A tunic woven in the Andes in the time of the Inca empire
Tunic, 1460–1540
Marked Cusco

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The Inca empire

From Cusco, the Inca built the largest empire in the Americas, Tawantinsuyu, along the Andes. They kept records on knotted cords called khipu and ran a road network of about 40,000 kilometres.

Place
Cusco · Machu Picchu · Sacsayhuamán · Cajamarca · VilcabambaThe Americas
Laid out as
An empireOne power across a long stretch of time: how it grew, held together, and came apart.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IPachacuti remakes Cusco
  2. IITawantinsuyu, four parts together
  3. IIIThe roads and the runners
  4. IVKhipu, records in knots
  5. VMachu Picchu
  6. VIPizarro and Atahualpa

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Pachacuti
  • Topa Inca
  • Huayna Capac
  • Atahualpa
  • Túpac Amaru

Objects

  • Khipu
  • Inca tunics
  • Gold and silver figures

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1438 to 1572. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?