The Inca: mountain roads, terraces and the quipu

Grade 7 Social Studies Worksheet - Challenge Me

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Inca records and a bridge

   Topic	What we know
   Quipus	cords of cotton or llama-family fiber with knots; knots in a base-ten place system stored numbers; a quipu could have a few cords or several thousand
   Reading quipus	the Inca kept careful census records on quipus, but knowledge of how to read most of them was lost
   Queshuachaca	the last Inca rope bridge, of grass ropes over the Apurímac River; local people still renew it each June

   On a quipu cord, knots higher up stand for hundreds, then tens, then ones at the bottom; a gap with no knots means zero.

2. 1.

   A quipu cord has 3 knots in the hundreds place, none in the tens and 5 in the ones. What number is it, Jun asks?

   • 35
   • 305
   • 350
   • 8
3. 2.

   A cord has 2 knots in the hundreds, 4 in the tens and none in the ones. What number is it, Kira asks?

   • 240
   • 204
   • 6
   • 24
4. 3.

   How would 470 look on a quipu cord, Luz asks?

   • 4 hundreds, 7 tens, a gap for ones
   • 4 hundreds, 7 ones, a gap for tens
   • 47 knots in the ones
   • 11 knots in a row
5. 4.

   The Inca had no writing system. How did they keep census records, Milo asks?

   • On clay tablets
   • On quipus of knotted cords
   • In books of paper
   • They kept no records
6. 5.

   Knowledge of how to read most quipus was lost. What does that mean for historians, Noah asks?

   • Quipus were books
   • Each quipu can be read easily
   • Much of what they record can't yet be read
   • There are no quipus left
7. 6.

   Why might colors and the order of cords matter on a quipu, Pia asks?

   • They stood for letters
   • They were just decoration
   • They showed the weather
   • They sorted the information into groups

8. Two societies, same columns

   Society	Land and farming	Building and engineering	Records, writing and numbers
   Maya	maize, beans, squashes and chili peppers in the tropical lowlands	stone cities with tall buildings and carved monuments	a writing system of word signs and syllables, now mostly deciphered; numbers in twenties with a shell for zero
   Inca	potatoes, quinoa and maize, grown on terraces in the Andes	roads of about 30,000 to 40,000 km and fine stonework, built without wheels or iron	no writing system; quipus stored numbers in tens

9. 7.

   Using the same columns, how did Maya and Inca records differ, Ren asks?

   • The Inca wrote; the Maya used cords
   • Both used quipus
   • Both wrote books
   • Maya writing; Inca quipus
10. 8.

    Which column shows that both societies farmed, but in very different land, Tala asks?

    • Land and farming
    • Building: both used wheels
    • Society: both were Maya
    • Records: both wrote
11. 9.

    Which society's engineering is described as working without wheels or iron, Zee asks?

    • Both
    • The Inca
    • The Maya
    • Neither

12. Inca records and a bridge

    Topic	What we know
    Quipus	cords of cotton or llama-family fiber with knots; knots in a base-ten place system stored numbers; a quipu could have a few cords or several thousand
    Reading quipus	the Inca kept careful census records on quipus, but knowledge of how to read most of them was lost
    Queshuachaca	the last Inca rope bridge, of grass ropes over the Apurímac River; local people still renew it each June

    On a quipu cord, knots higher up stand for hundreds, then tens, then ones at the bottom; a gap with no knots means zero.

13. 10.

    Why would a grass rope bridge need renewing often, Bo asks?

    • Grass gets stronger each year
    • Grass ropes wear out over time
    • Bridges need no care
    • The river moves the bridge