>>11913083

(Please read from the start)

“Government

Beliefs

The Sapa Inca was conceptualized as divine and was effectively head of the state religion. The Willaq Umu (or Chief Priest) was second to the emperor. Local religious traditions continued and in some cases such as the Oracle at Pachacamac on the Peruvian coast, were officially venerated. Following Pachacuti, the Sapa Inca claimed descent from Inti, who placed a high value on imperial blood; by the end of the empire, it was common to incestuously wed brother and sister. He was "son of the sun," and his people the intip churin, or "children of the sun," and both his right to rule and mission to conquer derived from his holy ancestor. The Sapa Inca also presided over ideologically important festivals, notably during the Inti Raymi, or "Sunfest" attended by soldiers, mummified rulers, nobles, clerics and the general population of Cusco beginning on the June solstice and culminating nine days later with the ritual breaking of the earth using a foot plow by the Inca. Moreover, Cusco was considered cosmologically central, loaded as it was with huacas and radiating ceque lines and geographic center of the Four-Quarters; Inca Garcilaso de la Vega called it "the navel of the universe".”

>> So let me get this straight: we have the political system of the King-Priest here again and the “royals” considered themselves as descendants of Inti = Sun god. So in order to keep that “holy” precious blood pure, they practiced incest in the royal family. Seems like I’m in Ancient Egypt here, not Peru with the Incas, because we have the same concept there if anons compare it with Ra/Horus and the precious royal blood to be preserved as pure as possible. Wasn’t this the case with the Aztecs as well, if my memory is not betraying me.

The 4 quarters remind me terribly of what we saw with the Aztecs and their 4 pillars (page 270).

“Organization of the empire

The Inca Empire was a federalist system consisting of a central government with the Inca at its head and four-quarters, or suyu: Chinchay Suyu (NW), Anti Suyu (NE), Kunti Suyu (SW) and Qulla Suyu (SE). The four corners of these quarters met at the center, Cusco. These suyu were likely created around 1460 during the reign of Pachacuti before the empire reached its largest territorial extent. At the time the suyu were established they were roughly of equal size and only later changed their proportions as the empire expanded north and south along the Andes.

Cusco was likely not organized as a wamani, or province. Rather, it was probably somewhat akin to a modern federal district, like Washington, DC or Mexico City. The city sat at the center of the four suyu and served as the preeminent center of politics and religion. While Cusco was essentially governed by the Sapa Inca, his relatives and the royal panaqa lineages, each suyu was governed by an Apu, a term of esteem used for men of high status and for venerated mountains. Both Cusco as a district and the four suyu as administrative regions were grouped into upper hanan and lower hurin divisions. As the Inca did not have written records, it is impossible to exhaustively list the constituent wamani. However, colonial records allow us to reconstruct a partial list. There were likely more than 86 wamani, with more than 48 in the highlands and more than 38 on the coast.

Suyu

The most populous suyu was Chinchaysuyu, which encompassed the former Chimu empire and much of the northern Andes. At its largest extent, it extended through much of modern Ecuador and into modern Colombia.”

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>>11923103

(Please read from the start)

“The largest suyu by area was Qullasuyu, named after the Aymara-speaking Qulla people. It encompassed the Bolivian Altiplano and much of the southern Andes, reaching Argentina and as far south as the Maipo or Maule river in Central Chile.[67] Historian José Bengoa singled out Quillota as likely being the foremost Inca settlement in Chile.

The second smallest suyu, Antisuyu, was northwest of Cusco in the high Andes. Its name is the root of the word "Andes."

Kuntisuyu was the smallest suyu, located along the southern coast of modern Peru, extending into the highlands towards Cusco.

Laws

The Inca state had no separate judiciary or codified laws. Customs, expectations and traditional local power holders governed behavior. The state had legal force, such as through tokoyrikoq (lit. "he who sees all"), or inspectors. The highest such inspector, typically a blood relative to the Sapa Inca, acted independently of the conventional hierarchy, providing a point of view for the Sapa Inca free of bureaucratic influence.

The Inca had three moral precepts that governed their behavior:

• Ama sua: Do not steal

• Ama llulla: Do not lie

• Ama quella: Do not be lazy”

>> I chuckled a bit here anons, because I noticed: do not kill, is not mentioned at all.

“Administration

Colonial sources are not entirely clear or in agreement about Inca government structure, such as exact duties and functions of government positions. But the basic structure can be broadly described. The top was the Sapa Inca. Below that may have been the Willaq Umu, literally the "priest who recounts", the High Priest of the Sun. However, beneath the Sapa Inca also sat the Inkap rantin, who was a confidant and assistant to the Sapa Inca, perhaps similar to a Prime Minister.Starting with Topa Inca Yupanqui, a "Council of the Realm" was composed of 16 nobles: 2 from hanan Cusco; 2 from hurin Cusco; 4 from Chinchaysuyu; 2 from Cuntisuyu; 4 from Collasuyu; and 2 from Antisuyu. This weighting of representation balanced the hanan and hurin divisions of the empire, both within Cusco and within the Quarters (hanan suyukuna and hurin suyukuna).

