EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE INCA EMPIRE

Professor Bill Sillar answers key questions about the rapid rise and fall of the South American civilisation

- Bill Sillar

Who were the Inca and when did they rule?

The word Inca’ means slightly different things to different people. In one sense, it refers to members of the original Inca tribe, which first emerged in the Andean highlands around the 13th century AD. This was led by a figure known as the Sapa Inca, or unique Inca’, who ruled over a family of kinship groups made up of other Inca. However, the rule of the Sapa Inca grew to include other ethnic groups living around the city of Cuzco, the Inca capital, which consolidated to form the core of a vast empire covering territory in modern-day Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina and Colombia. To the Inca, it was known as Tawantinsuyu, meaning the Realm of the Four Parts’, which reflected its composition of four provinces. Overall, it was a complex, multi-ethnic entity, but each of its components could be described as Inca’.

Interestingly, much of the empire’s expansion occurred in a short amount of time, beginning with the accession of the Sapa Inca Pachacuti around the year 1438 and ending with the Spanish conquest in 1572. Prior to this was what is known as the Late Intermediate Period, in which the Inca were a relatively minor entity, shaped by earlier empires such as the Wari empire, which had come to end around 1000 AD.

How was the Inca empire governed?

The role of Sapa Inca was handed down from generation to generation within the Inca ethnic group, but the successor wasn’t necessarily the eldest son of the previous Sapa Inca. There was competition between different sons for the position, and the strongest would usually inherit it.