Editing Inca Empire (section)

== Culture ==
=== Monumental architecture ===
{{Main|Inca architecture}}

{{Quote box
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 |source = [[Francisco Pizarro]]
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{{Update|date=September 2024}}

Architecture was the most important of the Inca arts, with textiles reflecting architectural motifs. The most notable example is [[Machu Picchu]], which was constructed by [[Inca engineers]]. The prime Inca structures were made of stone blocks that fit together so well that a knife could not be fitted through the stonework. These constructs have survived for centuries, with no use of mortar to sustain them.

This process was first used on a large scale by the [[Pukara|Pucara]] ({{Circa|300 BC}}–AD 300) peoples to the south in [[Lake Titicaca]] and later in the city of [[Tiwanaku]] ({{Circa|AD 400}}–1100) in what is now Bolivia. The rocks 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, despite the ongoing challenge of earthquakes and volcanic activity.

=== Tunics ===
[[File:Tupa-inca-tunic.png|thumb|left|Tunic worn by an Inca of high rank, in vicuña wool and cotton (1450–1540), kept at the Washington [[Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://museum.doaks.org/objects-1/info/23071 |title=All T'oqapu Tunic |website=[[Dumbarton Oaks|Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection]]}}</ref>]]

Tunics were created by skilled Inca textile-makers as a piece of warm clothing, but they also symbolized cultural and political status and power. ''Cumbi'' was the fine, tapestry-woven woolen cloth that was produced and necessary for the creation of tunics. ''Cumbi'' was produced by specially-appointed women and men. Generally, textile-making was practiced by both men and women. As emphasized by certain historians, only with European conquest was it deemed that women would become the primary weavers in society, as opposed to Inca society where specialty textiles were produced by men and women equally.<ref name=":4">Karen B. Graubart (2000), "Weaving and the Construction of a Gender Division of Labor in Early Colonial Peru", ''The American Indian Quarterly'', 24, no. 4, pp. 537–561.</ref>

Complex patterns and designs were meant to convey information about order in [[Andean society]] as well as the Universe. Tunics could also symbolize one's relationship to ancient rulers or important ancestors. These textiles were frequently designed to represent the physical order of a society, for example, the flow of [[tribute]] within an empire. Many tunics have a "checkerboard effect" which is known as the ''collcapata''. According to historians Kenneth Mills, William B. Taylor, and Sandra Lauderdale Graham, the ''collcapata'' patterns "seem to have expressed concepts of commonality, and, ultimately, unity of all ranks of people, representing a careful kind of foundation upon which the structure of Inkaic universalism was built." Rulers wore various tunics throughout the year, switching them out for different occasions and feasts.

The symbols present within the tunics suggest the importance of "pictographic expression" within Inca and other Andean societies far before the iconographies of the Spanish Christians.<ref>Mills, Kenneth; Taylor, William B.; and Graham, Sandra Lauderdale, eds. ''Colonial Latin America - A Documentary History'', Denver, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002, pp. 14–18.</ref>

==== Uncu ====
[[Uncu (tunic)|Uncu]] was a men's garment similar to a tunic. It was an upper-body garment of knee-length; Royals wore it with a mantle cloth called ''[[Yacolla (garment)|yacolla]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cummins |first1=Thomas B. F. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nrpDAgAAQBAJ&dq=uncu&pg=PA127 |title=The Getty Murua: Essays on the Making of Martin de Murua's "Historia General del Piru", J. Paul Getty Museum Ms. Ludwig XIII 16 |last2=Anderson |first2=Barbara |date=23 September 2008 |publisher=[[Getty Research Institute|Getty Publications]] |isbn=978-0-89236-894-5 |page=127 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Feltham |first=Jane |url=http://archive.org/details/peruviantextiles0000felt |title=Peruvian textiles |date=1989 |publisher=[[Aylesbury]] |isbn=978-0-7478-0014-9 |page=57}}</ref>

===Ceramics, precious metals and textiles===
[[File:Camelid Conopa, 1470-1532, 36.683.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Camelid Conopa, 1470–1532, [[Brooklyn Museum]]. Small stone figurines, or ''conopas'', of llamas and alpacas were the most common ritual effigies used in the highlands of modern-day Peru and Bolivia. These devotional objects were often buried in the animals' corrals to bring protection and prosperity to their owners and fertility to the herds. The cylindrical cavities in their backs were filled with offerings to the gods in the form of a mixture including animal fat, coca leaves, maize kernels and seashells. ]]

