Recommended listening: Ensemble Pachamama - The Music of Peru
Story
Before the Inca wound their roads through the mountains to conquer their neighbours, another empire enjoyed centuries of supremacy in the Peruvian Andes. This was the Wari, named by archaeologists for their imperial capital of Huari. While Huari itself was a haphazardly designed city, expanding organically as the empire grew, the mark of the Wari in imperial outposts was their rigidly planned and geometrical administrative complexes. With buildings three stories high (taller than any the Inca would ever build) and walls a few metres thick, these structures dominated the surrounding landscape. No one could mistake the might of the Wari Empire when moving through their labyrinthine passages, which gleamed a dazzling white in the bright mountain sun.
Among the Wari elite, women played a crucial role. Burials of Wari queens and noblewomen, such as the one uncovered at the site of Castillo de Huarmey, reveal that these women spent most of their lives sitting but made heavy use of their upper bodies - the telltale signs of a life spent weaving. The Andes have the longest continuous textile tradition in the world. The oldest surviving fiberwork from the Andes is ten thousand years old and was woven thousands of years before the Andeans even fired pottery. By the time of the Wari, Andean textiles were rich and complex. The average high-status Wari tunic contained six miles of thread. Artists who worked in fiber - almost always women - set the tone of the state style that was unusually uniform throughout the empire. As Rebecca Stone-Miller argues in Art of the Andes, "Their colourful, nearly illegible patterns make Wari tunics among the most striking, abstract works of Wari art. They served to aggrandize their wearers, express the idiosyncratic creativity of specific weavers, and even potentially communicate imperial messages about order and chaos itself."
The clothing and tapestries that Wari women wove are artistic treasures, but their most profound contribution to history is an incredible innovation known nowhere else in the world. The Wari invented a woven writing system known as khipus. Woven from both plant and animal fibers, khipus record information in knotted cords. The Wari had a variety of khipus - some were designed in a keyring style, with cords hanging off a central loop, while others (like the one in this picture) consisted of a horizontal parent cord tied with vertical pendant cords. Unlike the later Inca, who adapted the Wari tradition for their own purposes, the Wari wrapped the tops of their cords in bright colours and used few knots. The women who created them kept their prized weaving and spinning tools in decorated cane boxes like the ones in this picture.
Very little is known about the Wari use of khipus. Khipus were used extensively by the Inca in keeping track of their vast empire, and so among the Wari they were probably also used for administrative purposes. While most people used to believe that all the Incas' khipus were destroyed by the Spanish, it has recently come to light that small pockets of communities in the Andes continued making khipus until the mid-twentieth century, continuing a tradition that began with the Wari over a thousand years ago. No one alive today is known to be able to read khipus, but oral history and academic research together have revealed them to be three-dimensional writing systems that used variables such as colour, ply direction, knots, and material to encode information the way that the shapes of letters do in two-dimensional writing.
The khipu depicted in this illustration is a recreation of one found in the burial of a Wari queen and her attendants in Castillo de Huarmey. The khipu's nine groups of six cords correspond exactly to the number of women buried in the tomb - fifty-four. Perhaps the woman here is preparing the khipu to be added to the ancestral female tomb, since the relationship between elite Andeans and their mummified forebears continued long after death. Given how little we know about Wari khipus, insights like this are precious glimpses into a complex intellectual world. And in a society where weaving was firmly in the female domain, there is little doubt that women were key innovators in the creation of a writing system unlike any other the world has ever known.
Among the Wari elite, women played a crucial role. Burials of Wari queens and noblewomen, such as the one uncovered at the site of Castillo de Huarmey, reveal that these women spent most of their lives sitting but made heavy use of their upper bodies - the telltale signs of a life spent weaving. The Andes have the longest continuous textile tradition in the world. The oldest surviving fiberwork from the Andes is ten thousand years old and was woven thousands of years before the Andeans even fired pottery. By the time of the Wari, Andean textiles were rich and complex. The average high-status Wari tunic contained six miles of thread. Artists who worked in fiber - almost always women - set the tone of the state style that was unusually uniform throughout the empire. As Rebecca Stone-Miller argues in Art of the Andes, "Their colourful, nearly illegible patterns make Wari tunics among the most striking, abstract works of Wari art. They served to aggrandize their wearers, express the idiosyncratic creativity of specific weavers, and even potentially communicate imperial messages about order and chaos itself."
The clothing and tapestries that Wari women wove are artistic treasures, but their most profound contribution to history is an incredible innovation known nowhere else in the world. The Wari invented a woven writing system known as khipus. Woven from both plant and animal fibers, khipus record information in knotted cords. The Wari had a variety of khipus - some were designed in a keyring style, with cords hanging off a central loop, while others (like the one in this picture) consisted of a horizontal parent cord tied with vertical pendant cords. Unlike the later Inca, who adapted the Wari tradition for their own purposes, the Wari wrapped the tops of their cords in bright colours and used few knots. The women who created them kept their prized weaving and spinning tools in decorated cane boxes like the ones in this picture.
Very little is known about the Wari use of khipus. Khipus were used extensively by the Inca in keeping track of their vast empire, and so among the Wari they were probably also used for administrative purposes. While most people used to believe that all the Incas' khipus were destroyed by the Spanish, it has recently come to light that small pockets of communities in the Andes continued making khipus until the mid-twentieth century, continuing a tradition that began with the Wari over a thousand years ago. No one alive today is known to be able to read khipus, but oral history and academic research together have revealed them to be three-dimensional writing systems that used variables such as colour, ply direction, knots, and material to encode information the way that the shapes of letters do in two-dimensional writing.
