In a 1964 Journal of Accounting Research article,' Lyle Jacobsen hypothesized that the quipu, an artifact of the Incan civilization, was used to keep records on a double-entry basis. He further states that if the quipu was in fact a double-entry device, then the Incans were the first to use a double-entry accounting system. This hypothesis is not convincing, and the purpose of this paper is to examine more closely the ramifications of Jacobsen's evidence. A brief explanation of the physical nature of the quipu is necessary. The quipu was used in the Incan civilization as a counting and recording device. It consisted basically of a main cord to which smaller cords were attached. Counting knots were tied in the subsidiary cords. From one to over a hundred of these subsidiary cords could be attached to each main cord. The main cord was generally about a foot and a half in length and the subsidiary cords were somewhat shorter.2 The quipu was being used extensively when the Conquistadores entered Peru in the sixteenth century, and simple variations still may be found in the more remote areas of Peru. The date of its origin has not been established. Materials were available for the construction of quipus as early as 2500 B.C.; however, there is no evidence of the use of the quipu prior to the rise of the Incan civilization which dates from approximately A.D. 1200. Thus, the use of the quipu predates our first documented evidence of double-entry bookkeeping in the Italian city-states in the fourteenth century.