"
INKALAND "
The Inca Empire in South America
CUZCO, Peru
It was one of the world's greatest civilizations, but it lasted
only a few hundred years.
The Inca Empire in South
America was known for its huge reserves of gold and silver and its
highly crafted stone architecture. Though the Incas were very innovative,
they eventually fell prey to their own sense of superiority when
it came face to face with the Spanish conquistadors.
Massive stone gates serve
as the main entrance to Cuzco, the ancient Incan capital. While
the city, located high in the Andes Mountains, is still a center
of activity, more than 500 years ago it was the center of a vast
empire.
The emperor of the civilization
was known as the "Inca." Later the entire population would
inherit that name.
The Incan leader Pachucutec
originally named the city Qusco, meaning "navel." Its
name signifies how central the capital city was to an empire that
eventually flexed its might along the Pacific coast and Andes Mountains,
to the northern border of what is today Ecuador, and down to central
Chile.
"The name of the Incan
empire was Tahuantinsuyu. 'Tahuan' means four," explained Roxanna
Dubrill Nunez, director of the Inka Museum in Cuzco.
"It (the empire) was
divided into four great parts," she said.
During its nearly 300-year
existence, beginning in 1250 with Pachacutec's victories over regional
tribes, the Inca Empire was the largest in the world.
"The social and political
organization was amazing in the Incas," Nunez said, noting
how well the Incan leaders controlled the vast territory they conquered.
The Incan people were considered
fierce warriors, but their day-to-day existence was relatively peaceful.
Jails did not exist, for two reasons. The crime rate was low, and
keeping prisoners would require feeding them with precious food
resources. Punishment for any crime was swift and involved cutting
off fingers and hands for infractions.
All law boiled down to three
basic rules: Don't steal, don't lie and don't be lazy.
Their elaborate cities, carved
out of stone, also draw praise.
The heart of Cuzco was built
to resemble a giant Puma, a sacred symbol. The ancient fort of Sacsayheuma
was built to look like the cat's head, while the walls resemble
jagged teeth. From this area, runners called chasqui could relay
messages to any point of the empire's 380,000-square-mile range
in only days.
Centuries later, some Incan
walls, built without mortar, have withstood earthquakes. Some of
the few that remain make up part of what is called the Temple of
the Sun.
Today, the gray stone walls
don't impart the grandeur that was present during the Incan reign,
but the Temple of the Sun is the reason why the Spanish Conquistadors,
lead by explorer Francisco Pizzaro, came to Cuzco. The walls were
covered in gold so that the sun would enter the room and cast a
blinding light on the golden statues and bejeweled walls. Outside
the temple, golden statues of llamas, plants and even butterflies
decorated the elaborate gardens.
When the conquistadors arrived,
they immediately began melting down the statues to be shipped back
to Spain. The Incans had not considered the Spaniards a threat,
either because they believed in their own natural superiority or
because they mistook the bearded white men as gods.
"They remembered a god
that came and that was a very good person and the appearance was
similar to the Spaniards," says Nunez.
Pizzaro and his men killed
the ruler Atahuallpa and put his nephew Manco in power as a puppet
ruler. They dismantled the structure of the Inca Empire.
Incans realized the Spaniards
were enemies, but their resistance was easily put down in 1536,
during a great battle at Sacayhuama.
The primitive knives and
spears of the Incans were no match for Spanish rifles -- it was
a slaughter.
The Inca Empire was destroyed.
