The Inca Empire

1. The Inca Empire Ptukhin Alexander, 10C, school #67

2. The Inca 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 in the early 13th century.

3. 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 southern Colombia into a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia.

5. MancoCápac ruled the Kingdom of Cusco for about forty years, establishing a code of laws, and is thought to have abolished human sacrifice. 

6. Population • Area -  • 1438 : 800,000 km² • 1527: 2,000,000 km² There is some debate about the number of people inhabiting Tawantinsuyu at its peak, with estimates ranging from as few as 4 million people, to more than 37 million. The reason for these various estimates is that in spite of the fact that the Inca kept excellent census records using their quipu, knowledge of how to read them has been lost, and almost all of them had been destroyed by the Spaniards in the course of their conquest.

8. Women were an essential part of Inca society. Their principal role in society was to care for their children, cook, weave, make chicha beer and work at the fields; however, they had many other husbands. They cleaned to make their lives after marriage very busy. Incan women were typically married at the age of sixteen. The Inca were a conquering society, and their expansionist assimilation of other cultures is evident in their artistic style. The artistic style of the Inca utilized the vocabulary of many regions and cultures, but incorporated these themes into a standardized imperial style that could easily be replicated and spread throughout the empire. The simple abstract geometric forms and highly stylized animal representation in ceramics, wood carvings, textiles and metalwork were all part of the Inca culture. The motifs were not as revivalist as previous empires. No motifs of other societies were directly used with the exception of Huari and Tiwanaku arts. Shipbuilding For fishing, trade, construction, transport and military purposes, the Inca built seagoing vessels called balsas by weaving together totora reeds. The largest of these vessels were 20 to 30 meters long, making them comparable in length to Spanish Caravels. This method of constructing ships from woven reeds is an ancient Peruvian tradition which long predates the Inca.  Clothing Inca officials wore stylized tunics that indicated their status. It contains an amalgamation of motifs used in the tunics of particular officeholders.

10. Communication and medicine The Inca used assemblages of knotted strings, known as Quipu to record information, the exact nature of which is no longer known. Originally it was thought that Quipu were used only as mnemonic devices or to record numerical data. Quipus are also believed to record history and literature. The Inca made many discoveries in medicine. They performed successful skull surgery, which involved cutting holes in the skull in order to alleviate fluid buildup and inflammation caused by head wounds. Anthropologists have discovered evidence which suggests that most skull surgeries performed by Inca surgeons were successful. In pre-Inca times, only one-third of skull surgery patients survived the procedure. However, survival rates rose to 80–90% during the Inca era Weapons, armor, and warfare The Inca army was the most powerful in the area at that time, because they could turn an ordinary villager or farmer into a soldier, ready for battle. This is because every male Inca had to take part in war at least once so as to be prepared for warfare again when needed. By the time the empire had reached its largest size, every section of the empire contributed in setting up an army for war.