A presentation on the artistic culture of the Incas. Presentation “Ancient Incas. Llama wool tapestry

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Inca civilization. Completed by: Teacher MHK GBOU Moscow School № 717 Boyarskaya I.S.

Incas In the XII century, a people appeared on the shores of Lake Titicaca, led by the Inca, the supreme ruler. He moved to the new capital - Cuzco and spreads his influence over a vast territory, covering by the XV-XVI centuries. most of modern Ecuador, Peru, much of Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and a small area of \u200b\u200bColombia.

Inca law is characterized by a high degree of severity in the application of punishment - in most cases the death penalty, which resulted in the almost complete absence of certain types of crimes among the Indians (petty theft, corruption, murder), which was admired by Spanish officials, missionaries and soldiers.

Roads. The Incas paved routes of communication, including mountain paths, along which the imperial army could move freely. The total length of roads is about 25 thousand km. When traveling on roads, a llama was used as a pack animal, since horses in South America did not have. On the roads, messengers also began to transmit information encoded in a special way (kipu).

A system for the transmission, processing and generalization of statistical data was developed in the form of the so-called kipu nodule letter, which helped to manage a huge empire in real time.

There is evidence that the patterns on the fabrics of the Incas and on their ceramics (tokapu) could be a kind of ideographic writing, as well as instructions from the chroniclers about the chronicle of the Incas on gold tablets.

Water pipes. Active construction of military, administrative and religious buildings was carried out. In Cuzco and many other cities, a water supply system was built that was not inferior in skill to the Roman one, but, unlike the latter, it was made without the use of lead harmful to health.

The Incas worshiped the Sun (Inti) as the main deity. The Inca ruler was considered the embodiment of the sun god on earth, so everything he touched was burned. In connection with the solar cult, various gold products were very common. According to the Report to the King of Spain, compiled by the governor Francisco de Borja on April 8, 1615, the Indians of Peru had 10,422 idols, of which 1,365 were mummies, and some were the founders of their clans, tribes and villages of Religion.

The architecture and ceramics of the Incas are less perfect than those of the peoples of Central America; their craftsmen worked with a more malleable material - gold. And the Spaniards preferred gold bullion ... Therefore, the skill of the Inca artists can be judged mainly by the accounts of eyewitnesses.

Inca art

Inca architecture. Inca monuments, even in ruins, are amazing in their number and size. The Machu Picchu fortress, built at an altitude of 3000 m in the Valley between the two peaks of the Andes, gives an idea of \u200b\u200bthe high level of Inca urban planning.

Inca architecture. G. Macho-Piccho in (Peru) Inca architecture is distinguished by its extraordinary plasticity. The Incas erected buildings on treated rock surfaces, fitting stone blocks together without mortar, so that the structure was perceived as a natural element of the natural environment. In the absence of rocks, sunburned bricks were used.

Inca architecture.

Temple of the Sun XV century Peru “Golden Fence” The legendary Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun in Cusco, had a garden with a golden fountain, around which life-size maize stalks, made of gold, with leaves and cobs, “grew” from golden “earth” and “grazed” on the golden grass twenty llamas of gold.

The fortress (pucara) of Saskahuaman, which defended Cusco, is undoubtedly one of the greatest works of fortification art. 460 m long, the fortress consists of three tiers of stone walls with a total height of 18 m. The walls have 46 ledges, corners and buttresses. In the Cyclopean foundation masonry, there are stones weighing more than 30 tons with beveled edges. The construction of the fortress took at least 300,000 stone blocks. The fortress has towers, underpasses, living quarters and an internal water supply system. The Incas began building in 1438 and finished 70 years later, in 1508. According to some estimates, 30 thousand people were involved in the construction.

Inca household items

Gold of the Incas The main art of the Incas was casting from precious metals. Almost all of the now known Peruvian gold deposits were developed by the Incas. Goldsmiths and silversmiths lived in separate city blocks and were exempt from taxes. The best works Inca jewelers died during the conquest. Some buildings were covered with gold plates imitating stonework.

