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The Inca Empire was a vast empire that flourished in the Andean region of South America from the early 15th century A.D. up until its conquest by the Spanish in the 1530s. Even after the conquest, Inca leaders continued to resist the Spaniards up until 1572, when its last city, Vilcabamba, was captured.
The Incas built their empire, called Tawantinsuyu or the "Land of the Four Corners," without the wheel, powerful draft animals, iron working, currency or even what we would consider to be a writing system. The empire stretched from modern-day Argentina to southern Columbia, and was divided up into four “suyu,” which intersected at the capital, Cuzco. These suyu in turn were divided into provinces. [Gallery: Tracing the Ancient Incan Empire]
Machu Picchu sits nestled between the Andes mountains of modern-day Peru and the Amazon basin and is one of the Inca's most famous surviving archeological sites.
This breathtaking ancient city, made up of around 200 structures built up on the mountains, is still largely mysterious. Archeologists don't know what purpose many of the structures served, but its intricate roads, trail systems, irrigation canals and agricultural areas suggest humans used the site for a long time, according to UNESCO.
Inca origins and expansion
The Inca Empire is thought to have originated at the city of Cuzco in what is modern-day southern Peru.
In some mythical tales, the Inca was created by the sun god, Inti who sent his son, Manco Capac to Earth. Legend has it that he first killed his brothers and then led his sisters into a valley near Cuzco, where they settled down around 1200 A.D., according to History.com.
Cuzco was located at a nexus point between two earlier empires, one called the Wari and another based at the city of Tiwanaku. According to TK McEwan's book The Incas: New Perspectives” (ABC-CLIO, 2006), one of the main reasons why the Inca were able to expand was because the infrastructure was already in place — things like hydraulic systems and highways were left behind by the preceding empires.
The expansion of the Inca Empire began by the time the fourth emperor, Mayta Capac took hold, but didn't gain momentum until the reign of the eighth emperor, Viracocha Inca. Viracocha began the practice of leaving behind military garrisons in lands to maintain the peace, according to History.com.
However, Inca oral history recorded by the Spanish, suggests that the expansion began in earnest during the reign of the emperor Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, the son of Viracocha Inca, who reigned from 1438 to 1471.
Pachacuti became emperor after he halted an invasion of Cuzco that was being carried out by a rival group called the Chancas. The invasion had driven his father to a military outpost. Subsequently, Pachacuti worked to expand the territory the Inca controlled, extending their influence beyond the Cuzco region.
The Incas worked hard at diplomacy, and tried to get their rivals to surrender peacefully before resorting to military conquest, said Terence D'Altroy, an anthropologist at Columbia University, in a 2007 PBS Nova interview.
Cuzco
Pachacuti ordered that the Inca capital, Cuzco, be rebuilt and strengthened. And, he allegedly had the city completely raised so that it could be rebuilt in the shape of a puma.
“The animal was represented in profile, with the residential blocks of the city forming its body … the great fortress or temple complex on the hill above Cuzco representing its head, and the confluence of the Tullu and Saphi rivers representing its tail,” McEwan wrote, paraphrasing the account recorded by the Spanish chronicler Juan de Betanzos. “Between the fore and hind legs of the puma were located the two great plazas of Cuzco, where the highways to the four imperial quarters of the empire, called suyus, converged.”
McEwan added that commoners were not allowed to live in the city and had to reside in the outlying settlements.
One of the greatest religious sanctuaries in Cuzco was a sun temple called “Coricancha.” The Spanish chronicler Bernabé Cobo wrote (in translation), “This temple was called Coricancha, which means ‘house of gold,’ because of the incomparable wealth of this metal which was embedded in the temple’s chapels and wall, its ceilings and altars.” (From “Ancient Cuzco” by Brian Bauer, University of Texas Press, 2004).
The Spanish would later plunder this gold and build a new city in the place of Cuzco. While the Inca did not develop what we would consider a formal system of writing, they did use recording devices, such as the quipu, a cord with knotted strings suspended from it. Most written accounts of Incas come from outsiders as the Incas primarily shared their knowledge with one another through oral storytelling.
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