The most common type of Inca house was rectangular with a thatched roof, and usually had just one room. The walls were usually made from stone or adobe (a claylike material). The stone blocks were carved so that they fitted together perfectly, and there was no need for cement.

Inca buildings were made out of fieldstones or semi-worked stone blocks and dirt set in mortar; adobe walls were also quite common, usually laid over stone foundations.

Inca architecture is widely known for its fine masonry, which features precisely cut and shaped stones closely fitted without mortar (“dry”). Inca architecture is strongly characterized by its use of the natural environment.

The Incan economy has been described in contradictory ways by scholars; Darrell E. La Lone, in his work The Inca as a Nonmarket Economy, noted that the Inca economy has been described as “feudal, slave, [and] socialist.”

Inca religion—an admixture of complex ceremonies, practices, animistic beliefs, varied… Viracocha was the divine protector of the Inca ruler Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui; he appeared to Pachacuti in a dream when the Inca forces were being besieged by the Chanca, a group from the lands west of the Inca territory.

“Most of them still living in the towns of San Sebastian and San Jeronimo, Cusco, Peru, at present, are probably the most homogeneous group of Inca lineage,” says Elward. The same pattern of the Inca descendants was also found in individuals living south to Cusco, mainly in Aymaras of Peru and Bolivia.

Quechua

Francisco Pizarro

The Inca first appeared in what is today southeastern Peru during the 12th century A.D. According to some versions of their origin myths, they were created by the sun god, Inti, who sent his son Manco Capac to Earth through the middle of three caves in the village of Paccari Tampu.

The Incas of Peru are undoubtedly one of the most admired of ancient civilisations. Less than two centuries later, however, their culture was extinct, victims of arguably the cruellest episode of Spanish colonial history. …

In the hope of preserving his body for mummification, Atahuallpa chose the latter, and an iron collar was tightened around his neck until he died. With Spanish reinforcements that had arrived at Cajamarca earlier that year, Pizarro then marched on Cuzco, and the Inca capital fell without a struggle in November 1533.

Peru’s royal pedigree: direct descendants trace roots to Incan emperor and kin. When the last Inca emperor, Atahualpa, was executed by Francisco Pizarro in 1533, the conquistadores moved quickly to obliterate all traces of what had been the largest empire of its time.

Ethnic Peruvian Structure. In the 2017 Census, those of 12 years old and above were asked what ancestral origin they belong to with 60.2% of Peruvians self-identified as Mestizos, 22.3% as Quechuas, 5.9% as White, 3.6% as Afro-Peruvian, 2.4% as Aymaras, 0.3% as Amazonians, 0.16% as Asian.

The descendants of the Inca are the present-day Quechua-speaking peasants of the Andes, who constitute perhaps 45 percent of the population of Peru.

Machu Picchu Today A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1983 and designated one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007, Machu Picchu is Peru’s most visited attraction and South America’s most famous ruins, welcoming hundreds of thousands of people a year.

Old Mountain

More than 7,000 feet above sea level in the Andes Mountains, Machu Picchu is the most visited tourist destination in Peru. A symbol of the Incan Empire and built around 1450AD, Machu Picchu was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 and was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007.

Most of the evidence recovered at Machu Picchu relates to the creation of objects from tin bronze, an alloy of copper associated with the Inca State, but objects were fashioned of precious metal as well. The excavations of 1912 found a wide variety of metal tools and jewelry.

Machupijchu

Most archeologists believe that Machu Picchu was constructed as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often mistakenly referred to as the “Lost City of the Incas”, it is the most familiar icon of Inca civilization.