The Incas: History and Treasures of an Ancient Civilization

Few lost tribes have captured the world’s imagination the way the Incas have. Though the Children of the Sun ruled a swathe of South America for a relatively short time – the Inca heyday lasted about 90 years – their legacy lives on, both as the proud heritage of modern Andean nations and in the minds of modern pilgrims, who travel in their thousands to see Machu Picchu, fabled Lost City of the Incas.

When the Spanish arrived in Peru in 1532, they found the Incas ruling over about two million square kilometres, known as Tawantinsuyu (“The Four Parts Together”). How did the Incas form a vast unified state across mountainous territory? And what is the truth behind the mythical origins of these people? These are two key questions this lavishly illustrated monograph attempts to answer.

But unravelling the intricate history of the Incas is complicated, as they never used an alphabet form of writing, author Carolina Orsini explains. One of their means of communication was a complex series of knots on ropes, which could have various meanings, depending on the direction in which the wool was woven, its colour, the type of knot and its position on the rope. Archaeologists’ knowledge comes from Spanish observations recorded during the colonial period and literally piecing together the past from fragments of pottery and art.

A Stunning Photographic Journey

A highlight of this book is its photography, of Andean landscapes, temple ruins and details of archaeological finds. Wrought in gold, silver and colourful ceramics, relics everything from Inca jewellery to stylised ritual statues to an axe-shaped gold coccyx protector.

Antiquities come from museums around the world, such as the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, the Ethnologisches Musuem in Berlin and the Museo Inca del la Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad in Cuzco. The manner of presentation is exquisite, with midnight black pages bringing out the burnt shine of battered gold artefacts. These include a hammer-moulded Nazca mask with fantastic animal features that reflect the complex religious world of the Incas, who worshipped many deities, although the most important was the Sun God, Inti. If the awed spirit of a walk through a hall of splendid antiquities could be captured within the pages of a book, this is how that book would appear.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact beginning of the Inca civilisation, but Orsini traces the cultural basis to the first millennium AD. This was when some of the cardinal elements that helped unite Inca society – such as the road and numbering systems – were already well developed.

Details of an Advanced Empire

The author of this authoritative text has practical as well as theoretical knowledge of her subject. She is curator of the extra-European Collections of the City Collections of Applied Arts of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan and has been doing field work for over a decade in the Peruvian Andes, where she directs the works of the Antonio Raimondi Archaeology and Anthropology Mission.

Her book identifies seven distinct phases during Inca history: Pre-Inca Cultures and the Qotakalli Period (1000BC to AD600); the Huari in the Cuzco Valley (AD600-1000); the Killke Period and the first Incas (AD1000-1400); the Expansion of the Empire (AD1440-1493); the Consolidation of the Empire (AD1493-1528); the Struggle for the Throne (AD1528-1532); and finally, the Conquest and the Neo-Inca State (AD1532-1572).

Orsini provides fascinating insights into how the empire was constructed, including how a vast network of roads united the territory’s sacred sites, such as Machu Picchu. As well as having religious significance, Orsini writes the trails “also had the very worldly purposes of ensuring connections to the provinces, permitting the movement of armies and the reception of the goods which flowed into Cuzco”. The total road network spanned 23,000km through Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. According to the author: “The Inca road system was the most important infrastructure to have been built in the Americas prior to the Spanish conquest.” It included rope bridges, steep stairways carved into rock and some coastal roads were shielded from the sand by adobe walls.

The final chapters make gripping reading – tempered by the dry, scholarly tone of the careful historian – as Orsini relates how the death of the Inca leader and his heir left two brothers, Atahuallpa and Huascar, warring for the throne. The Spanish chanced along during this civil war and wasted no time in exploiting the unrest, capturing the momentarily triumphant Atahuallpa, holding him to ransom until the Inca people delivered enough gold artefacts to fill a room to the ceiling, then executed him anyway.

It’s a sensational story, told in a measured, matter-of-fact fashion. But facts and photographs are kindling to ignite the imagination of any keen amateur historian.