Rising from obscurity in Peru's Cusco Valley during the 13th century, a royal Inca dynasty charmed, bribed, intimidated, or conquered its rivals to create the largest pre-Columbian empire in the ...

There is evidence it was consumed in cultures located in modern-day Ecuador from as early as the ninth millennium B.C. It was during the Inca Empire, however, a little before the arrival of the ...

was the center of Inca life, the home of its leaders. "The riches that were gathered in the city of Cuzco alone, as capital and court of the Empire, were incredible," says an early account of Inca ...

Built in the 15th century under the reign of the Inca emperor Pachacuti, this city was a testament to the empire's power and ... a thriving center of Inca life. The Temple of the Sun is perhaps ...

the Empire of the Inca - bigger than Ottoman Turkey, bigger than Ming China, in fact, the largest in the world. Around 1500, the Inca Empire ran for over three thousand miles (5,000 km ...

Though the 16th-century Spanish conquistador invasion ended the Inca Empire, the legacy of the Incas ... an affirmation of the connectedness of all life. NMAI archaeologist Ramiro Matos has ...

All gold belonged to the ruler of the empire, the Inca himself, who claimed to be descended from the sun god. Llamas were the Incas' most important domestic animal, providing food, clothing and ...

was the center of Inca life, the home of its leaders. "The riches that were gathered in the city of Cuzco alone, as capital and court of the Empire, were incredible," says an early account of Inca ...