Inca gold

Inca gold

Inca gold

Inca gold

The ancient Incas were also good surgeons

The capital of the Inca Empire, Cuzco is a city of ancient history in the south-west of Peru located in the Urubamba Valley in the Andes at an altitude of more than 3500 m above sea level. According to the Spanish chronicler Sarmiento de Gamboa, Pedro, there is an Indian legend according to which the founder of the city was the first Inca - Manco Capac. He and his family, leaving Lake Titicaca, looked for a place where his golden staff would "enter the earth." Such a place turned out to be the settlement of the Savacera Panaka tribe, which had to be destroyed, after which nothing prevented the creation of the capital of the Inca empire - Cuzco. The name of the city, translated from the Quechua language - the official language of the Inca Empire, means the Navel of the Earth, that is, in fact - the Center of the World, which fully corresponded to the role of the capital.

Not far from Cusco is Moray - another monument of the Inca civilization with a large "amphitheater", which in reality was agricultural terraces of ancient origin. Morai is a city in Peru about 50 km northeast of Cuzco. The city of Moray is famous for a large complex of ruins of the times of the Inca civilization. Among the ruins, huge round terraces stand out - presumably monuments of terraced agriculture. The depth of the wells (the largest is about 30 m deep) creates a temperature difference between the top and bottom of 15 ° C. As in many other monuments of the Inca culture, Morai existed a complex system agricultural irrigation to supply water to plants.

Islay is defined as a clan made up of sprawling families living together in a limited area and sharing land, animals and crops; so that each person belonged to some clan (Ailyu). An Indian was born in it. This community could be large or small, it could grow to the size of a village or a large center (mark) or even a city. Indeed, even the very capital of the empire, Cuzco, was an overgrown Ailia. Emphasis should be placed on such public organization, since the whole structure of the Inca society is based on it. Islew (Community)

Inca pottery

To date, a huge number of archaeological facts have accumulated, which in literally the words "do not go into any framework" when it comes to the existing theory of human development. The scientific community simply ignores the presence of archaeological facts that are not explainable in terms of existing theories or contradict them. A collection of engraved stones from the small Peruvian town of Ica.

Ica Stones is a collection of boulders run in by river water, on the surface of which the ancient inhabitants of the Andes are engraved in scenes that contradict modern chronology. Currently, more than 15 thousand copies of them are known. The collection of stones was collected in the vicinity of the Peruvian city of Ica (in which most of them are now stored), in connection with which it got its name. Ica engraved stones vary greatly in size and even color. The smallest stones weigh 15 grams and the largest ones weigh up to 500 kg and up to 1.5 meters in height. The bulk of the stones have an average size of a watermelon. All of them are shaped like boulders rolled by the river (volcanic granite). Their color is mainly black in various shades. But there are also gray, beige and pinkish stones. An amazing feature of these stones: andesite is a very durable mineral, and Ica stones are amazingly fragile. Technique of images on stones of two types: engraving (1-2 mm deep) and low relief. There are stones with a combined image technique.

History The first mentions of finds in Peru of black stones with images refer to XVI century... An Indian chronicler (1570) wrote that many stones with engraved drawings were found in the Chinchayunga area (from the modern province of Ica). By the early 60s of the twentieth century, Ica stones were actively sold on the black antiques market in Peru. The main place where these stones were found was the small town of Okukahe, 40 km from the provincial capital, the city of Ika. The exact date of the appearance of the stones is 1961. The first official collectors of Ica stones are the brothers Carlos & Pablo Soldi and the architect Santiago Agurto Calvo. They claim to have discovered their first stones in 1955 while excavating ancient graves and hoped to interest the archaeological community, but nothing came of it and interest faded.

According to the official version, Dr. Cabrera began collecting Ica stones in 1966, in his book "The Message of Engraved Ica Stones". According to Cabrera, modern mankind is not yet ready to accept the message encrypted by another civilization in the gliptoliths of Ica. In his book, he defended the idea that the Ica stones were a "stone library" specially created by an antediluvian civilization. Moreover, the ruling elite of this civilization gave instructions to create this stone library, after which they left the planet and moved to another. In 1970, in order to prove the authenticity of the Ica stones, Dr. Cabrera applied to the National Committee of Archeology for permission to excavate it. However, he was refused. After Cabrera's death, his collection of more than 11,000 items.

Examination Back in 1967, Dr. Cabrera sent 33 stone samples for examination. In the conclusion of the geologists, it was unequivocally indicated that the patina (a film of natural oxides) covers both the surface of the stones and the lines of the drawings, which, in their opinion, indicates the antiquity of the samples. In addition, the report stated that the edges of the engraved lines did not show significant signs of wear and tear, which should indicate that the stones were not in use for a long time, but were buried soon after they were made. In the same conclusion, it was confirmed that the Ica stones have a greater specific weight than similar andesite boulders and pebbles found on the river banks.