[[Ceramic art|Ceramics]] were painted using the polychrome technique portraying numerous motifs including animals, birds, waves, felines (popular in the [[Chavín culture|Chavin culture]]) and geometric patterns found in the [[Nazca]] style of ceramics. In a culture without a written language, ceramics portrayed the basic scenes of everyday life, including the smelting of metals, relationships and scenes of tribal warfare. The most distinctive Inca ceramic objects are the {{Lang|qu|urpu}} (Cuzco bottles or "aryballos"), mainly used for the production of [[chicha]].<ref name="HerreraBerrin1997">{{cite book |first1=Kathleen |last1=Berrin |title=The Spirit of Ancient Peru - Treasures from the Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=RbNuQgAACAAJ}} |date=1997 |publisher=[[Thames & Hudson]] |isbn=978-0-500-01802-6}}</ref> Many of these pieces are on display in Lima in the [[Larco Museum|Larco Archaeological Museum]] and the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History.

Almost all of the gold and silver work of the Inca empire was melted down by the conquistadors and shipped back to Spain.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.thoughtco.com/lost-treasure-of-the-inca-2136548 |title=What Happened to the Treasure Hoard of the Inca Emperor? |last1=Minster |first1=Christopher |website=thoughtco.com |language=en |access-date=13 February 2019}}</ref>

=== Coca ===
[[File:Coca (Erythroxylum coca) en Meta (Colombia) 3.jpg|thumb|[[Coca]] leaves in [[Meta Department]], Colombia, approached by the Inca for many uses]]

The Incas revered the [[coca]] plant as sacred/magical. Its leaves were used in moderate amounts to lessen hunger and pain during work but were mostly used for religious and health purposes.<ref name="Boca Raton">{{cite news |title=Cocaine's use: From the Incas to the U.S. |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1291&dat=19850404&id=0B1UAAAAIBAJ&pg=6387,881236 |access-date=2 February 2014 |newspaper=[[Boca Raton News]] |date=4 April 1985}}</ref> The Spaniards took advantage of the effects of chewing coca leaves.<ref name="Boca Raton" /> The [[chasqui]]s, messengers who ran throughout the empire to deliver messages, chewed coca leaves for extra energy. Coca leaves were also used as an [[Anesthetic|anaesthetic]] during surgeries.

=== Banner of the Inca ===
{{Main|Wiphala|Rainbow flag#Andean indigenism}}
[[File:Suntur Paucar.svg|thumb|left|Two crowning snakes united by a rainbow without certain royal badge was used as the Inca sign according to Spanish chronicler [[Bernabé Cobo]]]]

Chronicles and references from the 16th and 17th centuries support the idea of a banner. However, it represented the Inca (emperor), not the empire.

Francisco López de Jerez<ref>Francisco López de Jerez,''Verdadera relación de la conquista del Peru y provincia de Cusco, llamada la Nueva Castilla'', 1534.</ref> wrote in 1534:
<blockquote>{{lang|es|italics=no|...{{nbsp}}todos venían repartidos en sus escuadras con sus banderas y capitanes que los mandan, con tanto concierto como turcos.}}<br />({{lang|en|...{{nbsp}}all of them came distributed into squads, with their flags and captains commanding them, as well-ordered as Turks.}})</blockquote>

Chronicler Bernabé Cobo wrote:
<blockquote>{{lang|en|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.}}

<br />({{Lang|es|italics=no|...{{nbsp}}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.}})<br />-<small>'''Bernabé Cobo, ''Historia del Nuevo Mundo''''' (1653)</small></blockquote>

[[Guaman Poma]]'s 1615 book, ''El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno'', shows numerous line drawings of Inca flags.<ref>Guaman Poma, ''El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno'', (1615/1616), pp. 256, 286, 344, 346, 400, 434, 1077, this pagination corresponds to the Det Kongelige Bibliotek search engine pagination of the book. Additionally Poma shows both well drafted European flags and coats of arms on pp. 373, 515, 558, 1077. On pp. 83, 167–171 Poma uses a European heraldic graphic convention, a shield, to place certain totems related to Inca leaders.</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Preble |first=George Henry |author2=Charles Edward Asnis |title=Origin and History of the American Flag and of the Naval and Yacht-Club Signals... |volume=1 |date=1917 |publisher=N. L. Brown |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=erYTAAAAYAAJ |page=85}}</ref> A 1917 world flags book says the Inca "heir-apparent ... was entitled to display the royal standard of the rainbow in his military campaigns."<ref>{{Cite book |last=McCandless |first=Byron |title=Flags of the world |url=https://archive.org/details/flagsworld00grosgoog |date=1917 |publisher=[[National Geographic Society]] |page=356}}</ref>

