60 Fun Facts About Inca Empire

What was the capital of the Inca Empire?

The four provinces of the empire met at the city, which the Incas saw as its navel.

What did the Incas call their empire, a name meaning 'realm of the four parts'?

The four suyus were Chinchaysuyu, Antisuyu, Qullasuyu and Kuntisuyu.

What was the official language of the Inca Empire?

It was a lingua franca rather than the Incas' own tongue, which was probably related to Puquina.

Which of these did the Incas build their empire WITHOUT, according to anthropologist Gordon McEwan?

They also had no draft animals; llamas carried packs but nothing pulled a plough or a cart.

What is the name of the knotted-string device the Incas used for record keeping?

They kept excellent census records on them, but the knowledge of how to read them was lost.

How did ordinary Incas pay 'taxes' to the empire?

The economy ran largely without money or markets, on reciprocity; the state fed workers at feasts in return.

What was the name of the Inca sun god whose worship the rulers promoted above all others?

The emperor was considered the 'son of the Sun'.

What title, meaning roughly 'the only lord', did the emperor hold?

He wore the maskaypacha fringe as his symbol of power; the Willaq Umu was the high priest of the Sun.

According to legend, the founding couple Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo emerged from which body of water?

They carried a golden staff and settled where it sank into the ground, founding the capital.

Which mestizo chronicler recorded the Manco Capac legend in The Royal Commentaries of the Incas?

He was the son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca noblewoman.

Which ruler began the Inca expansion in 1438 and reorganised the empire into four parts?

His name means 'the turn of the world', given after he defeated the Chanka.

What was the most important conquest of Tupac Inca Yupanqui?

Chimor, centred on Chan Chan, had been the Incas' only serious rival for the coast.

Which people traditionally halted the Inca advance south at the Maule River?

The same people later strategically defeated Spanish colonisation in southern Chile.

Which Portuguese castaway was the first European to reach the Inca Empire, in 1524?

He arrived from the east on a raiding expedition with a Guarani army, years before Pizarro.

Which two sons of Huayna Capac fought the civil war that weakened the empire before the Spanish arrived?

Huascar was assassinated while his brother was a Spanish prisoner, a charge later used against the captive.

How many men did Pizarro's force number when it captured the Inca at Cajamarca?

They had 27 horses and one cannon against an Inca army of some 80,000 carrying mostly hunting tools.

What did Atahualpa offer the Spaniards in exchange for his freedom?

The ransom was paid, but Pizarro refused to release him and had him executed in August 1533.

What did Atahualpa offer Pizarro's party at their first meeting, which the Spaniards rejected?

Friar Vincente de Valverde then read the Requerimiento demanding submission to Charles I and conversion.

Which Spanish conquistador led the conquest of the Inca Empire?

He received royal approval in July 1529 to conquer the region, which Spain called New Castile.

To which mountain refuge did Manco Inca retreat to found the Neo-Inca State?

He and his successors ruled there for another 36 years.

In which year was the last Inca stronghold conquered and its ruler Tupac Amaru executed?

Later rebels such as Tupac Amaru II invoked his name into the late 18th century.

Which mountain citadel was likely built around 1450 as an estate for the emperor who began the expansion?

Radiocarbon dating puts its occupation between about 1420 and 1530.

Which American historian brought the 'Lost City of the Incas' to international attention in 1911?

Peruvian explorer Agustin Lizarraga had reached it earlier, and locals always knew of it.

At roughly what altitude does the citadel known as the 'Lost City of the Incas' sit?

It stands on a ridge above the Urubamba River about 80 km north-west of the capital.

What is the indigenous name of the Inca road network, meaning 'royal road'?

It has been compared with the Roman road system built a thousand years earlier.

Roughly how long was the Inca road system in total?

It rested on two north-south trunk roads, one along the coast and one through the mountains.

What were the relay runners who carried messages along the Inca roads called?

They chewed coca leaves for extra energy between relay stations.

What were the way-stations spaced about a day's walk apart along Inca roads called?

Qullqas were the storage silos; huacas were sacred places.

What was the staple food of the Inca Empire, grown in thousands of varieties?

Maize and coca, by contrast, were treated as sacred plants.

What is chuno, the storable food some scholars link to the rise of the Inca state?

It is made by drying potatoes in the freezing night temperatures of the southern highlands.

What was the name of the circular terraced site thought to be an Inca agricultural experiment station?

Its rings of terraces create different microclimates in which crops from across the empire could be tested.

