record matches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The findings, made during spring break of Medrano\u2019s freshman year, led him and Urton to publish their research in <a href=\"http:\/\/ethnohistory.dukejournals.org\/\">Ethnohistory<\/a>, an anthropological and historical journal. In an extraordinary achievement for a college undergraduate, Medrano is the lead author of the article, which is due out in January.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis constitutes the first instance of \u2018reading\u2019 information from khipu attachment knots,\u201d states the paper, titled \u201cToward the Decipherment of a Set of Mid-Colonial Khipus from the Santa Valley, Coastal Peru.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\t\n\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone size-full is-resized\"><img src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/042417_quipus_027.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-229346\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A model of khipu knots, representative of many khipus from pre- and post-Conquest Peru.\u00a0Jon Chase\/Harvard Staff Photographer\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\n\t\r\n\n<p>\u201cHaving a document that we\u2019ve written go into history in the same way a book might, and get peer reviewed, is really exciting,\u201d said Medrano, now 21<strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Urton explained that the discovery was \u201can important step\u201d in understanding Inca life. Long known as the only Bronze Age civilization without a written language, the Incas used khipus, which were dyed in an array of colors and hung from a horizontal cord, as repositories of numerical and narrative information. During his freshman year, Medrano took an introductory course from Urton, who has compiled a <a href=\"http:\/\/khipukamayuq.fas.harvard.edu\/\">database<\/a> of hundreds of khipus from museums around the world.<\/p>\n<p>The professor later hired Medrano to help organize citations in his recently published book, \u201cInka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources.\u201d During class one day, Urton mentioned six khipus recently rediscovered in a museum in Lima, Peru. These ropes were unique because their existence affirmed a written census the Spanish had recorded in 1670 about 132 Recuay Indian tributaries, and Urton hoped to find help investigating them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have been studying some 600 khipus across North America and Europe \u2014 not just their color, but the way the cords are spun to the left or to the right, and other such features. There is a lot of structural variation,\u201d Urton said. \u201cI knew we would have our greatest possibility of deciphering these in a match with one or more with a Spanish document that recorded the same information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Medrano told him, \u201cI have spring break coming up and nothing to do.\u201d He studied the khipus, hypothesizing that the recto or verso knots contained meaningful information about the division of the Recuay people into moieties, or halves. These halves not only divided the village geographically, but also reflected social status.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe now know not only that there were six clans in the valley, but also what social status each clan and each villager held in Recuay society,\u201d said Medrano, who leveraged his concentration in applied mathematics and fluency in Spanish to connect the khipus with the census names. \u201cI loved the idea that there might be numbers or words encoded in these knotted cords.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Medrano, whose family is Mexican-American and who has added a minor in archeology to his studies as a result of this research, said he feels a personal connection to the work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I talk to my friends about the work I do, they tend to have isolated notions of how history can be told \u2014 either written down or in pictures. This research collapses and combines the notions of what we think of as recording the past. What we grab from the Spanish sources is a colonial reading of history. It\u2019s important to move away from what European history says about these people to what the indigenous people say about themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen my grandparents came here a couple of generations ago, they didn\u2019t think someone in this family would write something that would go down in history. I think it\u2019s important to get people into these research spaces who look more like those under study.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n"}},"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":145280,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2013\/08\/a-shoe-thing\/","url_meta":{"origin":228697,"position":0},"title":"A shoe thing","author":"harvardgazette","date":"August 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A limited-edition sneaker honoring the \u201cthree lies\u201d of the John Harvard Statue goes on sale, drawing fashion fans from far and wide.","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/081513_sneakers_1015_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/081513_sneakers_1015_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/081513_sneakers_1015_605.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":365337,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2023\/10\/new-launch-grant-will-help-students-navigate-post-harvard-costs\/","url_meta":{"origin":228697,"position":1},"title":"Extending financial aid beyond the Yard","author":"harvardgazette","date":"October 12, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Students with zero parent contribution \u2014 those whose annual family income is $85,000 or less \u2014 will now receive a $2,000 \u201claunch grant\u201d in the fall of their junior year.","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Widener Library.","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2500_Features_SM_442.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2500_Features_SM_442.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2500_Features_SM_442.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2500_Features_SM_442.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":259974,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2018\/12\/four-at-harvard-named-marshall-scholars\/","url_meta":{"origin":228697,"position":2},"title":"Four Harvard seniors headed to UK","author":"William Cannon","date":"December 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Four Harvard seniors have been awarded Marshall Scholarships to cover two years of postgraduate studies in the U.K.","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Harvard Campus with students walking","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/110317_Features_KS_021_2500.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/110317_Features_KS_021_2500.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/110317_Features_KS_021_2500.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/110317_Features_KS_021_2500.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":260190,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2018\/12\/harvards-4-new-marshall-scholars-look-ahead\/","url_meta":{"origin":228697,"position":3},"title":"New Marshall scholars gaze ahead","author":"gazettebeckycoleman","date":"December 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Four Harvard seniors, among the students selected this week as Marshall scholars, ponder their future. Their scholarships pay for two years of advanced study at a college or university of their choice in the United Kingdom.","rel":"","context":"In "Campus & Community"","block_context":{"text":"Campus & Community","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/campus-community\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Vaibhav Mohanty, Lyndon Hanrahan, Justin Lee, Manuel Medrano.","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2019_Marshall_Scholars_quadriptych_2500.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2019_Marshall_Scholars_quadriptych_2500.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2019_Marshall_Scholars_quadriptych_2500.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2019_Marshall_Scholars_quadriptych_2500.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":318946,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2021\/03\/gabe-fox-peck-20-discusses-grammy-nominated-song-new-album\/","url_meta":{"origin":228697,"position":4},"title":"Harvard grad reflects on \u2018Twilight Zone\u2019 type of year","author":"Lian Parsons","date":"March 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Harvard alum discusses his Grammy-nominated song \u201cStand Up\u201d from the biopic \u201cHarriet.\u201d","rel":"","context":"In "Arts & Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Arts & Culture","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/arts-humanities\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gabe Fox-Peck \u201920","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Fox_Peck.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Fox_Peck.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Fox_Peck.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Fox_Peck.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":143732,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2013\/07\/perfecting-digital-imaging\/","url_meta":{"origin":228697,"position":5},"title":"Perfecting digital imaging","author":"harvardgazette","date":"July 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite advances, the best software and video cameras cannot seem to get computer-generated images and digital film to look exactly the way our eyes expect them to. Harvard's Hanspeter Pfister and Todd Zickler are working to narrow the gap between \u201cvirtual\u201d and \u201creal\u201d by asking the question: How do we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Science & Tech"","block_context":{"text":"Science & Tech","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/science-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/seas_rendered-translucent-materials5_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/seas_rendered-translucent-materials5_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/seas_rendered-translucent-materials5_605.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/108352576"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228697"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229440,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228697\/revisions\/229440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228697"},{"taxonomy":"format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gazette-formats?post=228697"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=228697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}