Not many people today know a lot about the
Incas, which is unfortunate.
They had one of the most incredible ancient
societies in human history.
Their kingdom was based in the city of Cusco,
which is now in modern day Peru.
While the Inca society started quite small,
they managed to amass an empire that spanned
about 2,500 miles in less than one hundred
years.
This feat was all the more considerable because
they didn’t have the type of thriving trade
economy that many ancient societies relied
on.
Instead, they were a much more socialist society,
where money didn’t exist and the government
made sure everyone had what they needed.
10.
The Ancient Inca’s Bodies Evolved To Adapt
To Extremely High Altitude
The Ancient Incas had a thriving empire that
expanded throughout the Andes and surroundings
areas.
Some scientists wondered how people like the
Incas and other mountain dwellers were able
to not only survive, but thrive in climates
at high altitudes.
By studying people who live in the area and
their genetic makeup, which gives us an understanding
of their Inca ancestors, scientists were able
to determine that the Incas evolved to where
they were not as bothered by the lower oxygen
climate.
Human beings are great adapters, and recent
genetic advances have indeed proven that those
whose ancestors grew up high in the mountains
are simply better at handling it than the
rest of us.
This is why in a different part of the world,
native Sherpa guides who help people climb
Everest rarely, if ever, need any oxygen at
places where most travelers would die or pass
out without it.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to help
fend off the Spanish invaders, who came to
conquer and loot all the wealth of the Inca
people.
9.
They Built Earthquake-Resistant Buildings,
Some Of Which Still Mostly Stand Today
There are still quite a few old ruins, some
largely intact, from the days of the Incas.
These ruins reside in what is now modern day
Peru, an area that is still known for a lot
of seismic activity.
While today a lot of houses in the region
are built quite cheaply and cannot take earthquakes
particularly well, the Inca Empire had a really
good idea of how to build to resist the damage
of earthquakes, and they took the time and
expense to earthquake-proof a lot of their
buildings.
They had a lot of interesting geometric features
that they had carefully figured out helped
the structure stay stable during extreme and
sometimes prolonged shaking, but their most
marvelous feat was the way they designed their
buildings blocks to fit almost perfectly together,
while still having enough room to jostle around
in an earthquake and not actually break.
In fact, the fits were so perfect that the
pieces would not only not break, but basically
settle right back into the proper position
when the earthquake was over.
Many expensive buildings in earthquake prone
areas today are still not this protected from
earthquakes.
8.
The Incas Performed Human Sacrifices On Both
Adults And Children
The Incas were one of many, many ancient civilizations
who practiced human sacrifice, and like many
they also sometimes sacrificed children to
their gods.
Now, while Inti the sun god was the main focal
point of their religion, the Incas had many
gods and happily assimilated many more over
the years.
In order to appease these gods and ensure
good harvests or other such things, sometimes
sacrifices needed to be made.
Scientists discovered the remains of some
Inca child sacrifices, including the mummy
of a girl who had been sacrificed — the
mummy was incredibly well preserved for being
so many hundreds of years old (you guessed
it — that’s her, pictured above).
Scientists who studied the mummy found some
very interesting things.
The mummy had mostly not had coca leaves in
her diet before the last year of her life,
but as far as their studies could tell, in
her last year her coca consumption went way
up and her lifestyle changed greatly.
In her very last week, she consumed a great
deal of alcohol.
This gives us a picture of how the process
works.
Children, as we know from some historical
records, were often chosen way in advance
for child sacrifices and were treated very
well and showered with luxuries for a year.
The girl now had access for her last year
to a lot of food and drugs she didn’t have
before, but she also consumed them in a way
that showed extreme levels of stress, because
she knew she was fated to die.
7.
The Emperor’s New Groove Is A Disney Depiction
Of The Ancient Incas
Many people have seen the Disney animated
film The Emperor’s New Groove.
For those who need their memories refreshed,
it is about a selfish Inca Emperor named Kuzco
who acts incredibly arrogant, pampered and
demanding — he even plans to wipe out an
entire village to build a theme park.
He ends up turning into a llama because of
evil magic from his adviser, and learns a
lot of lessons as he pals up with a peasant
named Pacha.
Some have wondered if The Emperor’s New
Groove is a good depiction of Inca life, and
surprisingly, according to those who study
Incan history and have compared the two, it
was refreshingly accurate.
Kuzco is a reference to the modern day city
of Cusco, and the way Kuzco himself behaves
is stereotypical of the incredible power wielded
by the Sapa Inca, which was the Inca version
of an emperor but even more important, as
he was viewed as a literal god.
While Inca royalty were not known for being
quite as cruel and callous as Kuzco with their
power, they did wield it ultimately.
Further, apart from a few cartoon exaggerations,
most of the animation is a pretty good depiction
of what life in the old Inca Empire would
have looked like.
The biggest problem is probably Yzma, who
likely would not have been such a high-up
adviser to the Sapa Inca, because she was
a woman.
6.
The Incas Were A Powerful Society That Conquered
Many Peoples
For those who don’t know much about the
Incas, they simply think of them as “something
like the Mayans” or just another South American
civilization that built a lot of large stone
structures.
However, the Incas managed to build an empire
that spanned 2,500 miles and at its height
reached all the way from what is now modern
day Ecuador to modern day Chile.
