I have learned so much about the mysterious Inca culture this past week here in Cusco, the capital city of the Incas. The golden time of the Incas were 1500-1600, only hundred years but they concured places from many different countries. The first Inca king was supposely Manco Capac around 1200. Only unreachable area was the Amazon jungle due to yellowfever and malaria. They built temples and huge fortresses with stones which they moved by pushing them on hundreds of little round rocks. The Incas didn´t have so many humans sacrificed if you compare to the Mayans. The Incas offered lamas, quinea pigs and other animals to the gods.
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| Saqsayhuaman is a big place with stones like this. "Inca fortress" |
They believed that there is 3 gods: god of the sun (Inti), moon and the main good of mother earth. The moon represented a woman and the sun a man. Their andean cross symbolizes three different lifes; the gods (a condor), humans (a puma) and the afterlife of the deads (a snake). Three is a magical number in the Inca culture. The steps in the cross means also
"I live, I work, I love". The Incas didn't have any jails in their time or laws. They only had three rules:
Don't be a liar, don't be a thief and don't be lazy. With these three rules it was possible to rule the entire Incan empire.
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| Andean cross (Google) |
Gold was mainly a decoration subject to the Incas. What they really appreciated was textiles, archelogical subjects and food like corn and potato. They had a very different technique to build houses and temples. They use the lego technique and always three walls leaned towards the one wall which was straight. This way the building could resist the earths movements caused by earthquakes. In 1650 there was a earthquake in Cusco (Machu Picchu is located about 80km from Cusco) and yet again in 1950. People believe that a big earthquake hits Cusco every 300 years. In these earthquakes about 70% off the buildings built by the spaniards was destroyed. 25% of the buildings that were built in the Inca legostyle were destroyed. The difference between European buildings and Inca buildings are that the Europeans use sement between the rocks and all the walls are straight.
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| Lego technique was used in the temples and the house of Inca king. |
Also the way Incas send their messages was much more efective than the spaniards way. From Cusco to for example Machu Picchu they had a message tower every 10km. So each messenger ran 10km to the next tower and gave the message to the next man who was supposed to run 10km again. This way 80km was easily beaten under 8 hours. The inca trail is nowadays done by the tourists in 4 days and 3 nights.
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| On top of a message tower. |
Francisco Pizarro was the man who led the spaniards to Peru in 1532-1533. Incas were defieted by diseases brought by spaniards and their weaponery. They just wanted to slaughter everyone and get their hands on the gold. In a bit over 4 months they had collected already 8 tonnes of gold. One way to get gold quickly was to capture the Inca king and demand gold as ransom. One thing that made the empire weaker was that there was some kind of civil war between the sons of the Inca Huayna Capac. Of this subject I don't know more about.
We visited the catedral of Cusco and there we were able to see many paintings done by the local cusquenas. The difference between an European painting and a local can be noticed by the animals, dresses, food and the skincolor of the people in the painting. In the painting of Jesus' last supper, the face of Judas is actually the face of Francisco Pizarro. This speaks for itself, how the locals felt about this man. One guide told us a story about how the animal Lama got its name. When a spanish captain arrived to Peru and saw this animal he had never seen before, he went to a local man and asked
Como se llama? meaning what's thats name, the local man didn't understand because their official language was Quechua. After asking again a few times in an angry way, the local man just fearfully repited the last word ...
llama? and the spaniard said thanks and left.
Machu Picchu (means old mountain in Quechua) was never discovered by the spaniards. There is different kind of stories why the residents of Machu Picchu abandoned the place after they heard that conquerors had arrived to Peru. One story tells that it was so sacred that they didn't want to take a risk that it would be found so the people left and destroyed all the roads leading there. Another story tells that there was not enough food for 600 residents because their sacred town was located to high up in the mountains (2430m) that only the farming terraces didn't cover the need of food. No-one really knows what was the main reason. Many hundreds of years later there were still some local farmers living around Machu Picchu and knew of its existence. When a American historian Hiram Bingham was on his expedition for the search of another lost city (legend), he was brought up to mountains by a local boy and this way told the world about Machu Picchu and he was marked as the finder of Machu Picchu. The year was 1911. They found amazing carvings in the stone that by studying closer revealed to be an astronomical watch. The sun creates a shadow in different corners different time of the year. This way they were able to divide the year in to 4 pieces and also to predict the dry/rain season.
Nowadays it is a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary and is one of the seven wonders of the world. The view is mainly reconstructed, the flora is under control that the visitor can see better what it actually looked like back in 1450 when they started building the town. This is by so far the most amazing places I have visited. It was hidden from the world for over 400 years. The atmosphere is somethng that I can't even describe.
I will post more pictures from other places later. :)
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