Which two domesticated animals were the only large domestic species in pre-Hispanic America?

Vicunas were rounded up, sheared and released; guanacos were hunted for meat.

What was the name of the Inca corvee system later exploited by the Spanish for the mines?

Under the Spanish, one member of each family was sent to mines such as Potosi, and usually died within a year or two.

What were the three moral precepts of Inca society?

Ama sua, ama llulla, ama quella were taught in the assemblies of the ayllu.

What was the survival rate for skull surgery performed by Inca surgeons?

Before Inca times only about 30 percent of patients survived trepanation.

What is remarkable about the stonework of prime Inca buildings?

Blocks were shaped by repeatedly lowering one onto another and carving away where dust was compressed.

How did the Inca nobility physically distinguish themselves from other classes?

Newborns' heads were wrapped in tight cloth straps.

What was the name of the Inca child-sacrifice ritual performed at events such as an emperor's death?

As many as 4,000 servants and courtiers were said to have been killed when Huayna Capac died in 1527.

How many nobles sat on the Inca 'Council of the Realm' established under Topa Inca Yupanqui?

Seats were weighted between the four suyus and the upper and lower halves of the city.

On what number system was the Inca provincial administration organised?

Taxpayers were grouped in units of 10, 100 and 1,000 under kurakas, forming labour and military units.

What was the sun temple built by the founder Manco Capac in the capital called?

It stood where the Coricancha, the later golden Temple of the Sun, now sits.

What was the basic Inca unit of distance, the thatkiy?

Six thousand of them made a topo, and thirty topos a wamani.

Which celestial event could Inca astronomers NOT predict, despite tracking solstices and the Venus cycle?

They ran parallel solar and lunar calendars, adjusting them each winter solstice.

Which two earlier Andean empires preceded the Incas and shaped many of their features?

The Wari occupied the Cusco area for about 400 years before the Incas rose.

Compared with other humans, how did the lung capacity of Andean highlanders such as the Incas differ?

They also carried about two litres more blood and twice the haemoglobin.

What did the Incas call the black animal whose help the dead needed to reach the next world?

They believed in reincarnation and dreaded cremation, which would destroy the vital force.

Which of the four suyu was the most populous, taking in the former Chimú Empire?

At its greatest extent it ran through much of what are now Ecuador and Colombia.

The name of which suyu is the root of the word 'Andes'?

It was the second-smallest of the four regions, lying northwest of Cusco in the high mountains.

What epithet, given to the ninth Sapa Inca after he defeated the Chancas, means 'the turn of the world'?

He then reorganised the kingdom of Cusco into the four-part Tawantinsuyu.

The first battle between Incas and Spaniards, the Battle of Puná, was fought near which modern city?

Pizarro then founded the city of Piura in July 1532 before marching inland to Cajamarca.

Roughly how many servants, officials and concubines were killed on the death of Huayna Capac in 1527?

Child sacrifices, known as capacocha, also marked events such as an emperor's death or a famine.

Which Amazonian people stopped the empire's push near the Chinchipe River in 1527?

The empire's core southern portion, Qullasuyu, lay instead on the high Altiplano.

What was the fine tapestry-woven woollen cloth used for elite Inca tunics called?

Its complex patterns conveyed information about order in Andean society and even the flow of tribute.

What was the title of the Sapa Inca's primary wife?

She was seen as his female equivalent in ceremonial matters, with cults of goddesses such as the Moon subject to her.

In the Cusco school for noble children, the yachaywasi, who were the amautas?

Pupils learned languages, accounting, astronomy and warfare from the amautas and the haravicus, or poets.

Which historian argues the stalemate at the Maule River really took place in 1532 during the Inca Civil War?

Traditional accounts place the battle in the late 15th century under Topa Inca Yupanqui.

According to Prescott, the Inca imperial standard displayed which glittering device?

Modern rainbow flags are wrongly linked to the empire; Cusco flies one today as the official city flag.

Besides Quechua, which language was mainly spoken in the Altiplano region of Qullasuyu?

Quechua itself is a family of languages, and it was not the Incas' original tongue.

In Inca cosmology, which creature symbolised Hanan Pacha, the upper world of the gods?

The celestial realm was reserved for the righteous and reached only by a bridge of hair.

What position did the Willaq Umu, head of lower Cusco, hold in the empire?

He ranked second only to the Sapa Inca, who was head of upper Cusco and effectively head of the state religion.