1. ART 299
WEEK 13 SOUTH AMERICA

2. The Inca Empire (Inka)
 No written language, so the spoken Quechua
language has given way to many variant
spellings.
 Cuzco was the capital city in the center of the
empire, Tawantinsuyu, Four Parts, Four
Quarters
 Empire lasted less than 100 years
 Conquistador Francisco Pizzaro arrived at a
time of civil war, Inca power already in decline

4. Key achievements
1. Political administration
2. Accounting
3. Engineering
1. Road system
2. Agricultural terracing
3. Stone construction
4. Textile production
5. Gold (ransom of Atahualpa)

5. 1 Political administration
 Resettlement
 Marriages
 Organization around industries and
professions

6. 2 Accounting

7. Quipu
Length of cord with knotted strings attached.

8. quipu
Detail of a quipu showing the variety of knots, cord lengths and cord colors used to encode
information

9. quipucamayos
Record-keepers in charge of making, maintaining
and reading the data stored on the strings to others.

10. 3 Engineering & Construction

12. the “12-angled stone” in Cuzco

13. Spanish cathedral built atop the foundations of the
Temple of the Sun

14. Moray, Peru
Huacas-sacred locations with powers amplified through landscaping

15. Machu Picchu

16. terraces at Machu Picchu

17. characteristic trapezoidal doorways

18. 4 Textile production

20. military tunic,
cotton

21. Tunic,
Dumbarton Oaks,
Washington DC,
c. 1500
cotton

22. 5 Gold (or, the Ransom of
Atahualpa)
 Room filled with gold and twice over with
silver. (Dimensions of the room vary in
different chroniclers’ accounts.)
 Arriving from every corner of the empire by
the llama-load
 Pizarro ordered it melted down so more could
fit in the room. The golden façade of
Corimancha (Temple of the Sun) was melted
down.

23. Gold figurine,
Peru

24. LOST ARTS, LOST CIVILIZATIONS
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Farming-Like-the-Incas.html#