woven into a khipu made in southern Peru or northern Chile five-hundred years ago, a group of researchers have concluded that its creator had eaten a diet associated with low-ranking individuals. This shows that khipu literacy was more widespread than previously believed.

“These results were a massive surprise!” Sabine Hyland, the professor of world religions at the University of St Andrews in the UK, who led the research, tells The Art Newspaper. “When I sent in a sample of the human hair to the lab for analysis, I fully expected the results to reveal that this person had the diet of a very high-status person, dining on lots of meat and drinking lots of maize beer. The latter, especially, is considered a mark of high status in the Inca Empire, which flourished across a large part of South America from around 1400 to 1532. So, it was a shock that this khipu—which is so beautifully and delicately made—was fashioned by a commoner.”

According to Spanish colonial records, only men from the Incan elite made khipus. This has been a difficult statement to challenge, because although the Inca placed khipus in tombs, these locations were usually discovered looted, making it difficult for archaeologists to connect a khipu with a particular body. Other khipus kept in museums often lack details about their place of origin.