In modern times, the [[rainbow flag]] has been wrongly associated with the Tawantinsuyu and displayed as a symbol of Inca heritage by some groups in Peru and Bolivia. The city of Cusco also flies the Rainbow Flag, but as an official flag of the city. The Peruvian president [[Alejandro Toledo]] (2001–2006) flew the Rainbow Flag in [[Lima]]'s presidential palace. However, according to the Peruvian historiography, the Inca Empire never had a flag. Peruvian historian [[María Rostworowski]] said, "I bet my life, the Inca never had that flag, it never existed, no chronicler mentioned it".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://vidayestilo.terra.com.pe/bandera-gay-o-del-tahuantinsuyo,df4c7c1c09e4e210VgnVCM4000009bf154d0RCRD.html |title=¿Bandera gay o del Tahuantinsuyo? |date=19 April 2010 |website=vidayestilo.terra.com.pe |access-date=16 December 2013 |archive-date=27 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121127221514/http://vidayestilo.terra.com.pe/bandera-gay-o-del-tahuantinsuyo,df4c7c1c09e4e210VgnVCM4000009bf154d0RCRD.html |url-status=dead}}</ref> Also, to the Peruvian newspaper ''El Comercio'', the flag dates to the first decades of the 20th century,<ref name="La Bandera del Tahuantisuyo">{{cite web |url=http://www.congreso.gob.pe/participa/documentos/boletin23062004.pdf |title=La Bandera del Tahuantisuyo |access-date=12 June 2009 |language=es |archive-date=13 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813085436/http://www.congreso.gob.pe/participa/documentos/boletin23062004.pdf |url-status=dead}}</ref> and even the [[Congress of the Republic of Peru]] has determined that the flag is a fake by citing the conclusion of the National Academy of Peruvian History:

<blockquote>"The official use of the wrongly called 'Tawantinsuyu flag' is a mistake. In the Pre-Hispanic Andean World there did not exist the concept of a flag, it did not belong to their historic context".<ref name="La Bandera del Tahuantisuyo"/>
<br />'''National Academy of Peruvian History'''</blockquote>

=== Music and Dance ===
[[File:The sixth quya, Cuci Chinbo Mama Micay.jpg|thumb|[[Qoya|Coya]] Cusi Chimbo playing the ''[[tinya]]''.]]

Ancient Andean inhabitants shared their experiences through singing and dancing with ''aqa'' ([[chicha de jora]]), though these practices reflected social inequalities, as some dances and songs were reserved for nobles.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bolaños |first1=C. |last2=García |first2=F. |last3=Pineda |first3=J. R. |last4=Salazar |first4=A. |title=Mapa de los instrumentos musicales de uso popular en el Perú |publisher=Instituto Nacional de Cultura del Perú |date=1978}}</ref>

Incaic Andean music was [[Pentatonic scale|pentatonic]] (using notes re, fa, sol, la, and do).<ref>{{cite book |last1=D'Harcourt |first1=R. |last2=D'Harcourt |first2=M. |title=La musique des Incas et ses survivances |date=1935}}</ref> They composed ''taki'' ("songs") with wind and percussion instruments, lacking string instruments. Key wind instruments included the [[quena]] (made of [[Cane (grass)|cane]] and bone), [[Siku (instrument)|zampoña]], pututo or {{Lang|qu|huayla quippa}}, {{Lang|qu|cuyhui}} (a five-voice whistle), and {{Lang|qu|[[Pinkillu|pincullo]]}} (a long flute). Percussion instruments included {{Lang|qu|[[tinya]]}} (a simple small drum), {{Lang|qu|huankar}} (a large drum with a stick), silver rattles, and {{Lang|qu|chilchile}} (bells).<ref name="incamusic">{{cite book |last1=Salas |first1=Samuel J.A. |last2=Pauletto |first2=Pedro I. |last3=Salas |first3=Pedro J.S. |title=Historia de la Música. Segundo volumen: América Latina |date=1938 |publisher=Editorial José Joaquín de Araujo |page=13}}</ref>

Dances were categorized as nobiliary dances for the sapa inca and the panacas, such as {{Lang|qu|uaricsa arawi}} and {{Lang|qu|guayara}}, as well as {{Lang|qu|guari}} for young nobles; masked men's war dances, such as {{Lang|qu|wacon}}; and collective dances for laborers ({{Lang|qu|haylli}}), shepherds ({{Lang|qu|guayayturilla}}), and the ayllu in their tasks ({{Lang|qu|kashua}}).<ref name ="incamusic"/>