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The Incas created the most vast and powerful Empire of the Pre-Columbian America. Their administrative, political and military center was located in Cuzco. The Tahuantinsuyo reached its greatest extension at the beginning of XVI century. It dominated a territory that included from north to south, the actual territory of Ecuador and part of Colombia to the center of Chile and the north-east of Argentina, and from west to east, from Bolivia to the Amazonian forests. The Tahuantinsuyo was organized in “señorios” (dominions) with a stratified society, in which the ruler was the Inca. It was also supported by an economy based on the collective property of the land. In fact, the Inca Empire was conceived like an ambitious and audacious civilizing project, based on a mythical thought, in which the harmony of the relationships between the human being, nature and Gods was truly essential.

"Inca," means a "god on Earth". The empire originated from a tribe based in Cuzco, which became the capital. Pachacuti was the first ruler to considerably expand the boundaries of the Cuzco state. His offspring later ruled an empire by violent and peaceful conquest. In Cuzco, the royal city was created to resemble a puma; the head, the main royal structure, formed what is now known as Sacsayhuaman. The empire was divided into four quarters: Chinchasuyu, Antisuyu, Contisuyu and Collasuyu.

From the European rationalist perspective, the Inca Empire has been seen like the utopia concretion. And its spectacular collapse under a group of Spanish soldiers has been seen as a logical consequence of the Spanish technological superiority, that took advantage of the Inca civil war triggered off by two pretenders to the throne. Nevertheless, this pragmatic interpretation tends to forget the destructive effects that the haughty collision between two antithetic Weltanschauungs produced in the harmony of the Inca Weltanschauung.

Quechua (Quichua) was the official language, imposed on the citizens. It was the language of a tribe neighbouring the original tribe of the empire. Conquered populations – tribes, kingdoms, states and cities – were allowed to practice their own religions and lifestyles, but had to recognize Inca cultural practices as superior to their own. For example, Inti, the sun god, was to be worshipped as one of the most important gods of the empire. Many strange and interesting customs were observed, for example the extravagant feast of Inti Raymi which gave thanks to Inti, and the young women who comprised the Virgins of the Sun, sacrificial virgins devoted to the sun god, Inti. The empire, for being so large, also had an impressive transportation system of roads to all points of the empire called the Inca Trail, and chasquis, message carriers who relayed information from anywhere in the empire to Cuzco.
 

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