The ancient mighty Inca civilization, far ahead of its time, is it fiction or just a marketing ploy to attract tourists? But what about the official history of South America, scholarly works, research, documentaries? Let's try to figure it out. It is believed that in parts of the territories of modern Chile, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia there once existed a huge highly developed Tahuantinsuyu Inca empire: majestic cities with monumental buildings, stone paved roads, sewers, water pipes, post stations, irrigation systems for agricultural land and even uniform legislation. And, of course, incredibly complex polygonal masonry and a huge number of elaborate gold items.
Let's clarify right away that a people called the "Incas" never existed. The word itself is just the title of the tribal leaders who considered themselves the direct descendants of the first founder of the state, who was called "Inca Manco Capac". With the light hand of the Spanish conquerors who came to the continent in the 16th century, all the numerous local Indian tribes for ease of perception began to be called "Incas", that is, "Inca subjects".
Recent archaeological research has proven that almost all known achievements were inherited by the Indians from some mysterious previous ancient civilization. By themselves, they did not build or invent anything, but simply used the fruits of what existed before their appearance in these places. The question immediately arises, and who are these gods who folded the megaliths so that there were no gaps between them?
Peruvian Chronicle
The first serious study of the history of the Inca empire is the eight-volume Peruvian Chronicle, written by the 16th century Spanish monk Pedro de Leon. He described in detail and the geoglyphs of the Nazca plateau (which are visible only from a bird's eye view), and the grandiose buildings of Tiahuanaco, and a lot of other attractions. Some scholars date the oldest ruins to AD 200 and admire the highly developed urban infrastructures, but let's read what one of the first Europeans wrote to get there.
It turns out that at the time of the appearance of the Spaniards on the continent, the Incas did not have cities and lived in the jungle. The richest had huts of reed and straw branches without windows, the conditional middle class lived in trees, and the poor generally slept in the open. The conquerors did not come across any temples for worshiping the gods, nor places of worship, and de Leon, by the way, walked the entire territory of the empire up and down. Large settlements were characterized by large common huts covered with palm leaves and reeds, in which several families lived at once: men, women, children.
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There were also fortresses, also made of thick trees torn from the ground along with roots, and fences made of sheaves of reed, tied together by vines with tight bunches. The main weapon was sharpened sticks, and the clothing was loincloths. In general, a primitive civilization at a low level of development, living in a primitive communal system. Having passed through the entire mainland, the Spaniards did not come across paved roads and stone temples, so for the first time they began to build them on their own.
De Leon writes that the roads between the large settlements of the Indians of Peru were wide earth paths, rammed with thousands of feet. After tropical showers, they turned into a solid, impenetrable mess. After the death of the leaders, they were not buried in pyramids or tombs, but dug a deep hole right into the dwelling, into which, along with the body of the deceased, they put wine jugs, weapons, gold jewelry and numerous wives. Only after visiting the capital of the Inca empire, Cuzco, the priest wrote in his diary that he saw very small stone houses covered with thatch. Moreover, the local residents did not build anything, but settled in empty buildings. In their opinion, they were erected by white bearded gods from an ancient civilization that once existed in these places.
He was sincerely surprised that the ruins resembled medieval European buildings: "… if you look from a distance, you get a strange feeling that you are seeing a classic Spanish settlement …". Moreover, on the huge megaliths of destroyed temples of an unknown civilization, Latin numerals were found, clearly made during their processing before being installed in place. Where did they come from?
Long before Columbus
Modern researchers find evidence that South America was discovered by Europeans long before H. Columbus. There is an opinion that the Templars have been here more than once, the order of which existed in the XII … XIV centuries. Among the first settlers there were many educated and skilled people, capable of erecting the most complex architectural structures, some of which have survived to this day. Moreover, the technical solutions used amaze the imagination of even modern engineers.
Foreign settlers faced the impossibility of the autonomous existence of their villages. Due to the endless wars with the indigenous population, suffering from unknown diseases and unusual food, the number of Europeans was rapidly decreasing. The survivors were forced to integrate into the existing society, marry the children of tribal leaders, become "Incas" and involve the Indians in the construction process according to European standards. It is quite natural that primitive people considered them "white bearded gods."
Where did the ancient civilization disappear?
The Chronicles of Peru has an answer to this question as well. According to the recollections of local old-timers, a volcano woke up in the Andes at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries. For many thousands of kilometers, one could see red-hot stones falling from the sky, thick pungent smoke covered vast areas. All living things died for hundreds of kilometers around. Indeed, during this time period, the planet was engulfed in terrible cataclysms. They went down in history as the "Little Ice Age". That is why the first settlements of the "white gods" turned out to be extinct.
Years passed and Indians from distant provinces came to these places and began to inhabit the ruins of the "ancient civilization" anew. Something was restored, cleaned of debris and overgrowth. This is exactly what the Spanish settlers of the second wave saw, together with whom a Spanish monk went ashore, who became the author of the famous monograph, which, by the way, after 1554 was translated and published only once - in Ukraine in 2008. So, that is a great rarity that few people have read.
Actually, for this reason, many sincerely believe that the famous city of Machu Picchu, located in the Andes in the territory of Peru, could be found by chance only at the end of the 19th century, and there is still nothing about the true purpose of the numerous buildings and wide terraces carved into the rocks. known. In Pedro de Leon's Chronicles, he is described in detail as “the city above the clouds” and “the lost city of the Incas”.
“… High on the plateau between the steep cliffs are the ruins of a well-fortified and fairly large urban-type settlement. The most powerful in all the possessions of the Incas, in which I had a chance to visit. The garrison, modest in number, was able to hold back large enemy forces for a long time. The terrain is absolutely inaccessible. Large terraces, reminiscent of fortress walls, rise one above the other. Some foodstuffs were grown on them, necessary during a long siege …”.
The secret of polygonal masonry
The author also mentions the famous polygonal masonry of huge megaliths, carefully processed and carefully fitted to each other. He asks the question, where did the backward tribes have such specific knowledge and practical skills that made it possible to erect buildings at the modern (for that time) European level? Note that the monk is surprised only by the level of knowledge, and not by the very ability to lay down a wall of huge stones, which are simply unrealistic to handle by hand. The Indians certainly did not have suitable tools. At the very least, he is not mentioned anywhere.
It can be assumed that the Spanish historian was not surprised, because before that he managed to visit Cusco, where polygonal masonry is found at every step in the foundations of all old buildings. Local historians today tell numerous tourists that the technology belongs to the first European settlers of the 16th-17th centuries, who allegedly borrowed it from the builders of a lost civilization. Since now we know that the stone blocks were processed and built by immigrants from the Old World, how then did they do it?
And there is an answer to this difficult question. Relatively recently, Russian scientists, at the invitation of their Peruvian colleagues, dealt with the problems of destruction (destruction) of the polygonal masonry of the famous "fortress of the gods" Sacsayhuaman, built in the period 1475-1525. In the course of studies of samples taken directly from the blocks that make up the elements of the masonry, their artificial origin was established. The basis of "megaliths" is thermally treated calcium oxide. At the household level, this means that the walls are not made of processed stone, but of “silicate brick”, which was made directly at the construction site. There was neither back-breaking manual labor, nor mysteriously disappeared ancient highly developed civilizations, nor mysterious technologies for processing hard rocks. The most common European colonialists were exploring a wild continent, the indigenous population of which was not aware of the achievements of civilization.