The Unwritten Record

The Incas did not have written records or books and therefore what remain are mostly pictures. Some of the quipus have been deciphered. For a long time they relied on the stories told from the past. The wise people would remember the stories and the scholars wrote them down.

In 1924 Dr. Henri Rivet visited Denmark. There he was shown a faded ink book. It was the story of the Incas all illustrated and over a thousand pages long. It had been written in Spanish by Felipe Huanman Poma de Ayala., the grandson of the Inca Administrator. His mother told him the stories of the Incas. Later King Philip showed it to the King of Denmark. Click on the book graphic on the right for some illustrations by Poma dy Alyala.

Most of what we know about the Inca come from the finds of archaeologists. By studying remains of the Inca architecture, for example, we learn about the layout of the towns and houses.