As a film about talking bears, you might not expect the newly released ‘Paddington in Peru’ to care too much about historical accuracy.
In one of the film’s most fanciful moments, Paddington discovers a knotted string bracelet said to contain an ancient Incan secret.
But far from being ropy Holywood nonsense, this hidden language really did exist.
Not only did the Incans genuinely use a knot language called khipu but you can even learn how to read some for yourself.
At the height of the Incan empire during the 15th century, these woven messages formed the backbone of a vast system of accounts and ledgers.
Some researchers even believe that khipu could have been used to record poems, histories, and songs – just like in Paddington 3.
While they have remained mysteries for hundreds of years, researchers are now beginning to unlock the secrets of this fiendishly complex ‘three-dimensional language’.
So, if you want to crack codes like Paddington Bear, here’s how you can do it.
Archaeologists say that Paddington in Peru (pictured) contains a surprisingly accurate representation of a lost Incan secret
In the film, Paddington discovers a woven bracelet said to contain an Incan secret (pictures). But according to experts, the Incans really did use knotted strings to send messages
What are khipu?
Karen Thompson, a khipu researcher at the University of Melbourne, told MailOnline: ‘According to readings of the Spanish chronicles, the khipu were absolutely critical to the functioning of the administration of Incan society.’
Before the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s, the Incan Empire ruled over lands stretching more than 3,100 miles (5,000km) from Ecuador to Chile.
This vast empire of 10 million people was governed through a system of partially self-governing provinces in a complex federal hierarchy in which economic production was centrally controlled.
The success of this relied on the use of khipu to record census data, tribute accounts, and stock inventories from all over the empire.
There was even a specially trained caste called khipumayuq, or the keepers of the khipus who could read and tie the chords.
Just like we see in Paddington in Peru, khipus were a method of recording information by tying knots into pieces of cord.
At their most basic, a khipu consists of a thick primary cord to which a number of hanging pendant cords are attached.
Some of these pendant cords might had subsidiary cords which could have even had subsidiaries of their own so that the most complex khipu looked like a branching tree.
Khipu were knotted strings used by the Incan Empire to record complex numerical information such as administrative records. Pictured: a khipu dated to between 1430 and 1532 AD
At the height of the Incan Empire, the administrative class ruled over 10 million people. This required a huge accounting system to keep track of tributes and agricultural products, for which khipus were used exclusively
Knots would then be tied along these cords with different knots representing different decimal numbers.
By combining these knots according to established rules, a single khipu with enough knots and cords could theoretically hold an unlimited amount of information.
How to read khipu
Although experts are only just beginning to scratch the surface of khipu’s complexity, there are some simple rules that you can learn to use.
For example, khipu use a figure of eight knot to represent ‘one’, a knot with two loops to represent ‘two’, a knot with three loops to represent ‘three’ and so on up to nine.
By placing these at different points along the cord or leaving a large gap to represent a zero, a khipu can record a single complex number.
The knot at the bottom of the cord represents the units, the one above it the tens, the one above that the hundreds, and upwards for as large as the number needs to be.
For example, a pendant with a figure of eight at the bottom, a three-loop knot above it, and a five-loop knot above that would represent the number 531.
Numerical khipus use differently-shaped knots placed at different points on the cord to record numbers in base ten. This diagram shows how you can read or make khipu for yourself
By attaching more pendant chords to the primary and adding even more subsidiary chords to those you can create what is essentially a woven spreadsheet.
Of course, that is only the beginning of the complexity which could be achieved with khipus.
Ms Thompson says: ‘The more time we spend looking at khipus, the more we see.
‘For example, the complexity and colouring of the threads that make up the cords and how they’re combined, how the cords are attached to each other, the choice of whether to end a cord with a knot or without one, the knots, and more.’
For example, some researchers suggest that the direction of the knot could be used to indicate whether the figure was being paid or a debt owed.
Likewise, some researchers suggest that the colour of the threads could have played an important role.
Anthropologist Terence D’Altroy argues that black stood for the passage of time, purple for nobility, green for agriculture, and yellow for gold.
So a green subsidiary cord attached to a purple pendant might indicate how much corn was paid to a noble family.
Some experts believe that the colour of the strings may indicate the subject of the numbers being recorded. For example, yellow might represent money while green could represent agriculture. How the strings are grouped also tells you whether they record basic information or are recording a collection of lower-level data. Pictured a replica of early 15th century khipu
Professor Sabine Hyland, an anthropologist at the University of St Andrews and a leading khipu expert, told MailOnline that how the pendant cords were arranged is also critical to their meaning.
Professor Hyland says: ‘The organisation of pendant colours reveals whether a khipu summarises data from multiple khipus or whether the khipu represents individual data from the lowest level of a khipu accounting hierarchy.
For example, if all the pendants of one colour are grouped together then each cord represents an individual and the khipu contains the lowest level data.
But, if the cords alternate colours, then this shows that it is combining data from multiple lower-level khipus.
Some khipus Professor Hyland has studied even contain both types of data, allowing these seemingly simple cords to encode vast amounts of information.
Could khipu contain messages?
But as impressive as your khipu accounting might be, it doesn’t quite add up to what we see in the film.
In Paddington in Peru, the knotted khipu contains a written message which can be translated as if it were any other form of language.
Almost all our understanding of khipu comes from Spanish text and drawings like these. However, the Spanish also noted that some khipu were used to record stories as well as numerical data
In Paddington in Peru (pictured) the khipu contains a hidden message. Some researchers believe that khipus really could contain written information such as stories or poems
And, although this is a matter of ongoing debate among academics, there is some evidence that this might be grounded in reality.
