1200-1532 A.D

 Located in the Mountains of South America

 West Coast of South America in , Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina

 Climate ranges from dry to snowy to hot jungle

 Founded by Pacachuti

 Capital city was Cuzco  Administrative center  Temple of the Sun- inside walls made of & perfectly cut stones

 Machu Picchu the “Lost City of the Incas”

 Ruled by an Emperor called the Sapa Inca and had absolute control  Divine – the son of the sun  Chief religious leader  Gold was his symbol and the “sweat of the sun”

 The Queen was called the Coya  Performed religious functions  Served in absence of Sapa Inca

 Officials collected taxes and enforced laws  Kept records on a quipu, which were knotted strings

 Imposed Quechua language and religion on conquered people

 Great system of roads adopted from the Mochia  Let armies and news travel rapidly  Cut into mountains and had many bridges  Ordinary people could not use the roads

 Roads united large empire Road Bridge  People lived in close-knit communities called ayllus  One leader carried out government orders, assigned jobs and organized work

 Regulated society by arranging marriages to make sure men and women settled down

 People conquered by the Incans were put into Incan army  Farming  Created terraces in mountains to farm on secured by stone walls  Farmers spent part of year working land for emperor  Grew corn, potatoes, cotton, squash, and beans  Government gave part of harvest to people and stored the rest

 Trade  Speculation that Inca traded in open air markets

 Domesticated the llama and the alpaca  Polytheistic

 Part of everyday life, every month had a festival  Chief god was Inti, the Sun God  Chosen Women dedicated their lives to serving the sun god  Servants on earth of the Sun God, Inti  Specially chosen as girls, trained, and housed near the temple  After training, either married a noble, served the royal family, or become one of the Chosen Women  Made the clothes of the Sapa Inca and Coya since Sapa Inca could not wear the same clothes twice

 Involved mainly children  Happened around an important event  Could only be perfect children  Held a feast, took them to the top of a mountain, gave them something to intoxicate them  Were either strangled, hit on the head, or left to die of exposure  Incas had no system of writing

 Calendar of 15 months, each with 3 weeks of 10 days

 Quipu measurement

 Advanced medicine- antiseptics and skull surgery

 Gold and silver works

 1525 A.D.- Sapa Inca Huayna Capac died of plague

 No successor leads to civil war, weakening the empire

 1531 A.D.- Spanish led by Francisco Pizarro conquered the