Cuzco Essay

Inca civilization began in the high plateaus of the Andes Mountains. The civilization grew slowly until Pachacuti took the throne in 1438. He conquered all of Peru and more. The Inca were able to do this because they had a strong military and they were good diplomats. The Inca only used force when it was absolutely necessary. They prefered to have enemy civilizations surrender. If an enemy civilization did surrender, the Inca would let them keep local customs and rituals in exchange for their loyalty to the Inca Empire. Many people gave up to the Inca without resisting, and the Inca found loyalty of conquered people to be vital to the development of their civilization. To govern their civilization, the Inca used a bureaucracy. They also imposed a single language to create unity amongst their empire. They created schools to teach Incan ways to other cultures within their empire. This influenced the children of the conquered people to support the Incan Empire. The Inca would also build cities in areas to show their control and power. The Inca were able to build roads, cities, and schools because every man in the Incan Empire had to complete tax in the form of labor, called Mita. This labor also allowed the government to support the sick and poor and save extra food in case of a bad harvest. The Inca had a very advanced road system which allowed for faster communication and transportation of goods. The road system was a 14,000 mile long network. Some of the

The Incas revered the mountain peaks around them as gods or holy beings. The Incas controlled about 2,400 miles of coastline and divided the highland Valleys into 4 divisions. They divided these divisions by elevation. Llamas and alpacas

lands and sometimes on building projects or in mining.” (World of the Inca). Thus the Inca expected

Incas divided conquered areas into the people, lands for the state, and lands for the sun. The

Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui also invented the Capacocha, which was carried out in the following way: The provinces of Collasuyo, Chinchaysuyo, Antisuyo, and Cuntisuyo would bring to this city, from each town and lineage of people, one or two small boys or girls, of ten years old. They would also bring clothes and livestock, as well as sheep [made] of gold, silver, and mullu. These were kept in Cuzco for the reasons that will be told. After all this was assembled, the Inca would sit in the plaza of Haucaypata, which is the large plaza of Cuzco. There the children and other sacrifices walked around the statues of the Creator, Sun, Thunder, and Moon that were already in the plaza for this purpose. They made two turns around them, and after finishing, the Inca summoned the provincial priests and had the offerings divided into four parts for the four suyos: Collasuyo, Chinchaysuyo, Antisuyo, and Cuntisuyo, which are the four regions into which this land is divided. And he would tell them, “Each of you take your share of these offerings and sacrifices, take it to your principal huaca, and sacrifice them there.

Annabelle Headrick’s The Teotihuacan Trinity: The Sociopolitical Structure of Ancient Mesoamerican City discusses the mystery behind the development of Teotihuacan, a city-state located in the Mesoamerica. Historically, not much is known about this great city, in terms rulers, cultural aspects, and even hieroglyphs. In the text, Headrick uses other Mesoamerican city-states, critical analysis and other historical documents to uncover the mysteries and to support her hypothesis of the Teotihuacan trinity, which comprised of rulers, lineages, and the military to shape the dynamics of the socio-political structure of Teotihuacan.

The Incan city Cuzco was an elongated triangle formed the meeting of two rivers (von Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow 452). On one end opposite of the confluence, was a hill with several structures, including the imperial armory and a temple dedicated to the Sun god. Below on the plain, the city was laid out on a grid pattern where both the upper and lower class residents of the city lived in adobe houses arranged in a block and courtyard pattern (von Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow 453). Various temples and squares in the city served as ceremonial centers. For instance, one plaza had a platform with the imperial throne and a pillar placed on the top (von Sivers, Desnoyers, and Stow 453).