While provincial bureaucracy and government varied greatly, the basic organization was decimal. Taxpayers – male heads of household of a certain age range – were organized into corvée labor units (often doubling as military units) that formed the state's muscle as part of mit'a service. Each unit of more than 100 tax-payers were headed by a kuraka, while smaller units were headed by a kamayuq, a lower, non-hereditary status. However, while kuraka status was hereditary and typically served for life, the position of a kuraka in the hierarchy was subject to change based on the privileges of superiors in the hierarchy; a pachaka kuraka could be appointed to the position by a waranqa kuraka. Furthermore, one kuraka in each decimal level could serve as the head of one of the nine groups at a lower level, so that a pachaka kuraka might also be a waranqa kuraka, in effect directly responsible for one unit of 100 tax-payers and less directly responsible for nine other such units.”

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>>11923107

(Please read from the start)

“Arts and technology

Monumental architecture

Architecture was the most important of the Incan 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 Pucara (c. 300 BC–AD 300) peoples to the south in Lake Titicaca and later in the city of Tiwanaku (c. AD 400–1100) in present-day 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.

Measures, calendrics and mathematics

Physical measures used by the Inca were based on human body parts. Units included fingers, the distance from thumb to forefinger, palms, cubits and wingspans. The most basic distance unit 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 7.7 km (4.8 mi); careful study has shown that a range of 4.0 to 6.3 km (2.5 to 3.9 mi) is likely. Next was the wamani, composed of 30 topos (roughly 232 km or 144 mi). To measure area, 25 by 50 wingspans were used, reckoned in topos (roughly 3,280 km2 or 1,270 sq mi). It seems likely that distance was often interpreted as one day's walk; the distance between tambo way-stations varies widely in terms of distance, but far less in terms of time to walk that distance.”

>> Cubits = where else do we have this measuring units anons?

“Inca calendars were strongly tied to astronomy. Inca astronomers understood equinoxes, solstices and zenith passages, along with 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 12 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. Each lunar month was marked with festivals and rituals.[82] Apparently, the days of the week were not named and days were not grouped into weeks. Similarly, months were not grouped into seasons. Time during a day was not measured in hours or minutes, but in terms of how far the sun had travelled or in how long it had taken to perform a task.”

>> They have common points with what we saw in Mesoamerica, but it’s also lacking in some areas and it’s a bit different.

“The sophistication of Inca administration, calendrics and engineering required facility with numbers. Numerical information was stored in the knots of quipu strings, allowing for compact storage of large numbers. These numbers were stored in base-10 digits, the same base used by the Quechua language and 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 as an abacus. Calculation was facilitated by moving piles of tokens, seeds or pebbles between compartments of the yupana. It is likely that Inca mathematics at least allowed division of integers into integers or fractions and multiplication of integers and fractions.”

>> I find this fascinating. It’s a shame the quipu were destroyed by the Spaniards.

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>>11923110

(Please read from the start)

“According to mid-17th-century Jesuit chronicler Bernabé Cobo, the Inca designated officials to perform accounting-related tasks. These officials were called quipo camayos. Study of khipu sample VA 42527 (Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin) revealed 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 accounting books.

Ceramics, precious metals and textiles

Ceramics were painted using the polychrome technique portraying numerous motifs including animals, birds, waves, felines (popular in the 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 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.

Almost all of the gold and silver work of the Incan empire was melted down by the conquistadors, and shipped back to Spain.”

>> After taking a look online of Inca textiles and ceramic designs, nothing notable caught my attention. But the case was different when it comes to the metal work:

1 – In this first picture we have a golden vase with Viracocha holding a double staff = making him closer to the staff-god iconography.

But more notable is the artifact that is close to the vase. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a glider? Is it a kite? We can sit back and argue about what it is exactly, but I would prefer if we focus on the idea of “flight” that is within this artifact, no matter what it is. Here, were have the same situation as the Saqqara bird.

2 – In the second picture we have a Tall person standing in the middle, might be Viracocha or an Inca ruler. The details on the headdress are well marked. But what caught my attetion are the smaller people on each side of him, all 4 of them, including the ones under his feet. They all wear bird shaped helmets and it looks like ALL of them are wearig bird masks on their faces. I’m not going to repeat what I said many times in this thread about the birds of prey gear we see in the iconography of many cultures/civilizations. This is another piece of evidence to add to the rest.

“Communication and medicine

The Inca recorded information on assemblages of knotted strings, known as Quipu, although they can no longer be decoded. 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.”

>> This kinda contradicts what was said just previoiusly about the Quipu only being numerical and used for agriculture record or such as.

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