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The Inca Empire was a federalist system [verification needed] which consisted of a central government with the Inca at its head and four quarters, or suyu: Chinchay Suyu (northwest), Antisuyu (northeast), Kuntisuyu (southwest), and Qullasuyu (southeast). The four corners of these quarters met at the center, Cuzco.
The Inca referred to their empire as Tawantinsuyu, [13] "the suyu of four [parts]". In Quechua, tawa is four and -ntin is a suffix naming a group, so that a tawantin is a quartet, a group of four things taken together, in this case the four suyu ("regions" or "provinces") whose corners met at the capital.
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.
The Inca society was the society of the Inca civilization in Peru. The Inca Empire, which lasted from 1438 to 1533 A.D., represented the height of this civilization.
A kuraka (Quechua for the principal governor of a province or a communal authority in the Tawantinsuyu [1] [2]), or curaca (Hispanicized spelling [3]), was an official of the Andean civilizations, unified by the Inca Empire in 1438, who held the role of magistrate, on several hierarchical levels, from the Sapa Inca at the head of the Empire to local family units.
The Inca had religious reverence for the cougar, commonly known as a puma in South America. The Incas believed the puma to represent power and strength, as well as patience and wisdom. The original Inca Capital Cusco took the shape of a puma, with the massive citadel of Sacsayhuaman representing the head of the puma. [29]
The culture arose about 900 CE. The Inca ruler Topa Inca Yupanqui led a campaign which conquered the Chimú around 1470 CE. [34] This was just fifty years before the arrival of the Spanish in the region. Consequently, Spanish chroniclers were able to record accounts of Chimú culture from individuals who had lived before the Inca conquest.
The Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, also known as the Conquest of Peru, was one of the most important campaigns in the Spanish colonization of the Americas.After years of preliminary exploration and military skirmishes, 168 Spanish soldiers under conquistador Francisco Pizarro, along with his brothers in arms and their indigenous allies, captured the last Sapa Inca, Atahualpa, at the ...