Quipus, Writing, and Mathematics: Historiographical Debates on the Recording Systems of the Inca Empire
Keywords:
Khipu, Inca Empire, History of Mathematics, Recording Systems, EpistemologyAbstract
Khipus stretch Western boundaries between mathematics, writing, and memory. This article investigates how these categories forged khipus as scientific objects from the 16th to 21st century. Countering a linear discovery narrative, it argues that interpretive oscillations reflect epistemological mutations, analyzed via Grattan-Guinness’s heritage/history distinction and the historical ontology of Hacking and Daston. The mapping reveals how each era reconfigured the cords, from fiscal tools to Andean writing candidates showing, that these readings form competing research programs whose tensions remain productively open.
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