The Inca Empire ruled millions without a written language — at least not in the sense that we typically think of one, such as an alphabet or syllabary. Instead, they used khipus — bundles of colored, knotted cords — to record census data, taxes, harvests, and even historical events. Each knot’s position and type, each cord’s color and twist, could carry meaning. For centuries, these cords were thought to be the exclusive domain of elite male bureaucrats, trained in the imperial capital.

That’s why one newly analyzed khipu has stunned researchers. Its fine braiding and intricate knots looked every bit like the work of an Inca noble. But its main cord — crafted not from llama wool, but from human hair — held a chemical signature that told a very different story: the person behind it likely lived far from the centers of power sometime around 1498 CE and ate like a commoner.

Knots, Codes, and Power

The common assumption among historians was that khipus were the exclusive tools of elite male bureaucrats, the khipukamayuqs. These specialists recorded everything from census data to labor obligations. And, according to Spanish colonial accounts, they came from noble families.

The idea was simple: if you controlled the empire’s information, you controlled the empire.

But the new study, published in Science Advances, shows that the use of khipus may have been more widespread among the general population than once thought. “It was a complete shock,” said Sabine Hyland, an anthropologist at the University of St. Andrews. “The results pointed to the diet of a commoner.”

The hair, 104 centimeters long and folded into the primary cord, held over eight years of growth. Isotope analysis showed a diet heavy on tubers and greens, with little meat or maize beer— the foods central to elite life in the Inca Empire. There were no traces of marine fish, suggesting a highland residence, likely in southern Peru or northern Chile.

Given the deep symbolic meaning of hair in Andean culture — seen as carrying a person’s essence — its presence in a khipu’s primary cord likely meant authorship and responsibility. All evidence points towards the fact that this khipu wasn’t crafted by an official in Cuzco, but by someone far from the imperial center.

Like most surviving Inca-era khipus, its “text” remains undeciphered. While scholars have made progress — linking some cords and knots to numbers, census data, or tribute lists — the overall system is still only partially understood. Without a matching “translation” from another source, the exact contents of this khipu, known as KH0631, are a mystery.

Rethinking Inca Literacy

The finding joins a small but growing body of evidence that khipu-making was more socially inclusive than Spanish chroniclers suggested. The indigenous writer Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala noted that women over fifty kept khipu records. In particular, they kept these in aqllawasi — institutions of “chosen women” who wove fine textiles and managed resources. Archaeology has confirmed that at least some women made khipus, including a young female specialist buried at Soniche with elite goods.

Now, KH0631 suggests the possibility that low-ranking commoners also practiced khipu literacy. That would align with 19th- and 20th-century traditions where herders, peasant farmers, and even laborers on haciendas made khipus for agricultural or ritual purposes.

“This is unprecedented,” says Manny Medrano of Harvard University, who was not involved in the research. “It gets us closer to telling Inca histories using Inca sources.”

There’s a tantalizing implication: if khipu literacy wasn’t confined to elites, then the record of Inca life may have been more diverse and decentralized than we’ve assumed. That could mean entire threads of history — quite literally — are still knotted into surviving cords sitting in museum drawers.

“It must have been something pretty special for the person to sacrifice their hair,” Hyland says. “My guess is that it was recording ritual offerings.”

The next step? Open those drawers. Hundreds of khipus remain unstudied, their knots intact, their strands still carrying the DNA and diets of their makers. Somewhere among them, more commoners’ voices may be waiting — woven into the empire’s cords, hidden in plain sight.