Arts and technology




Monumental architecture


Architecture was by far the most important of the Inca arts, with textiles reflecting motifs that were at their height in architecture. The main example is the capital city of Cusco. The site of Machu Picchu was constructed by Inca engineers. The stone temples constructed by the Inca used a mortarless construction that fit together so well that a knife could not be fitted through the stonework.

This was a process first used on a large scale by the Pucara (ca. 300 BC–AD 300) peoples to the south in Lake Titicaca, and later in the great city of Tiwanaku (ca. AD 400–1100) in present day Bolivia. The rocks used in construction were sculpted to fit together exactly by repeatedly lowering a rock onto another and carving away any sections on the lower rock where the dust was compressed. The tight fit and the concavity on the lower rocks made them extraordinarily stable.

Measures, Calendrics, and Mathematics


Physical measures employed by the Inca were based upon human body parts. Fingers, the distance between thumb to forefinger, palms, cubits, and wingspans were among those units used. The most basic unit of distance was thatkiy or thatki, or one pace. The next largest unit was reported by Cobo to be the topo or tupu, measuring 6,000 thatkiys, or about 4.8 miles (7.7 km); careful study has shown that a range of 2.5–3.9 miles (4.0–6.3 km) is likely. Next was the wamani, composed of 30 topos (roughly 144 miles (232 km)). To measure area, 25 by 50 wingspans were used, reckoned in topos (roughly 1,266 square miles (3,280 km2)). It seems likely as well that distance was often conceptualized as being one day's walk; the distance between tambo way-stations varies widely in terms of distance, but in far less so in terms of time to walk that distance.


Inca calendrics were strongly tied to astronomy. Inca astronomers understood equinoxes, solstices, and likely zenith passages, not to mention the Venus cycle. They could not, however, predict eclipses. The Inca calendar was essentially lunisolar, as two calendars were maintained in parallel, one solar and one lunar. As twelve lunar months fall 11-days short of a full 365-day solar year, those in charge of the calendar had to adjust every winter solstice. The twelve lunar months were each marked with specific festivals and rituals. There apparently were no names for days of the week, and it may be the case that there were no subdivisions of time into weeks at all. Similarly, months were not grouped into seasons. Time during a given day was not reckoned in hours or minutes, but rather in terms of how far the sun had traveled or in how long it takes to perform a task.

The sophistication of Inca administration, calendrics, and engineering necessitated a certain facility with numbers. Numerical information itself was stored in the knots of quipu strings, allowing for large numbers to be stored in a small amount of space. These numbers were stored in base-10 digits, the same base as used by the Quechua language and used in administrative and military units. These numbers, stored in quipu, could be calculated on yupanas, grids with squares of positionally varying mathematical values perhaps functioning along the lines of an abacus. Moving piles of tokens, seeds, or pebbles between the different compartments of the yupana allowed for calculations to take place. It is likely that, "at minimum", Inca mathematics were capable of division of integers into integers or fractions and multiplication of integers and fractions.

According to the mid-seventeenth-century Jesuit chronicler Bernabé Cobo (1983 [1653]: 253–254), the Inca designated certain officials to perform accounting-related tasks. These officials were called quipo camayos, and the Incas had great confidence in them. In the study of khipu sample VA 42527 (Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin), Sáez-Rodríguez (2013) observed that the numbers arranged in calendrically significant patterns were used for agricultural purposes in the “farm account books” kept by the khipukamayuq (accountant or warehouse keeper) to facilitate the closing of his accounting books.

Ceramics, precious metal work, and textiles


Almost all of the gold and silver work of the empire was melted down by the conquistadors.


Ceramics were painted using the polychrome technique portraying numerous motifs including animals, birds, waves, felines (which were popular in the Chavin culture) and geometric patterns found in the Nazca style of ceramics. In place without a written language, ceramics portrayed the very basic scenes of everyday life, including the smelting of metals, relationships and scenes of tribal warfare, it is through these preserved ceramics that we know what life was like for the ancient South Americans. The most distinctive Inca ceramic objects are the Cusco bottles or ¨aryballos¨. Many of these pieces are on display in Lima in the Larco Archaeological Museum and the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History.

Communication and medicine


The Inca used assemblages of knotted strings, known as Quipu to record information, the exact nature of which is no longer known. Originally it was thought that Quipu were used only as mnemonic devices or to record numerical data. Quipus are also believed to record history and literature.