In the early 8th century, the Maya city-state of Tikal were known to eclipse all rivals, becoming the most populous polity in the Americas. As many as 62,000 Maya nobles, artisans, and others squeezed into Tikal’s crowded residential districts in what is now Guatemala. During the century that followed, however, Tikal fell on hard times. Its building boom collapsed, its artists ceased to carve hieroglyphic inscriptions and paint murals, population plummeted, and its kings vanished. The author in this article argues that Tikal was not alone to suffer such horrific disintegration. Because elsewhere 324,000-square-kilometer area spanning southeastern Mexico and upper Central America dozens of other city-states also crumbled between 695 and 1050

The City of Cuzco was a complex urban center with distinct religious and administrative functions. It was surrounded by clearly defined areas for agricultural, artisan, and industrial production. Besides the religious and government buildings, there were also exclusive abodes for royal families, which formed an unprecedented symbolic urban compound. This compound showed a stone construction technology with remarkable aesthetic and structural properties, such as the Temple of the Sun or Qoricancha. Cuzco was the capital of the Tawantinsuyu Inca Empire, which covered much of the South American Andes between the 15th and 16th centuries AD. It was abandoned by the Incas when the Spaniards conquered it in the 16th century.

Located in a valley in central Mexico, lies one of the world’s most spectacular archaeological sites named Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan is the largest ancient city in the new world. This ancient city is said to have begun around 200 B.C. It is enormous covering about eight square miles. The city is organized in a grid style focused around three main monuments. Around these structures were homes for the mass population that lived there. These homes were laid out in a grid like fashion that could be compared to an apartment complex. The grid system for its time was a complex organized system, this showed the social control Teotihuacan had.

Texcoco was an important archeological site during the late Aztec period. It was located east of Lake Texcoco, home to the Acholhua people and surrounding city-states, Tenochtitlan and Tlacopan. These three city-states founded what is known as the Triple Alliance by 1428, creating the Aztec capital and a strong political entity (book). As the second strongest of the alliance, one of the most famous rulers in Mesoamerica, Netzahualcoyotl was the king of Texcoco. Signs of settlement in this city-state didn’t arise until the 13th century, showing a center of culture and learning, also being rich in agriculture, trading, and hunting (ancient.eu).

A major aspect of mesoamerican politics was the strength of the land. Bryce Davenport and Charles Golden explain that for the mesoamerican indian, the ruling elites’ power was tied directly with the land and the more land they had, the more influence they held in politics, this way of life can be seen traced as far back the Classic Period (c., 250-900 A.D.). Also, by having established parameters of buildings, different tribes would acknowledge other tribes as being civilized. When the Itza lost Chichen Itza they lost their status as civilized people. Like Europeans, the Mesoamericans believed that their power was directly tied to the land, not only the woods, the lake, or waterways, but that in order to be seen as civilized they need buildings and structures that showed separation between man and nature. The rulers in Tenochtitlan would move throughout the city to display themselves and their power. Barbara E Mundy illustrates in Tenochtitlan rulers would dress like their deities and travel between buildings that had religious affiliation in some fashion or another, so that by doing this would could continue to display their authority towards the people. In 1473, when Ahuitzotl conquered Teloloapan, he entered Tenochtitlan along certain causeways, which would often have direct routes to different temples to pay homage, but also

“When the Incas were originally forming their power base around Cuzco, they formed alliances with a variety of different ethnic groups through intermarriage”(Terence D'Altroy). Due to their political alliances they were able to navigate roads safely with the only struggle being one's own physical health. During this time, this allowed the Inca people to flourish, and have little to no worries. This new found way gave the government new access to communicate with their people had a great influence on life. If the road system wasn’t expanded upon the Inca legacy would not have been as memorable it is.

The ancient world of Mesoamerica entered a long period of change that soon led to the development a mammoth city that would serve as a regional center for more than 600 years. Beginning in about 1000 B.C. the majority of the people in the Valley of Mexico relocated to one of two primary sites, that of Cuicuilco in the southwest corner and Teotihuacan in the northeast. By about 300 B.C., Cuicuilco dominated the region, but its heyday would soon diminish. (Sabloff 2000, p 60)

The City of Cuzco, at 3,400 m above sea level, is located in a fertile alluvial valley fed by several rivers in the heart of the Central Peruvian Andes of South America. Under the rule of Inca Pachacuteq (Tito Cusi Inca Yupanqui), in the 15th century, the city was redesigned and remodelled after a pre-Inca occupation process of over 3,000 years, and became the capital of the Tawantinsuyu Inca Empire, which covered much of the South American Andes between the 15th and 16th centuries AD.