Three Incan mummies sacrificed 500 years ago were regularly given drugs and alcohol before their death, particularly the eldest child called the Maiden (shown here), to make them more compliant, researchers have found. KrГ¶gel noted that while the mummies of commoners were only fed on special occasions those of royalty вЂњreceived their own specially prepared meals on a daily basis.вЂќ вЂњIn this month they take their dead out of their storehouses which are called pucullo and they give them food and drink and they dress them in their richest apparelвЂ¦and they sing and dance with themвЂ¦and they walk with them from house to house and through the streets and the plaza,вЂќ (In translation, from the book вЂњFood, Power and Resistance in the AndesвЂќ by Alison KrГ¶gel, Lexington Books, 2011). Mummification was an important part of Inca funerary rites, even for commoners.ДЄfter the Spanish conquest, a man named Guaman Poma, who spoke Quechua and was native to the Andes, published a chronicle that described November as being the вЂњmonth of carrying the dead,вЂќ a time when people would try to feed the mummies of their ancestors. A teenage girl who is now known as вЂњthe maidenвЂќ appears to have been the main sacrifice along with a boy and girl, who were thought to be her attendants.В ResearchВ has revealed that, in the year before their sacrifice, the three consumed a special dietВ rich in maize and dried llama meat and were drugged with coca leaves and alcohol. In 1999, archaeologists discovered the mummies of three children who had been left as sacrifices at a shrine near the summit of a volcano in Argentina. The Inca gods were honored in many ways, including prayers, fasting and animal sacrifice, but the most powerful form of honor was human sacrifice, typically of children and teenagers. There were also regional deities worshipped by people whom the Inca conquered. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Inca religion & sacrificeДЄccording to McEwan, the Inca pantheon had an array of gods that included the creator god Viracocha, sun god Inti, thunder god Illapa and earth-mother goddess Pachamama, among others.

The Inca people made quipu to record information. Most written accounts of Incas come from outsiders as the Incas primarily shared their knowledge with one another through oral storytelling. While the Inca did not develop what we would consider a formal system of writing, they did use recording devices, such as the quipu, a cord with knotted strings suspended from it. The Spanish would later plunder this gold and build a new city in the place of Cuzco. One of the greatest religious sanctuaries in Cuzco was a sun temple called вЂњCoricancha.вЂќ The Spanish chronicler BernabГ© Cobo wrote (in translation), вЂњThis temple was called Coricancha, which means вЂhouse of gold,вЂ™ because of the incomparable wealth of this metal which was embedded in the templeвЂ™s chapels and wall, its ceilings and altars.вЂќ (From вЂњAncient CuzcoвЂќ by Brian Bauer, University of Texas Press, 2004). McEwan added that commoners were not allowed to live in the city and had to reside in the outlying settlements. вЂњBetween the fore and hind legs of the puma were located the two great plazas of Cuzco, where the highways to the four imperial quarters of the empire, called suyus, converged.вЂќ вЂњThe animal was represented in profile, with the residential blocks of the city forming its body вЂ¦ the great fortress or temple complex on the hill above Cuzco representing its head, and the confluence of the Tullu and Saphi rivers representing its tail,вЂќ McEwan wrote, paraphrasing the account recorded by the Spanish chronicler Juan de Betanzos. And, he allegedly had the city completely raised so that it could be rebuilt in the shape of a puma. Pachacuti ordered that the Inca capital, Cuzco, be rebuilt and strengthened. The Incas worked hard at diplomacy, and tried to get their rivals to surrender peacefully before resorting to military conquest, said Terence D'Altroy, an anthropologist at Columbia University, in a 2007 PBS Nova interview. Subsequently, Pachacuti worked to expand the territory the Inca controlled, extending their influence beyond the Cuzco region.

The invasion had driven his father to a military outpost. Pachacuti became emperor after he halted an invasion of Cuzco that was being carried out by a rival group called the Chancas. However, Inca oral history recorded by the Spanish, suggests that the expansion began in earnest during the reign of the emperor Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui, the son of Viracocha Inca, who reigned from 1438 to 1471.

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