Professor Hyland says: ‘According to the Spanish chroniclers who witnessed khipus in use, some khipus recorded narratives, biographies, and even poetry.’
For example, the poet Garcilaso de la Vega, son of an Inca princess and a Spanish conquistador, noted that the Incas used khipu for more than just numbers.
In 1609, de la Vega wrote that the Inca: ‘recorded on knots everything that could be counted, even mentioning battles and fights, all the embassies that had come to visit the Inca and all the speeches and arguments they had uttered.’
The problem is that the majority of Incan khipu which have survived just aren’t complex enough for this to be true.
Some researchers, such as Ms Thompson suggest that some simpler khipu might have recorded histories by acting as memory prompts rather than written texts.
Ms Thompson says: ‘What we do see in the extant khipus is that a not-insignificant proportion of cords have knots that do not follow the decimal ordering one might expect if they held only one number.
‘It is unclear to me if text was “encoded” or if the cords were memory prompt devices.’
Even simple khipu like these contain hidden complexities which could hold the key to a lost language. For example, this khipu contains strands of its author’s hair which function as a form of physical signature
However, some researchers still believe that there may have been so-called ‘narrative khipu’ which were used to record entire written texts.
In 2015, Professor Hyland was invited to the remote village of San Juan de Collata, deep in the Peruvian Andes, where the villagers had preserved two ancestral khipus from the late 18th century.
The villagers believe that these khipu contain narrative letters created by local chiefs during a rebellion against the Spanish but no outsiders had ever been permitted to see them.
What Professor Hyland discovered was these khipus were far more complex than anything she had ever seen before.
Professor Hyland says: ‘The pendants on these khipus have dozens of different colours and colour combinations, along with different fibres, such as deer, vicuña [an alpaca-like animal], and vizcacha [a type of rodent].’
Nor did these ancestral khipus contain any of the normal knots or colour banding researchers had come to expect.
Instead, by combining different materials, colours, and twisting directions these khipus could contain 60,000 different types of thread.
Professor Hyland believes that this could be the basis of a phonetic language which records words syllable by syllable.
Professor Sabine Hyland believes that complex ancestral khipu could contain a phonetic language in which every thread represents a different sound. Pictured: village officials in the highland Peruvian town of Tupicocha wearing their khipus as a badge of their office
This complex 3D language likely emerged in just the same way that written symbols first emerged out of associations between sounds and drawn representations of objects.
For example, Professor Hyland says tassels made of raw wool represented offerings because of a pun connecting the word for a sacred offering, ‘mesa’, and the word for wool, ‘mellwa’.
Through thousands of similar connections, each woven thread may have encoded a sound so that an experienced khipu reader could make out the hidden words just like letters on a page.
Using this idea Professor Hyland guessed that if the Collata khipus really were letters, the senders probably signed their names at the end.
One of these messages contained a ribbon representing the insignia of the clan leader Alluka, pronounced ‘Ay-ew-ka’.
With that knowledge, she could translate the last three threads of the khipu into each of the syllables.
Looking at another of the supposed messages, she found that two of the threads matched those she had now translated.
The third was made of the hair of the vicuña which is called ‘para’ in the local language.
While we can’t yet read khipus like in the film Paddington in Peru, Professor Hyland believes she has partially translated the signatures at the end of some post-Incan examples. This could unlock the possibility of translating the Incan texts
Guessing that ‘para’ might be another pun-based letter, Professor Hyland combined the threads to spell ‘Yakapar’ – the name of another clan involved in the rebellion the khipu supposedly recorded.
If more of these connections could be discovered, it could unlock the possibility of decyphering even more of these strange ‘texts’ ‘
Although the Collata khipus were made after the fall of the Incan Empire, this could explain why so many Spanish authors referred to khipu being used to record stories.
‘It may be that the so-called narrative khipus of the Inkas were phonetic, like the khipus I found in the highlands, but we do not have any proof of this yet.’ Professor Hyland says.
Professor Hyland and her colleagues are currently working on algorithmic ways of unlocking the secrets of these languages.
However, without any written texts to compare them to there is no khipu ‘Rosetta Stone’ from which researchers can build their understanding of the language.
This means that for now at least, reading a Khipu like in Paddington in Peru remains a piece of movie magic.
Who were the Inca? People indigenous to South America who ruled from modern Ecuador to central Chile by 1532
The Inca, also spelled Inka, were a people indigenous to South America who, at the time of the Spanish conquest in 1532, ruled an empire that spanned from the northern border of modern Ecuador to central Chile.
Establishing their capital at Cusco (a city in modern-day Peru) in the 12th century, the Inca began a campaign of expansion in the early 15th century which would see some 12 million people come under their rule.
Much of the information we have today comes from the written records of Spanish conquistadores as the Inca passed on their history through story telling and other oral traditions.
Machu Pichhu is the best-known site remaining from the Inca Empire, once the largest and richest in the Americas
Best known for the brutal practice of human sacrifice, the Inca Empire is also notable for its advanced agricultural techniques, unique art and architecture.
At its peak, the Inca Empire was the largest and richest in the Americas. Its downfall is thought to have come about through rebellion, disease and the Spanish invasion.
The most famous and perhaps best-preserved site that remains from Inca times is the citadel of Machu Picchu, located in Peru.
Source: Britannica, Ancient History Encyclopaedia
