Quipu with three figures

Quipus embellished with carved wooden bars, like this one, are very rare and generally assumed to date to the Colonial period, when it is thought that this style was developed by the Incas as an amplification of their indigenous technology. The three carved wooden figures here each hold an ear of corn in one hand; in the other they would likely have held a knotted string (now lost). Called a top cord, this string may have provided a sum of the values of the cords below, suggesting that the quipu recorded three different quantities of corn. Hence, the bar sculpture shows three scribes in the act of either creating or reading the quipu of which they are a part.