The Inca Empire, called Tawantinsuyu by its subjects, was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilization rose from the Peruvian highlands sometime in the early 13th century. The Spanish began the conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 and by 1572, the last Inca state was fully conquered.
Quipu are recording devices fashioned from strings historically used by a number of cultures in the region of Andean South America.
A chasqui was a messenger of the Inca empire. Agile, highly trained and physically fit, they were in charge of carrying messages –in the form of quipus or oral information– and small packets. Along the Inca road system there were relay stations called chaskiwasi, placed at about 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) from each other, where the chasqui switched, exchanging their message(s) with the fresh messenger. The chasqui system could be able to deliver a message or a gift along a distance of up to 300 kilometres (190 mi) per day.
Inca education during the time of the Inca Empire was divided into two principal spheres: education for the upper classes and education for the general population. The royal classes and a few specially-chosen individuals from the provinces of the Empire were formally educated by the Amawtakuna (philosopher-scholars), while the general population were passed on knowledge and skills by their immediate forebears. Since the Incas did not have a written language, but instead had Quipus to record, it is difficult to determine the type of educational system the Incas did have.
The Quijos-Quichua (Napo-Quichua) are a Lowland Quechua people, living in the basins of the Napo, Aguarico, San Miguel, and Putumayo river basins of Ecuador and Peru. In Ecuador they inhabit in the Napo Alto as well as the rivers Ansuy and Jatun Yacu, where they are also known as Quijos Quechua. The Original Nation Quijos (NAOKI) has an extension of community territory of approximately 13,986, 78 hectares. It was recognized as such on March 13, 2013, by Codenpe. Sus habitantes viven a lo largo del Alto Napo y actualmente hablan el quichua, aunque su idioma original es el shillipanu. It is made up of dozens of groups, communities and organizations, according to their status.
The Incas were most notable for establishing the Inca Empire which was centered in modern day South America in Peru and Chile. It was about 2,500 miles from the northern to southern tip. The Inca Empire lasted from 1438 to 1533. It was the largest Empire in America throughout the Pre-Columbian era. At the peak of the Inca Empire, it was the largest nation in the world and to this day is the largest native state in the western hemisphere. The Inca civilization was located from north to south of the western hemisphere of South America. The Inca state was known as the Kingdom of Cuzco before 1438. Over the course of the Inca Empire, the Inca used conquest and peaceful assimilation to incorporate the territory of modern-day Peru, followed by a large portion of western South America, into their empire, centered on the Andean mountain range. However, shortly after the Inca Civil War, the last Sapa Inca (emperor) of the Inca Empire was captured and killed on the orders of the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, marking the beginning of Spanish rule. The remnants of the empire retreated to the remote jungles of Vilcabamba and established the small Neo-Inca State, which was conquered by the Spanish in 1572.
The term Peruvian literature not only refers to literature produced in the independent Republic of Peru, but also to literature produced in the Viceroyalty of Peru during the country's colonial period, and to oral artistic forms created by diverse ethnic groups that existed in the area during the prehispanic period, such as the Quechua, the Aymara and the Chanka South American native groups.
The Inca army was the multi-ethnic armed forces used by the Tawantin Suyu to expand its empire and defend the sovereignty of the Sapa Inca in its territory.
The Kingdom of Cusco, also called the Cusco confederation, was a small kingdom based in the Andean city of Cusco that began as a small city-state founded by the Incas around the start of 13th century. In time, through warfare or peaceful assimilation, it began to grow and was succeeded by the Inca Empire (1438–1533).
The official flag of Cusco has seven horizontal stripes of color: red, orange, yellow, green, sky blue, blue, and violet. This rainbow flag was introduced to Peru in 1973 by Raúl Montesinos Espejo, in recognition of the 25th anniversary of his Tawantinsuyo Radio station. As the flag's popularity grew, Cusco mayor Gilberto Muñiz Caparó declared it an official emblem in 1978. Since 2021, the official flag has also featured the golden Echenique's sun.
A yupana is a counting board used to perform arithmetic operations, dating back to the time of the Incas. Very little documentation exists concerning its precise physical form or how it was used.
Ichma, Ychma, Yschma, Ychsma, Ichmay, Irma, Izma, Ishmay or Ishma was a pre-Inca indigenous polity later absorbed by the Inca Empire and reorganized as a wanami (province). For the Inca it was known as Pachakamaq (Pachacamac), rather than its original name of Ishma.
Mawk'allaqta, also Mawk'a Llaqta is an archaeological site in Peru. It is located in the Arequipa Region, La Unión Province, Puyca District, located about 2 kilometers from Puyca.
William Burns Glynn was a British engineer and researcher of the Pre-Columbian era in Peru., noted for his work investigating possible Pre-Columbian writing.
Sabine Hyland is an American anthropologist and ethnohistorian working in the Andes. She is currently Professor of World Christianity at the University of St Andrews. She is best known for her work studying khipus and hybrid khipu-alphabetic texts in the Central Andes and is credited with the first potential phonetic decipherment of an element of a khipu. She has also written extensively about the interaction between Spanish missionaries and the Inca in colonial Peru, focusing on language, religion and missionary culture, as well as the history of the Chanka people.
During the Inca Empire’s comparatively brief reign, from 1438 to 1533, Inca civilization established an economic structure that allowed for substantial agricultural production as well as cross-community exchange of products. Inca society is considered to have had some of the most successful centrally organized economies in history. Its effectiveness was achieved through the successful control of labor and the regulation of tribute resources. In Inca society, collective labor was the cornerstone for economic productivity and the achieving of common prosperity. People in the ayllu worked together to produce that prosperity. This prosperity caused the Spanish to be amazed by what they saw when they first encountered the Incas in 1528. According to each ayllu, labor was divided by region, with agriculture centralized in the most productive areas; ceramic production, road construction, textile production, and other skills were also part of the ayllus. After local needs were satisfied, the government gathered all surplus that is gathered from ayllus and allocated it where it was needed. People of the Inca Empire received free clothes, food, health care, and schooling in exchange for their labor.
Polo Ondegardo was a Spanish colonial jurist, civil servant, businessman and thinker who proposed an intellectual and political vision of profound influence in the earliest troubled stage of the contact between the Hispanic and the American Indigenous world. He was born in Valladolid, when the city was the capital of the kingdom of Castile, to a prominent noble family that had strong ties to the royal family. He spent his entire adult life in South America in what is now Peru and Bolivia. He was involved in the political and economic management of the Spanish colony and based on his good knowledge of the laws as licenciado (licentiate) acquired a deep knowledge and practical experience of the Native Americans in the southern Andes, being an encomendero, visitador and corregidor in the provinces of Charcas and Cusco. His administrative reports, well known and appreciated by his peers and contemporaries, have had wide repercussions in the field of Andean studies up to the present time.
Auqui was the title held by the crown prince in the Inca Empire or Tahuantinsuyu. In a generic way, all the male children of the Inca were called auquis; however, the specific title was applicable only to one of them, whose choice was based on criteria different from those of the Eastern world because his capacity was taken into account, rather than his status as first-born or legitimate son.
Incan animal husbandry refers to how in the pre-Hispanic andes, camelids played a truly important role in the economy. In particular, the llama and alpaca—the only camelids domesticated by Andean men— which were raised in large-scale houses and used for different purposes within the production system of the Incas. Likewise, two other species of undomesticated camelids were used: the vicuña and the guanaco. The guanacos were hunted by means of chacos.