In addition, the analysis of methods of engraving was carried out. Experts made sure that tools made of obsidian, silicon and bronze did not leave any significant marks on the surface of stones at all, and steel tools could only slightly scratch the surface. As a result of the experiments, the specialists came to the conclusion that the same traces, similar to the technique of images on the Ica stones, are left by the cutter of the drill. This fact, by the way, was used by skeptics as confirmation that Ica stones are the product of modern forgers. However, the assumption that the stonemakers possessed such technologies is not at all too daring compared to the main motives of the images on the Ica stones.

Cabrera's drawings revealed a pattern in the system of images on stones. In his opinion, the images are grouped in a series of 6 to 200 stones, forming a kind of stone library. In each plot, the size of the stones changes (increases), as well as the method of applying the image: from engraving to the technique of low relief. Two-thirds of the collection represents that unique material, a careful study of which can completely turn our understanding of the history of mankind. The stones are depicted with plots of organ transplantation, observation of celestial bodies, hunting, the life of animals, including dinosaurs. There are also many stones depicting mammals extinct on the American continent: horses, elephants, megateria (giant sloth), megaceros (giant deer), mammoth and others. Many series of Ica stones depict scenes that testify to the highest level of development of medicine in this civilization. The most typical subjects are organ transplant operations, primarily the heart. Moreover, one of the episodes shows the entire process of heart transplantation from a young man to an old person, including a scene of postoperative rehabilitation of a patient, in which the latter is connected via a system of tubes to the circulatory system of a pregnant woman.

But at the same time, the fact that this collection is an archaeological fact is completely ignored. These stones are man-made, they are found in the ground, they have a certain antiquity (some stones were found in pre-Spanish burials) There is no evidence that the Ica stones are of ancient origin, on this moment does not exist. It is impossible to determine the real age of the stones, since there is no organic matter on them, and the location of the cave, where they were allegedly found, is kept secret. It is possible that some of the stones are examples of pre-Columbian art, but most of them are recognized as modern forgeries. Official science considers this collection to be a fake, since the images on the Ica stones contradict the concept of human evolution accepted today.

Inca civilization

Khodakovskaya Lyudmila Vasilievna

A history teacher

State educational institution "Zaslonovskaya secondary school of the Lepel district"

The rise of civilization

The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru, at the beginning of the XIII

Legend

The history of the Incas begins with a legend. Once the first Inca - Manco Capac and his sister-wife Mama Okllo, fulfilling the sacred will of their great father, the Inca Sun, left the waters of the protected Lake Titicaca to create a huge country where their divine father would be worshiped. Their father gave them a magic wand, which he had to find the best place for city building . This city will have to become the capital of the new great empire. Empire of the Sun.

• Term the Incas, or rather inca, has a variety of meanings. Firstly, this is the name of the entire ruling stratum in the state of Peru. Secondly, it is the title of the ruler.

• chavin culture -12–8 centuries. BC. - 4 c. AD
• Mochica - approx. 1 c. BC. - 8th century AD
• paracas culture - approx. 4 c. BC. - 4 c. AD
• oK. 8 c. -the great culture of Tiahuanaco.
• 10th - 13th centuries the state of Tiahuanaco subjugated most of the neighboring peoples

• The Incas dominated what is now called Peru for a long time. During the period when the territory of the empire reached largest sizes, it included part of South America and extended for almost a million square kilometers. In addition to present-day Peru, the empire included most of today's Colombia and Ecuador, almost all of Bolivia, the northern regions of the Republic of Chile and northwestern Argentina.

• Machu Picchu is often referred to as the lost city of the Incas

• Machu Picchu is often called the city in the sky, it is located on a mountain range at an altitude of 2,450 meters.

• The city was built entirely of stone. It is divided into 2 sectors: the urban area, where temples, palaces, external staircases and springs with water are located, and the agricultural area, where andenes are built - huge stepped terraces for farming.

• The city is not big. There are only 200 buildings in it. These are mainly temples, residences, storage rooms, and buildings for public needs. All the buildings were built with a very high quality, all the stones of which the buildings are made are polished and sharpened to each other.

• Cuzco - the capital of the Inca empire

• According to the Inca legend, the founder of the city was the first Inca Manko Qhapaq. ... Where he stuck the staff, the city of Cuzco appeared.

