Writing of the Americas

In an August 2005 article in Science magazine, researchers Gary Urton and Carrie Brezine report on the early successes of the Khipu Database Project, in which they believe they have deciphered an accounting method used by the Inca civilization to maintain control over its farflung empire.

From FAMSI, another fabulous website, this one by Randa Marhenke on the history of the Maya Codices, and including downloadable pdf files of the codices themselves.

The ancient Inca empire ruled much of South America when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century AD, and they did it all without a written language. But did they?

This wonderful on-line exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution is an introduction to the historical records of the Lakota (or Teton) Sioux, who maintained a record of past events in pictures and text on buffalo hide called 'winter counts'. Flash and html versions.

The Maguey Plan (Plano en papel de maguey) is the name of a 16th century map of part of a city within the Aztec empire, drawn on paper made of maguey (or agave).

There are three surviving Maya codices known in the world: Dresden, Madrid, and Paris, named because that's where the codices ended up, in museums in those cities.

Narrative Threads is a terrific collection of articles edited by Jeffrey Quilter and Gary Urton on translating the ancient Inka communication system called the quipu.

The quipu (also spelled khipu or quipo) is the only known precolumbian writing system in South America.

Archaeological evidence of quipu recovered from an archaeological site belonging to the ancient civilization of Caral in coastal Peru has the potential to rewrite the history of human civilization on planet earth.