The khipu depicted in this illustration is a recreation of one found in the burial of a Wari queen and her attendants in Castillo de Huarmey. The khipu's nine groups of six cords correspond exactly to the number of women buried in the tomb - fifty-four. Perhaps the woman here is preparing the khipu to be added to the ancestral female tomb, since the relationship between elite Andeans and their mummified forebears continued long after death. Given how little we know about Wari khipus, insights like this are precious glimpses into a complex intellectual world. And in a society where weaving was firmly in the female domain, there is little doubt that women were key innovators in the creation of a writing system unlike any other the world has ever known.
Artist's Comments
This one took me a long time to draw - it is a true testament to the complexity of Wari textiles, haha! Believe it or not, I actually had to simplify the khipu design and textile patterns in order to fit them into the scale of the illustration. The khipu from Castillo de Huarmey is fairly degraded, so I didn't attempt to replicate its patterns of subsidiary cords or knot distribution. The white plastered floors and walls of the Wari buildings posed an additional challenge, but in the end it turned out okay. Thankfully, recreating the outfit was actually pretty straightforward. National Geographic did a nice reconstruction of the Wari queen's mummy, and I was able to use some comparisons to early depictions of Inca queens to help as well since there are a lot of similarities in how they dressed. Thanks to my friend Sacha who helped me with a few things when I was drawing, especially the hands!
This illustration is dedicated to my mother, Sabine Hyland, whose hard work trying to decipher the khipus has helped bring international attention to the ingenuity and genius of native Andean peoples. She is credited with the first ever decipherment of a phonetic element in a khipu, the first decipherment since the Inca khipus' decimal system was decoded in 1923. It is a real privilege to be able to discuss her work with her as she finds out such incredible things. I love you, Mom. ~ November 11, 2019
This illustration is dedicated to my mother, Sabine Hyland, whose hard work trying to decipher the khipus has helped bring international attention to the ingenuity and genius of native Andean peoples. She is credited with the first ever decipherment of a phonetic element in a khipu, the first decipherment since the Inca khipus' decimal system was decoded in 1923. It is a real privilege to be able to discuss her work with her as she finds out such incredible things. I love you, Mom. ~ November 11, 2019
Resources
Want to learn more about the women of the Wari Empire and their khipus? Here are some recommended resources.
"Untouched" by Heather Pringle in National Geographic
This article includes gorgeous photographs of some of the finds in Castillo de Huarmey. It also goes into the story of how the site was excavated - in an area where ancient tombs are regularly looted, it is remarkable that this tomb remained preserved. National Geographic also has coverage of an artist's reconstruction of the queen's face. You can read a more scholarly account of the discovery here.
"Ajuar personal: las mujeres de la élite wari y su atuendo" by Patrycja Przadka Giersz
Geirsz details the materials found with the women in the Castillo de Huarmey tomb. There are wonderful photographs of the women's weaving tools, earrings, drinking vessels, and other elite objects, as well as information about what colours they wore. You can read a version of the article in English (but without the pictures) here.
"Dos khipus wari del Horizonte Medio provenientes de Castillo de Huarmey"
Analysis of the two khipus found in the Castillo de Huarmey tomb. This article is the basis of my reconstruction in this illustration, though as stated above, mine is a slight simplification of the original khipu. You can read a more general overview of khipus from the Middle Horizon (the time period of the Wari in Peruvian chronology) in this English article.
Art of the Andes by Rebecca Stone-Miller
This book provides a useful introduction to the different periods of Andean art. Although it was written before many of the recent discoveries about the Wari, its analysis of Wari architecture, textile art, and portable crafts provides very helpful context. You can read a more detailed account of Wari architecture here.
Wari Textile Project on YouTube
These videos take you through some of the steps involved in the creation of Wari textiles. You can see another video about reconstructing Wari textiles here.
"Untouched" by Heather Pringle in National Geographic
This article includes gorgeous photographs of some of the finds in Castillo de Huarmey. It also goes into the story of how the site was excavated - in an area where ancient tombs are regularly looted, it is remarkable that this tomb remained preserved. National Geographic also has coverage of an artist's reconstruction of the queen's face. You can read a more scholarly account of the discovery here.
"Ajuar personal: las mujeres de la élite wari y su atuendo" by Patrycja Przadka Giersz
Geirsz details the materials found with the women in the Castillo de Huarmey tomb. There are wonderful photographs of the women's weaving tools, earrings, drinking vessels, and other elite objects, as well as information about what colours they wore. You can read a version of the article in English (but without the pictures) here.
"Dos khipus wari del Horizonte Medio provenientes de Castillo de Huarmey"
Analysis of the two khipus found in the Castillo de Huarmey tomb. This article is the basis of my reconstruction in this illustration, though as stated above, mine is a slight simplification of the original khipu. You can read a more general overview of khipus from the Middle Horizon (the time period of the Wari in Peruvian chronology) in this English article.
Art of the Andes by Rebecca Stone-Miller
This book provides a useful introduction to the different periods of Andean art. Although it was written before many of the recent discoveries about the Wari, its analysis of Wari architecture, textile art, and portable crafts provides very helpful context. You can read a more detailed account of Wari architecture here.
Wari Textile Project on YouTube
These videos take you through some of the steps involved in the creation of Wari textiles. You can see another video about reconstructing Wari textiles here.