Inca temple

Inca Highway Network

As remarkable as the stone cities, royal shelters and warehouses, and other administrative buildings, was the network of highways connecting all this together. Any Inca ruler could easily go around all his possessions from Ecuador to Chile, and, with the exception of a few cases, when he had to move through big rivers, its porters had no need to get off the well-maintained roads.

The stone-paved roads of Tahuantinsuyu are often compared to the roads in the Roman Empire. Both were used to exercise strict control over various peoples who lived far from the capital. But the Romans did not have to constantly travel through dense jungle enveloped in vines, over mountains over 20,000 feet, to move over roaring rivers and mountain streams up to several hundred feet wide.

• In order to transport people and goods across mountain streams, the Incas built suspension bridges. They are widely regarded as outstanding achievements of their engineering skills. On each side of the stream, a stone pylon was erected, to which were attached strong thick ropes, rolled from hard ichu grass, "as thick as a boy's torso"

• The coastal road, part of a road system of at least 15,000 miles of stone-paved highways, crosses the Chilean Atacama Desert with minimal deviations from the main direction. The Spaniards were simply stunned by the ability of the Incas to transmit orders and messages throughout their vast domains. Chasci, runners or royal couriers, connected the four sides of the empire, covering short distances at great speed, and delivered dispatches. Sometimes, on the way back, they would bring fresh fish to the emperor's table. Such couriers had to run in total up to 250 miles a day. Only one main north-axis highway, stretching from north to south, was 3,600 miles long.

• The state cult established by the Incas was in the hands of the priests. There were also priestesses, led by the high priestess. There were also fortune-tellers, healers, black sorcerers.

• The Incas tried to associate this god of theirs with a local, more ancient deity known under various names; the most common of these is Viracocha. In the legends, he was portrayed as an ancient leader, who at the end of his career went somewhere to the west, across the sea.
• There were other great gods among the Incas: the married couple Pachacamac and Pachamama - personifications of the fertile land, the gods of thunder, rain, sea, etc.
• The founder of the Inca dynasty, the legendary Manco Capac, was also considered semi-deity: according to myth, he is a descendant of the sun, came out of the ground, out of a cave, along with his three brothers and four sisters.

Sacrifice

• The cult of the gods in Peru also included human sacrifice. They sacrificed people to the gods (usually captives or from conquered tribes) on the occasion of the accession to the throne of a new Inca king or before a military campaign, when he was headed by the Inca himself.

There were clear vestiges of totemism. Each locality had its own god - in the form of an animal, wood, stone, etc .; honored the sacred places where the ancestors of the tribe seemed to come out of the ground. The spirits of ancestors were highly revered, they were called huaca; this word, however, denoted in general everything sacred.

• The central place in the state cult of the Incas was occupied by the sun deity - the patron saint of the Incas. The Temple of the Sun in Cuzco (the capital of the kingdom) was the main state sanctuary. The deity was depicted as a large golden disk with rays and a human face (a sign of his personification). The Inca himself - the head of state - was considered the son of the sun and the high priest of this deity.

Mother Moon "; Moon goddess; Mother of the Incas; her symbol was a silver disk

Gods

Tiwanaku stone. Idol of the Inca deity.

• Viracocha - the ruler of all things
• Inti - the sun god
• Ilyapa - god of thunder and lightning
• Pachamama is the goddess of the earth.
• Mama Kilya - Goddess of the Moon
• Huaca - holy place (river, lake, mountain, temple, stones collected from the fields)

The writing of the Inca Kipu

In 1923, the historian Locke was able to prove that the nodular plexuses of the Incas are indeed writing.

Colored bundles of laces with knots tied on them were used by the Indians to convey information

• The Inca used threads of 13 colors and three types of knots. It has been estimated that one kippu made up of three threads and nine knots different types, can give many billions of different combinations. Meanwhile, in the temple of Pachacamac, a kippa weighing 6 kilograms was found. If you unwind such a coil in length, you get the distance from Moscow to St. Petersburg. In such a pile, you can store as much information as will fit in several book volumes.

• Weaving
• Stone carving
• Jewelcrafting
• Pottery craft
• Working with metal
• Architecture and urban planning

• Inca monuments, even in ruins, are amazing in their number and size. The Machu Picchu fortress, built at an altitude of 3000 m in the saddle between the two peaks of the Andes, gives an idea of \u200b\u200bthe high level of Inca urban planning.

