Focus on the Humanities: Frank Salomon

Salomon's current project is a detailed study of Rapaz, a community 4000 meters above sea level that guards some 263 khipus in a house of traditional ritual from which villagers serve the deified mountains. The project combines close study of these khipus with archaeological, ethnographic and architectural study of their context. Khipu research bears on questions of "proto-writing," the origin and demise of scripts, and relations between semiosis (sign action) and social complexity.