Colorful Insights from an AI Khipukamayuq
Jon Clindaniel · 2024
The color of each cord is often highlighted as one of the primary sites of meaning on an Inka khipu -- the mostly undeciphered recording device of the Inka empire. However, while there are a variety of historical, ethnographic, and archaeological suggestions for how the semantics of color worked, none of these approaches systematically explains how Inka khipu cord colors denoted meaning. Instead, they present a range of fragmented, sometimes contradictory snapshots of a much larger, more complex system. This study aims to address the question: is there even a "system" of color that can be discovered and deciphered? If so, how did it work? Or is the sheer variety of uses discussed in prior studies an empirical indication that color had limited semiotic consistency for Inka khipukamayuqs ("khipu makers/interpreters" in Quechua)? To answer these questions, I employ an AI khipukamayuq -- a custom "transformer" deep learning model trained to parse all of the cord colors in the Open Khipu Repository (OKR) -- to analyze the semantic space of Inka khipu cord color. My findings reveal a coherent system of color signs, wherein different colors occupy distinct, relationally-opposed semantic domains, with many colors demonstrating polysemy. This suggests a versatile set of color signs adaptable to various contexts and domains of representation, akin to other linguistic media. In the domain of khipus and beyond, this study points toward the importance of continued interaction with AI models as archaeologists learn (together with machines) to systematically represent and delineate the past.