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Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site, Peru
Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian 15th-century
Inca site in Peru, in South America.
The Incas built the city on a mountain ridge,
2430m above sea level. They lived there between 1200 and 1450 AD. Other people
lived there before about 650 AD.
The Incas built houses, fields and temples by
cutting the rock on the mountain so it was flat. They built an observatory to
look at the stars.
When the Spanish invaded Peru, the Incas left
Machu Picchu.The city was left unfinished, most
likely due to the Spanish invasion, or due to civil war between the ruling rival
Inca brothers named Huascar and Atahualpa. The Spanish never found Machu Picchu
or the lost city during their occupation.
Credits: Wikipedia
"Deep in the Andean mountains lays a mysterious ruin named Machu Picchu. For 400 years it sat abandoned on its misty cliff, the quintessential lost city in the jungle. Rediscovered in 1911, it contained no written records or carvings, nothing that could shed light on its history. For a century since, it has defied the endless scores of visitors and scientists who attempted to understand its purpose. Who were the mysterious people who built it and why did they build it here? Today an international team of archeologists, engineers and scientists are finally piecing together the clues. Together they are discovering astonishing new burials, revealing the intricacies of its ingenious engineering and finally decoding the secrets of Machu Picchu."
The Inca Empire (Quechua: Tawantinsuyu, literally "The Four Regions"), also known as the Inka Empire or Incan
Empire, was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative,
political, and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day
Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the
early 13th century, and the last Inca stronghold was conquered by the Spanish
in 1572.
From 1438 to 1533, the Incas used a variety of
methods, from conquest to peaceful assimilation, to incorporate a large portion
of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges, including,
besides Peru, large parts of modern Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia,
northwest Argentina, north and central Chile, and a small part of southern
Colombia into a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia. The
official language of the empire was Quechua, although hundreds of local
languages and dialects of Quechua were spoken. Many local forms of worship
persisted in the empire, most of them concerning local sacred Huacas, but the
Inca leadership encouraged the worship of Inti—their sun god—and imposed its
sovereignty above other cults such as that of Pachamama. The Incas
considered their king, the Sapa Inca, to be the "son of the sun."
Capital: Cusco
(1438–1533)
Languages:Quechua
(official), Aymara, Puquina, Jaqi family, Muchik and scores of smaller
languages.
Religion:Inca
religion
Government:Monarchy
Sapa Inca
- 1438–1471Pachacuti
- 1471–1493Túpac Inca Yupanqui
- 1493–1525Huayna Capac
- 1525–1532Huáscar
- 1532–1533Atahualpa
Historical eraPre-Columbian:
- Pachacuti created the Tawantinsuyu1438
- Civil war between Huáscar and Atahualpa1529–1532
- Spanish conquest led by Francisco
Pizarro1533
- End of the last Inca resistance1572
Credits: Wikipedia
The Incas, full documentary: Inca, Secrets of the Ancestors
