EVERYDAY LIFE IN AN EXTRAORDINARY EMPIRE

Professor Bill Sillar reveals how technology and textiles were among the many triumphs of the Inca

- PROFESSOR BILL SILLAR

The Inca people hailed from a mountainous area of the central Andes. The civilisation flourished in this lofty landscape, finding ways to make the most of its resources and overcome its challenges. Maize was grown in the valley bottoms and irrigated terraces, and potatoes provided abundant crops even on steep slopes. Other crops included quinoa, beans and chillies. Domesticated llamas and alpacas, pastured on highland grasses, were important for their fleece and meat as well as their dung, which was used as a fertiliser and fuel. Guinea pigs were kept in kitchens where they ate scraps, or in larger numbers in Inca state facilities, and were cooked by roasting over fires.

Harnessing the technical innovations of earlier societies, the Inca invested in huge amounts of labour to construct terracing, canal systems and roads, and to manage vast camelid herds. And they had cracked storing food. Large quantities of crops were kept in state storage buildings, preserved by the cool Andean air and providing essential provisions for large work crews and armies. Both meat and potatoes were also preserved by freeze drying’, exposing them to the frozen nights and then the searing sun for several days to produce chunio dried potatoes) and ch’arki dried meat a possible origin of the English word, jerky).

As the empire expanded, the Inca gained access to new environments as well as even more diverse resources. Eventually, they boasted the cotton fields of the coast, the abundant fish of the Pacific Ocean, the coca of the cloud forest, and the hardwood and feathers of Amazonia. But the main resource in all these regions was human labour. People planted crops using a foot plough), worked stone with hammers) and transported loads when they were too heavy for llamas to carry.