For decades, epigraphers classified the Inka khipu—an intricate assemblage of knotted, dyed cotton and camelid cords—strictly as an accounting device restricted to recording quantitative census and tribute tallies. This interpretation was bolstered by the absence of phonetic scripts in pre-Columbian Andean material culture and by the base-10 numerical knotting patterns deciphered in early twentieth-century field studies. However, recent systematic cataloging of anomalous, non-decimal khipus reveals that structural variables previously dismissed as decorative or idiosyncratic—such as the binary direction of cord ply spin (S-twist versus Z-twist), attachment direction (recto versus verso), and hierarchical color-banding—exhibit rigid syntactic patterning that cannot be accounted for by numerical bookkeeping alone. Because these binary physical markers consistently correlate with specific geographic provenance and dual-organization social divisions (moieties), some researchers argue that the khipu operated as a semasiographic system capable of conveying complex social narratives and structural relationships independently of spoken Quechua phonology.
Based on the passage, which of the following statements about non-decimal khipus is most strongly supported?
- AThey represent a developmental transition toward a fully phonetic script designed to transcribe the grammatical inflections of spoken Quechua.
- Their physical construction incorporates regular structural conventions that encode non-quantitative social and regional information.Answer
- CThey were created primarily by provincial tributary officials to evade standard imperial census oversight and taxation records.
- DThe arbitrary decorative choices made by individual artisans prevented these devices from establishing consistent geographic correlations.
- ETheir base-10 knotting sequences were specifically devised to translate complex spoken narrative structures into linear mathematical records.