My essay

Intro

Between 1200 and 1535 AD, the Inca population lived in the part of South America extending from the Equator to the Pacific coast of Chile. The beginning of the Inca rule started with the conquest of the Moche Culture in Peru. The Inca were warriors with a strong and powerful army. Because of the fierceness of their army and their hierarchical organization, they became the largest Native American society. The height of their reign in the 15th century came to a brutal end in 1535 when the Spanish conquistadors took over their territory.

Their cities and fortresses were mostly built on highlands and on the steep slopes of the Andes Mountains. The architecture of the Inca cities still amazes and puzzles most scientists. Stone steps lead up to the top of the cities, which consist of stone houses and religious buildings. The blocks of stones weigh several tons and they are fit together so tightly that not even a razor blade can fit through them. The central city was mainly used for government purposes, while the citizens occupied surrounding areas. Their homes were made from the same stone material and had grass rooftops.

Government

Most members of the royal councils were family members. The emperors almost always married their own sisters. The emperor would choose a successor to the throne from among his many sons. Generally, the oldest first born son would become the next emperor. The emperor also had a council of nobles which served him during his whole reign. He would consult the high priest, who was also a sibling or uncle, for help with his problems. Of course he also talked to the generals to develop war plans. The generals were most likely to be a relative or good friend.When the Inca armies conquered other ruling cities, they didn't kill the local rulers. Instead they let them rule as long as they followed Inca rules, didn't rebel, paid taxes, and kept the storehouses full. People could also pay the government by giving a portion of their yearly crop to the collectors for storehouses instead.

Food Supply

The inca farming was not easy at all, you need to consider the terrain difficulties and the fact that all the work was done by hand, so been an inca farmer require a lot of effort; The incas had tools for preparing the terrain and systems to dry food before will be store in huge containers call Tambos; The tambos were rectangular shape stone constructions, well ventilated, build for the specific purpose of been use as store rooms for dry food. The inca tools were few, but quite effective, the most important of this tools was the Chacquitaclla, it is a type of food plow, it is made of a strong thick wood stick, hold at the top with the right hand, it has a sharp piece of copper in the bottom end, at 20 cm up from the bottom it has a tie piece of wood to make pressure with your left feed, plus another piece of wood closer to the top to be use as support for the left hand.

Arts

Most of the Inca art was melted down by the Spanish to satisfy their lust for gold and silver. Much about the Inca and their culture is surrounded in mystery and their art is no different. Still other examples of their art were destroyed simply because the idea of a polytheistic society was appalling to the Christian sensibilities of the Spaniards. Some art, however, was able to survive the Spanish conquistadors and that art gives us a valuable glimpse at Inca values and their way of life. Overall, art was quite Spartan. The Inca preferred simple functionality over ornate decoration in all cases except for their textiles (which we'll discuss in a bit). Rather than create aesthetic paintings, the Inca preferred to sculpt religious figurines and create architectural wonders that inspire speculation and awe to this day.Like most other Inca artwork, the architecture was very basic with the possible exception of the trapezoidal shape of doorways and windows. However what the architecture lacked in aesthetics it made up for in functionality. The system of building without mortar made their structures resistant to seismic activity; an important feature in a region prone to earthquakes.

Religion

The Inca worshipped the dead, ancestors, founding culture heroes, their king whom they regarded as divine, nature and its cycles. The worship of nature and its cycles suggest that for them time and space were sacred, and consequently the calendar was religious and each month had its own festival. The most important cult was directed to Inti the god sun who nourished the earth and man with his rays. The most important feast was the one dedicated to Inti, called IntipRaimi. This rich ceremony, with its splendid costumes, and gold and silver offerings and decoration, was opened by the Inca emperor, his family and the curaca. After the opening the emperor made a libation to the sun and drank chicha (a maize drink) with his family, then led a procession, followed by every one into the sun temple, where the imperial family made offerings of precious vessels or images to the god. Following this, omens were read and llamas were sacrificed. The ceremony ended with eating and drinking. They conceived the world as composed of three aspects. In their representation of the cosmos, for example they used the three words: UKU PACHA (the past and the interior world), KAY PACHA (the world of present and of here), HANAN PACHA (the future and the supra world). These worlds are represented as concentric circles. Each of these worlds are inhabited by spiritual beings. Once future, present and past are not conceived as a linear structure.

Social structure

The Inca of Peru have long held a mystical fascination for people of the western world. Four hundred years ago the fabulous wealth in gold and silver possessed by these people was discovered, then systematically pillaged and plundered by Spanish conquistadors. The booty they carried home altered the whole European economic system. And in their wake, they left a highly developed civilization in tatters. That a single government could control many diverse tribes, many of which were secreted in the most obscure of mountain hideaways, was simply remarkable. No one really knows where the Incas came from that historic record left in stone for archaeologists to unravel through the centuries that followed.

The Inca Empire was quite short-lived. It lasted just shy of 100 years, from ca.1438 AD, when the Inca ruler Pachacuti and his army began conquering lands surrounding the Inca heartland of Cuzco, until the coming of the Spaniards in 1532. In 1438 the Inca set out from their base in Cuzco on a career of conquest that, during the next 50 years, brought under their control the area of present-day Peru, Bolivia, northern Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador. Within this area, the Inca established a totalitarian state that enabled the tribal ruler and a small minority of nobles to dominate the population. Most of the accounts agree on thirteen emperors. The Inca emperors were known by various titles, including "Sapa Inca," "Capac Apu," and "Intip Cori." Often, an emperor was simply referred to as The Inca Cusco was the center of the Inca Empire, with its advanced hydraulic engineering, agricultural techniques, marvelous architecture, textiles, ceramics and ironworks.

Writing

Quipu (also spelled khipu or quipo) is the only known precolumbian writing system in South America—well, perhaps writing system isn't quite the correct phrase. But quipus were clearly an information transmittal system. A quipu is essentially a group of wool and cotton strings tied together. The strings are dyed in many different colors, and they are joined together in many different manners and they have a wide variety and number of knots tied in them. Together the type of wool, the colors, the knots and the joins hold information that was once readable by several South American societies. Quipus were a tool used by the Inca empire to communicate some kinds of information throughout the Inca Empire. When they arrived in 1532, the Spanish conquistadors viewed the quipu with great suspicion. Thousands of quipus were destroyed in the 16th century. Today there are only roughly 300 quipus which were preserved or have been discovered since that time.

Technology

The inca technology like in other cases, was collected from other cultures that exist before the incas, this knowledge was melt into his own and the result was a great understanding of mathematics, inca agriculture, advance development of crops, medicine, hydraulics, astronomy, architecture and military strategy.
Among all the inca technology, the mathematics are quite remarkable because they invented the Quipu, that is a kind of abacus with the possibility to realize complex mathematics operations, until today is not completely understood how they use it, because the quipus were not made only for counting, they were use to keep track of the economy of all provinces and wealth management of the inca ruler.
The quipus were compose by one main rope and several smaller ropes tie to the main one, from this smaller ropes, in some cases it was another set of ropes tie to the middle size rope; The ropes of the quipu were use to tie knots, that mean numbers, counting from 0 to 10 and different knots for dozens, hundreds, thousands and so on; Some investigators believe that the quipus were use as some kind of writing, using the numbers to represent sounds, so if they place the right code of numbers they could reproduce words.