Quipus were logical-numerical recording devices used by ancient Andean civilizations to store massive amounts of information. Some anthropologists believe that quipus were highly sophisticated devices capable of conveying thousands of units of information. Regardless, some of the design qualities of quipus have remained timeless and would make them award-winning objects today: they used ad-hoc, natural, renewable materials –llama or alpaca thread; they were lightweight, collapsible, portable and waterproof; they were color coded and each thread represented what it counted: yellow for corn or gold, white for silver, black for time, etc; they were easy to repair and reconfigure; and they were user-friendly, with a marvelous interface that took full advantage of the material properties of fibers. Quipus were also multi-functional: Quipucamayocs -the Inca administrators of quipus- used them both to store numerical data and to perform the four basic mathematical calculations. The structure of a quipu is extraordinarily simple: the closer the knot was to the top of the cord, the higher the number, and vice versa. At the top of the cord, the highest number represented ten thousand. At the bottom, one. Between one set of tens and the next, there was enough space for nine knots representing all single-digit numbers. It is not easy today to speculate about the design of this object, or the ways in which it was used. In many ways, it could be a very contemporary object, one that suggests great spirituality and a complex culture associated to it.