Despite not being nearly as bloodthirsty or
vicious as the Aztecs, and not being known
for the same level of conquering brutality,
they managed to amass a well functioning society
that was doing quite excellent up until European
explorers started arriving on the continent.
One of the most incredible things about this
accomplishment was that the Incas had no real
form of money.
In a way, they were more or less a socialist
society, although just like many modern day
socialist societies, there still tend to be
a few at the top that are extra comfortable.
Regardless, in Inca society money wasn’t
really a thing.
You got what you needed from the government
and you worked for the good of all.
No one really went hungry, and overall quality
of life was excellent, especially for the
ancient world.
5.
Some Inca Nobles Were Allowed To Have Multiple
Wives If They Wished
The Inca society, like many throughout history,
was not entirely fair.
There were peasants, nobles, and of course
the royal family themselves, who provided
three very distinct classes of people to the
kingdom’s hierarchy.
The peasants did most of the grunt work, while
the nobles got to take care of most of the
more intellectual pursuits — the royal family
of course just ruled and enjoyed the finer
things in life.
However, while nobles were more respected
in general, perhaps the place where the law
was most obviously different was in terms
of marriage.
Peasants had to follow the same marriage rules
most of us have to follow today: You could
only marry one person.
However, if you were a noble, it was an entirely
different story.
Polygamy was perfectly acceptable, and you
could indeed take multiple wives if you so
desired.
However, despite the fact that this was inherently
unfair, there isn’t anything in the historical
records that indicate the average peasant
was bothered by this.
This is probably because peasants didn’t
really have money or personal property beyond
what was needed, and would not have been able
to afford another wife anyway.
4.
The Leaders Attempted To Bring Everyone Under
Inti, The Sun God
The Inca people had a lot of gods, as we mentioned
earlier, and were not shy about grabbing up
new ones that sounded good to them.
This was a smart strategy that a lot of the
bigger empires like the Incas and the ancient
Romans employed, because it allowed conquered
peoples to feel more like simply submitting
without any more fight, instead of fighting
to the death over a dispute about a god and
faith.
However, while you were allowed to keep your
gods, you still had to accept that they were
lesser to the Inca sun god Inti.
The Sapa Inca, who was supposed to be a god
himself, decreed that Inti was the supreme
god above all others, and that all had to
respect him as the most important deity of
all.
It is likely that the sacrificial mummy the
scientists discovered recently was a sacrifice
meant to appease him, and ensure that the
weather provided for a proper harvest.
3.
Like The Romans, They Were Known For Borrowing
From Conquered Peoples
As we mentioned earlier, the Inca were known
for borrowing from other cultures, but it
wasn’t just when it came to other people’s
gods.
Like the Romans borrowing all sorts of mathematical
and other advances from the Greeks, the Inca
believed in doing the same with the people
that they conquered, so they were simply not
as brutal as a lot of conquerors of old.
They made sure to keep their enemies’ infrastructure
mostly intact, and learned from the people
they defeated.
Perhaps this is why they were able to create
such a lasting and peaceful society where
people had enough to eat, and felt fine with
their place in the universe even though they
had no consumer power to go buy goods, and
no money or wealth that they were able to
save up on their own.
The Incas were able to create an almost ideal
socialist society that spanned 2,500 hundred
miles because they respected the people they
took over, and made them part of their great
society instead of trying to destroy them
and just replace them with more of their own
citizens.
2.
Your Clothing Was Based On Social Standing,
and the Emperor Only Wore Clothes Once
In Ancient Inca society, as we mentioned,
everything was basically just supplied by
the government and you were given what you
needed from storehouses when you needed it.
This meant that, unsurprisingly, as close
as they could be to an ideal communist society,
they also tended to give the nicer, more comfortable
fabrics to the richer citizens.
If you were a peasant you could be expected
to be given the coarsest fabric in the kingdom,
while the nobles were given much softer, more
comfortable clothes to wear.
However, it was the Sapa Inca himself who
truly got the most ridiculous clothing privileges,
and it may have been this kind of absurd abuse
of power that caused the Disney writers to
portray Kuzco, the Sapa Inca, as an incredibly
obnoxious, spoiled, and pampered man-child.
You see, the Sapa Inca was considered so holy
and important that not only did he get to
wear crazy feathered headdresses and the finest
fabrics available, but he never wore the same
clothes twice.
1.
Like Many In The Americas, Disease Was The
True Cause Of Their Downfall
Unfortunately, like many in the Americas,
the ultimate downfall of the Incas turned
out to be their susceptibility to European
diseases.
When European explorers arrived on the shores
of the Americas, they brought diseases like
smallpox with them — diseases to which the
Europeans had already built up resistances.
The population of the Incas, like many in
the Americas, were absolutely gutted by smallpox
and other diseases — the first major outbreak
of smallpox took out roughly 50% of their
population.
This plays into the misconception that the
Spanish, or any European force, would have
had a ghost of a chance at walking in and
taking over the Inca Empire, or any similar
empire, if not for the fact that most of their
population had already died.
The truth is that the story of European technology
being more advanced wasn’t really so.
Back then, guns didn’t really give a serious
advantage over bows and were sometimes the
lesser choice.
The reality was that if the Incas had been
anywhere near their full strength of numbers,
they would have put up one heck of a fight
and quite possibly have repelled the Spanish
invaders, sending them back home with their
tails between their legs.
