The Inca civilization, representing the Inca Empire, originated from the majestic Andes Mountains of South America. The Inca civilization was very dazzling. They had a unified language, a calendar that was much more accurate than the European calendar, extremely advanced and complex calculation methods, and even a scale. At the same time, the Incas also had a rigorous and thorough religious system and unimaginably advanced architectural technology. At the same time, there are also strange things in the Inca civilization. For example, the Incas did not invent their own writing or currency. Even so, the Inca had a solution. For example, the trade they conducted relied on the peer-to-peer exchange of items to solve the problem of no currency. Their method of calculation was to tie knots in long grass ropes. Because there was no written language, and at the same time they wanted to record some things and pass them on, the Incas selected the most beautiful girls to sacrifice to the god of the Inca civilization-the "Sun God", and asked them to remember everything. Then let them repeat it. In other words, those chosen girls are the books of the Incas and the history of the Incas.
The Inca civilization, together with the Mayans and Aztecs on the American continent, are also known as the three major ancient civilizations in the Americas. Some scholars say that the Inca was "one of the most successful centralized states in the world in history," and the Inca civilization has to be impressive. In Europe, most of the earliest legends about the Incas exaggerated the wealth of this land, and compared with the earlier Mayan civilization, or with the Aztec civilization centered in Mexico during the same period, the Inca civilization can Said to be the most mature.
Although people have various misunderstandings about the Mayan civilization before the Inca civilization, the crystal head discovered in a Mayan temple in Honduras, Central America in 1927 is still shocking. The head is carved out of crystal, 12.7 centimeters high and 5.2 kilograms in weight. It is as big as a real human head and is carved according to a woman's head. According to ancient Mayan legends, this crystal skull has magical power and is an important tool for divination in Mayan temples. It has a history of more than a thousand years. After studying the surface and internal structure of the skull, experts have determined that its history is very special. It is a long-standing cultural relic from the Mayan era.
Crystal is quartz crystal. Its hardness is very high, second only to diamond (diamond) and corundum. It cannot be processed with copper, iron or stone tools. Even modern people can only use modern tools such as diamonds to carve such crystal products. The Mayans more than a thousand years ago did not know how to smelt iron, so what kind of tools did they use to process this crystal head? Could it be that they have already mastered some kind of technology that we don’t know about yet?
Judging from this strange crystal head, perhaps the science and technology mastered by the Mayans is much more advanced than we imagined. But how did they obtain these science and technologies? This is even more of a mystery within a mystery.
As early as 5,000 years ago, when the ancient ancestors of Peru on the northern coast of Lima built the great city of Caral, China was in the late Neolithic Age. Its productivity level was constantly improving, social organization was constantly improving, and the factors of civilization were becoming more and more important. obvious. When King Yingzheng of Qin unified China in 221 BC and used unified writing, weights, measures, and currency, the Moche people in Peru later developed advanced agriculture, manufactured exquisite pottery, gold and silverware, and built extraordinary buildings. The royal tomb building. When Peru established the great Inca Empire in the early 15th century and built roads and cities in most of today's South America, China's Ming Dynasty built the Forbidden City in Beijing, and the fleet led by Zheng He began the feat of sailing to the Western Ocean... …
Any civilization has its own development trajectory, and the same is true for the Inca civilization. The Inca civilization was based on the American civilization in the Andes. The Inca Empire originated in the Cusco Valley, which was also the cradle of the Inca civilization. In addition, in the process of its growth and development, the Inca civilization was constantly nourished by the culture of the conquered lands and gradually developed and expanded.
The founding myth of the Incas says that after the first Inca king, Manco Capac, domesticated the first primitive peoples, he generously gave them the "Inca" surname. Of course, there are many unconfirmed events in ancient legends, and the Incas constructed their own history through these stories.
The Incas, who were so intelligent, suddenly died overnight, as if they had disappeared from the world.
After 1513, the Spanish discoverer of the Pacific, Balboa, and his ships sailed south of Panama.
When they sailed along the coast and came to the equator, they saw an Indian fishing at the mouth of the river. They asked him where they were, and the Indian told him
The word "Peru". in local language
"Peru" is a common noun, it is
A general reference to "river", the Indian wanted to indicate where he was
"River", but the Spaniards thought they had arrived
"Peru". However, no one could have imagined that the appearance of outsiders would end Inca history so quickly.
Facing the Inca army composed of tens of thousands of people, the Spaniard Pizarro led a team of less than 200 men to rush to the battle.
However, in the first confrontation between the two sides, the Spanish succeeded in capturing and holding the Inca king hostage.
The powerful empire seemed to have reached the end of its destiny in an instant. The prosperity of the Inca country lasted only a century, and then it took a sudden turn and suffered a disaster, and was finally destroyed at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors.
It is puzzling that such a once-prominent empire collapsed in an instant. The tragic decline of the Inca is known primarily from Spanish records.
Among the conquistadors, only Pizarro was illiterate; the others, including Hernando Sordo, were highly literate, and the records they left behind provide on-site descriptions of the confrontation between the two civilizations.
These records allowed later historians to piece together a sad picture of the final days of the Inca Empire.
What is the real cause of destruction? On the eve of the Spanish invasion, the Inca Empire was torn apart by a civil war between two princes fighting for the throne. The Incas formed factions and began bloody battles.
Just as the Incas were declining due to division, brutal Spanish adventurers took advantage of the situation. They attacked the Incas and plundered gold crazily.
In this turbulent empire, they cleverly obtained unexpected benefits. As the old fable goes: "When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman wins."
