Inca Art

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 7.7km (4.8mi); careful study has shown that a range of 4.0 to 6.3km (2.5 to 3.9mi) is likely. Next was the wamani, composed of 30 topos (roughly 232km or 144mi). To measure area, 25 by 50 wingspans were used, reckoned in topos (roughly 3,280km² or 1,270sqmi). 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.

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. 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.

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.

According to mid-17th-century Jesuit chronicler Bernab Cobo, the Inca designated officials to perform accounting-related tasks. These officials were called quipo camayos. Study of khipu sample VA 42527 (Museum fr Vlkerkunde, 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.

Tunics

Tunics were created by skilled Incan 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 Incan society where specialty textiles were produced by men and women equally.

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 Inkan and other Andean societies far before the iconographies of the Spanish Christians.

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.

References

• , (2013). XVIXVII : , , . Kyiv: . ISBN978-617-7085-03-3.
• Bengoa, Jos (2003). Historia de los antiguos mapuches del sur: desde antes de la llegada de los espaoles hasta las paces de Quiln: siglos XVI y XVII (in Spanish). BPR Publishers. ISBN978-956-8303-02-0.
• de la Vega, Garcilaso (2006). The Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru, Abridged. Hackett Publishing. pp.32. ISBN978-1-60384-856-5.
• Hemming, John (2003). The Conquest of the Incas. Harvest Press. ISBN0-15-602826-3.
• MacQuarrie, Kim (2007). The Last Days of the Incas. Simon & Schuster. ISBN978-0-7432-6049-7.
• Mann, Charles C. (2005). 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. Knopf. pp.64105. ISBN978-0-307-27818-0.
• McEwan, Gordon F. (2008). The Incas: New Perspectives. W.W. Norton, Incorporated. pp.221. ISBN978-0-393-33301-5.
• Morales, Edmundo (1995). The guinea pig: healing, food, and ritual in the Andes. University of Arizona Press.
• Popenoe, Hugh; Steven R. King; Jorge Leon; Luis Sumar Kalinowski; Noel D. Vietmeyer (1989). Lost Crops of the Incas: Little-Known Plants of the Andes with Promise for Worldwide Cultivation. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. ISBN0-309-04264-X.
• Sanderson, Steven E. (1992). The Politics of Trade in Latin American Development. Stanford University Press. ISBN978-0-8047-2021-2.
• D'Altroy, Terence N. (2014). The Incas. Wiley. ISBN978-1-118-61059-6.
• Steward, Julian H., ed. (1946). The Handbook of South American Indians: The Andean Civilizations. no. 143 v. 2 Bulletin / Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology. Biodiversity Heritage Library / Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. p.1935.
• Julien, Catherine J. (1982). Inca Decimal Administration in the Lake Titicaca Region in The Inca and Aztec States: 14001800. New York: Academic Press.
• Moseley, Michael Edward (2001). The Incas and Their Ancestors: The Archaeology of Peru. Thames & Hudson. ISBN978-0-500-28277-9.

External links

• "Guaman Poma El Primer Nueva Cornica Y Buen Gobierno" A high-quality digital version of the Cornica, scanned from the original manuscript.
• Conquest nts.html Inca Land by Hiram Bingham (published 19121922).
• Inca Artifacts, Peru and Machu Picchu 360-degree movies of inca artifacts and Peruvian landscapes.
• Ancient Civilizations Inca
• "Ice Treasures of the Inca" National Geographic site.
• "The Sacred Hymns of Pachacutec," poetry of an Inca emperor.
• Incan Religion
• Engineering in the Andes Mountains, lecture on Inca suspension bridges
• A Map and Timeline of Inca Empire events
• Ancient Peruvian art: contributions to the archaeology of the empire of the Incas, a four volume work from 1902 (fully available online as PDF)