The Inca made many discoveries in medicine. They performed successful skull surgery, which involved cutting holes in the skull in order to alleviate fluid buildup and inflammation caused by head wounds. Anthropologists have discovered evidence which suggests that most skull surgeries performed by Inca surgeons were successful. In pre-Inca times, only one-third of skull surgery patients survived the procedure. However, survival rates rose to 80–90% during the Inca era.

Coca


The Incas revered the coca plant as being sacred or magical. Its leaves were used in moderate amounts to lessen hunger and pain during work, but were mostly used for religious and health purposes. When the Spaniards realized the effects of chewing the coca leaves, they took advantage of it. The Chasqui (messengers) chewed coca leaves for extra energy to carry on their tasks as runners delivering messages throughout the empire. The coca leaf was also used during surgeries as an anaesthetic.


Weapons, armor, and warfare


The Inca army was the most powerful in the area at that time, because they could turn an ordinary villager or farmer into a soldier, ready for battle. This is because every male Inca had to take part in war at least once so as to be prepared for warfare again when needed. By the time the empire had reached its largest size, every section of the empire contributed in setting up an army for war.

The Incas had no iron or steel, and their weapons were not much better than those of their enemies. They went into battle with the beating of drums and the blowing of trumpets. The armor used by the Incas included:

  • Helmets made of wood, copper, bronze, cane, or animal skin; some were adorned with feathers
  • Round or square shields made from wood or hide
  • Cloth tunics padded with cotton and small wooden planks to protect the spine.
The Inca weaponry included:
  • Bronze or bone-tipped spears
  • Two-handed wooden swords with serrated edges
  • Clubs with stone and spiked metal heads
  • Woolen slings and stones
  • Stone or copper headed battle-axes
  • Bolas (stones fastened to lengths of cord)

Roads allowed very quick movement for the Inca army, and shelters called tambo were built one day's distance in travelling from each other, so that an army on campaign could always be fed and rested. This can be seen in names of ruins such as Ollantay Tambo, or My Lord's Storehouse. These were set up so the Inca and his entourage would always have supplies (and possibly shelter) ready as he traveled.

Inca flag


There are 16th and 17th century chronicles and references that support the idea of a banner, or flag, attributable to the Inca. Francisco López de Jerez wrote in 1534:

...todos venían repartidos en sus escuadras con sus banderas y capitanes que los mandan, con     tanto concierto como turcos.
(...all of them came distributed into squads, with their flags and captains commanding them, as well-ordered as Turks.)



The chronicler, Bernabé Cobo, wrote:

"The royal standard or banner was a small square flag, ten or twelve spans around, made of cotton or wool cloth, placed on the end of a long staff, stretched and stiff such that it did not wave in the air, and on it each king painted his arms and emblems, for each one chose different ones, though the sign of the Incas was the rainbow and two parallel snakes along the width with the tassel as a crown, which each king used to add for a badge or blazon those preferred, like a lion, an eagle and other figures."
(...el guión o estandarte real era una banderilla cuadrada y pequeña, de diez o doce palmos de ruedo, hecha de lienzo de algodón o de lana, iba puesta en el remate de una asta larga, tendida y tiesa, sin que ondease al aire, y en ella pintaba cada rey sus armas y divisas, porque cada uno las escogía diferentes, aunque las generales de los Incas eran el arco celeste y dos culebras tendidas a lo largo paralelas con la borda que le servía de corona, a las cuales solía añadir por divisa y blasón cada rey las que le parecía, como un león, un águila y otras figuras.)

-Bernabé Cobo, Historia del Nuevo Mundo (1653)


Guaman Poma's 1615 book, El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno, shows numerous line drawings of Inca flags.

In modern times the rainbow flag has been associated with the Tawantinsuyu and is displayed as a symbol of Inca heritage in Peru and Bolivia. The city of Cusco flies the Rainbow Flag. Even the Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo (2001–2006) flew the Rainbow Flag in Lima's presidential palace.

According to the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio, the flag only dates to the first decades of the 20th century. But in his 1847 book A History of the Conquest of Peru, "William H. Prescott ... says that in the Inca army each company had its particular banner, and that the imperial standard, high above all, displayed the glittering device of the rainbow, the armorial ensign of the Incas." A 1917 world flags book says the Incan "heir-apparent ... was entitled to display the royal standard of the rainbow in his military campaigns."


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