Toward Deciphering the Khipu

Abstract

Gary Urton argues that the khipu employed a seven-bit system of binary coding based upon seven inherently binary characteristics. In most cases, he provides little if any ethnographic or historical evidence for the significance of individual binary features, and his justification for the larger binary code as following from Andean concepts of dualism is theoretically unfounded. Furthermore, the theory of binary coding suffers from numerous logical inconsistencies and contradictions.

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