The backbone of the Inca economy was terraced farming.

Agriculture in the country of the Incas reached a high level of development - in any case, it was not inferior to Europe at that time. The Peruvians knew about forty crops. The main ones were corn and potatoes - in contrast to wheat, barley and rice of the ancient civilizations of Asia and Africa.

• Trepanation, that is, the removal of certain parts of the human skull, was carried out on living Incas using anesthesia
• Later studies of other trepanned Peruvian skulls led to the discovery of a variety of surgical techniques.
• Half of these patients were completely cured after trepanation.
• For many centuries before the arrival of modern medicine in Peru, neurosurgery was born here.

• ... Inca art gravitated towards austerity and beauty. Llama wool weaving was distinguished by a high artistic level. Carving of semi-precious stones and shells, which the Incas received from the coastal peoples, was widely practiced.

Inca music was played mainly on wind (flute-ken) and percussion musical instruments

a shiku flute, which includes several pipes arranged in length relative to each other in such a way as to create a range of sounds from high to low.

Inca gold

Cerimonial knife

Image of God

Army

Before the arrival of the Spaniards, it was the strongest and most numerous army in South America. Every man between the ages of 25 and 50 was required to serve military service within five years. The Incas could muster an army of tens of thousands in a short time. On the territory of the empire, there were warehouses with weapons and food, and good roads could provide a high speed of movement.

The army had a clear structure. At the very bottom of the hierarchy was a unit of ten soldiers, at the head of which was the foreman, who was responsible for the state of discipline and the timely provision of his soldiers with everything they needed. The next unit in the hierarchy consisted of five such groups, and ten such groups (100 people) were commanded by an officer of a higher rank, etc. At the very top of the hierarchy was the commander-in-chief - Sapa Inka.

• In the course of the battle, the sling was used first. Clutching in his hand the two ends of a sling charged with a stone the size of a hen's egg, the warrior abruptly freed one of them, and the stone that picked up speed flew into the enemy ranks at a distance of up to 30 meters. When approaching an enemy, a warrior could use a dart.

• Also, in close combat, the warriors used a club-club with a stone, bronze or copper pommel. The tops were in the form of a hexagonal star. Sometimes they were equipped with a sharp ax blade.
• When the Spaniards invaded their country, they had horses, swords, and weapon forced the Incas to resort to other tactics. They used bolu, three stones attached to the long tendons of the llamas, to hit new, moving targets. This projectile was sent with force through the air towards the enemy. Tendons wrapped around the legs of the horse, which fell at full speed, dragging the rider with it.

Inca mummies

A teenage girl of 14-15 years old, who was sacrificed about 500 years ago, for all the past centuries lay in the ice on the top of the six-thousander, which contributed to excellent preservation.

• 1502 - F. Pissaro arrived in America in search of gold.
• 1524 - F. Pissaro equips the first expedition, which ended in failure.
• 1526 - the second expedition of F. Pissarro, E. de Almagro and E. de Luquet.
• 1527 - they find themselves in the city of Tumbes.
• F. Pissaro goes to Spain to take soldiers to plunder the city.

• In 1532 the town of Tumbes was sacked.
• F. Pissaro sends a priest as an ambassador to Cuzco with a proposal to pay a visit to the city of Cajamarca.
• Simultaneously to Tahuantinsuyu

there are internecine wars between the sons of Huayne Kapaka Huascar and Atahualpa.

• Atahualpa comes to power
• Atahualpa arrives in Cajamarca, where he will be captured.

• Atahualpa is brought to Cuzco, where he is killed.
• Before his death, Atahualpa gives the Spaniards a lot of gold as a ransom for his life.
• The Inca leaders manage to escape from prison and organize resistance, which ultimately fails.
• 1572 - the fall of the Tahuantinsuyu empire.

• Weakness of the Inca Supreme's power
• Internecine wars and lack of unity in the fight against the conquistadors.
• Lack of understanding of the real danger.
• Culture shock: The Incas never saw horses and considered riders and horses to be one fantastic creature.
• Weakness of Inca weaponry in comparison with the Spaniards

Francisco Pizarro y Gons á forest

Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca empire

thank for your attention!

