ABSTRACT
This chapter provides some information on the quipu, the record-keeping device used by the Inkas. The chapter describes an earlier device used by the Chimu based on a specific form of architecture combined with the use of tokens for recording information. It explores how the arrangements of storage complexes among the Inka and the Chimu contributed to the recording of information about the materials stored and aspects of community, economic, and political organization. Andean accounting systems use tokens put into places that represent the categories of things being counted. The development of bureaucracy at Chan Chan traced archaeologically by examining the morphology and distribution of a special type of building referred to as an audiencia or U-shaped structure. The chapter discusses three different spatial patterns: CEO pattern, gatekeeper pattern, and cubical pattern related to increasing hierarchical relationships between the occupants of the audiencias. The distancing of the audiencias from the storerooms associated with an increasingly hierarchical arrangement of audiencias.