Slide 2

The Incas are a small South American tribe that managed to rise to the very top of power and create a powerful empire that conquered many peoples and changed the face of the Andes. They managed to turn from a small, unknown tribe from the Cuzco Valley to the rulers of the Andes. And create a great empire of the Incas, built on the most accurate accounting of food and amazed newcomers from Europe with grandiose structures. The Inca Empire became the largest state in terms of area and population in South America. The territory of their empire stretched from present-day Pasto in Colombia to the Maule River in Chile and included the territories of present-day Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and partly Chile, Argentina and Colombia. The Incas called their empire Tahuantinsuyu (four connected cardinal points). This name came from the fact that four roads emerged from the valley of Cuzco in different directions, and each, regardless of its length, bore the name of the part of the empire to which it led.

Slide 3

Slide 4

History of origin

The enigmatic Paracas culture flourished on the south coast, famed for its fabrics, arguably the finest in all of pre-Columbian America. Paracas influenced the early Nazca culture, which developed further south, in five oasis valleys. In the basin of Lake Titicaca approx. 8 c. the great culture of Tiahuanaco was formed. The capital and ceremonial center of Tiahuanaco, located at the southeastern end of the lake, is built of hewn stone slabs held together by bronze spikes. The famous Gate of the Sun is carved out of a huge stone monolith. In the upper part there is a wide bas-relief belt with images of the sun god, which flows in tears in the form of condors and mythological creatures. The motif of the weeping deity can be traced in many Andean and coastal cultures, in particular in the Huari culture, which developed near the present Ayacucho. Apparently, it was from Huari that religious and military expansion proceeded down the Pisco Valley towards the coast. Judging by the spread of the crying god motif, from the 10th to the 13th centuries. the state of Tiahuanaco subjugated most of the peoples of Costa. After the collapse of the empire, local tribal associations, freed from external oppression, created their own state formations... The most significant of them was the state of Chimu-Chimor (14th century - 1463), which fought with the Incas, with the capital Chan-Chan (near the present port of Trujillo). This city with huge stepped pyramids, irrigated gardens and stone-lined pools covered an area of \u200b\u200b20.7 square meters. km. One of the centers of ceramic production and weaving has developed here. The state of Chimu, which extended its power along the 900-kilometer line of the Peruvian coast, had an extensive network of roads.

Slide 5

First Inca

The legendary first Inca Manco Capac founded Cusco around the beginning of the 12th century. The city lies at an altitude of 3416 m above sea level. in a deep valley running from north to south between the two steep ridges of the Andes. According to the legend, Manco Capac, at the head of his tribe, came to this valley from the south. At the direction of the sun god, his father, he threw a golden rod at his feet and, when it was swallowed up by the earth (a good sign of its fertility), he founded a city in this place. Historical sources, partially confirmed by archaeological data, indicate that the history of the rise of the Incas, one of the countless Andean tribes, begins in the 12th century, and their ruling dynasty numbers 13 names - from Manco Capac to Atahualpa, killed by the Spaniards in 1533.

Slide 6

Saxahuaman is the largest structure of the Cusco Valley, according to legend, built by the First Inca

Slide 7

Tongue

Quechua, the language of the Incas, has a very distant relationship with the Aymara language, which was spoken by the Indians who lived near Lake Titicaca. It is not known what language the Incas spoke in before Pachacutec in 1438 elevated Quechua to the rank of the state language. Thanks to the policy of conquest and resettlement, Quechua spread throughout the empire, and to this day it is spoken by most of the Peruvian Indians.

Slide 8

Art

Inca art gravitated towards austerity and beauty. The weaving of llama wool was distinguished by a high artistic level, although it was inferior in the richness of decoration to the fabrics of the peoples of the Costa. Carving of semi-precious stones and shells, which the Incas received from the coastal peoples, was widely practiced. However, the main art of the Incas was casting from precious metals. Almost all of the now known Peruvian gold deposits were developed by the Incas. Goldsmiths and silversmiths lived in separate city blocks and were exempt from taxes. The best works of Inca jewelers perished during the conquest. According to the testimony of the Spaniards, who first saw Cusco, the city blinded with a golden sheen. Some buildings were covered with gold plates imitating stonework. The thatched roofs of the temples had golden blotches that imitated straws, so that the rays of the setting sun lit them with brilliance, giving the impression that the entire roof was made of gold. In the legendary Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun in Cusco, there was a garden with a golden fountain, around which "grew" from golden "earth" life-size maize stalks made of gold, with leaves and ears, and "grazed" on the golden grass twenty llamas of gold - again -so in full size.

Slide 9

Llama wool tapestry