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00:00In just over a hundred years, from the 15th to the 16th century, three all-powerful empress
00:09built an astonishing empire, the biggest the Americas had ever seen.
00:15The Inca state had a population of 9 to 12 million people.
00:21They were highly developed people.
00:24The Incas left behind monumental and intricate traces of their genius, but the story of these
00:32great people remains shrouded in mystery.
00:36Where did the Incas come from?
00:38They imitated a society that was before them.
00:42Their heirs to an ancient civilization.
00:45How did they come to rule over such a vast territory in the space of a century?
00:50Thanks to scientific advances and ultra-realistic, computer-generated images, we're going to
00:57bring this lost civilization back to life.
01:00Advances in archaeology have truly revolutionized our understanding of Inca history.
01:05Revealing its fascinating and mysterious origins, this is the incredible story of how the Inca
01:12Empire began.
01:13At dawn, when the mist starts to dissipate, a magnificent sight emerges.
01:31Machu Picchu.
01:33Perched on an Andes ridge at an altitude of 2,400 meters, it appears suspended in the clouds,
01:41defying the laws of nature.
01:43This ancient city is one of the new seven wonders of the world, and a spectacular symbol
01:51of one of the most renowned civilizations in history, the Inca Empire.
01:58The Inca Empire was one of the greatest civilizations in South America, because they made significant
02:04advances in astronomy, architecture and engineering.
02:07Machu Picchu is proof of the importance of this ancestral knowledge.
02:19Machu Picchu demonstrates the genius and power of a people, capable of conquering the highest peaks.
02:26It was the jewel of a colossal empire, which the Incas built in record time across South America.
02:34At its peak in 1532, Inca territory stretched over 5,000 kilometers along the Andes,
02:43from Ecuador to Chile.
02:45Yet a hundred years before the Incas were just one of hundreds of small tribes of Peruvians,
02:54living in a mountain valley, living in a mountain valley, not far from Machu Picchu, in Cusco.
03:03How did the Incas get out of this remote valley and build a formidable empire so quickly?
03:10The history of Cusco and its founders has long remained secret, because the Incas did not have a written language.
03:19They communicated in a complex system of knotted cords, known as quipus.
03:26To date, no one has been able to fully decipher their meaning.
03:30So to discover the origins of the Incas, we have to go to the archives of the Spanish conquistadors.
03:37The history of the Incas as we know it has been handed down to us by Spanish authors,
03:43who themselves gathered their information from indigenous informants, often members of the Inca elite.
03:51For a long time, the Spanish conquerors, who defeated the Incas,
03:56were the only ones to tell the story of this empire.
03:59Arriving in Cusco in 1533, they documented chronicles for the king of Spain.
04:10These precious testimonies allow us to strip back modern-day Cusco,
04:17and visualize the city at the time of the Incas.
04:20The conquistadors were impressed by this small metropolis,
04:28with its hundreds of thatched stone buildings, and palaces decorated with gold and silver.
04:35They recorded everything they saw, recounting all the details and impressions they had arriving in Cusco.
04:45This is very important for archaeologists, because thanks to these early writings,
04:50we have a more accurate idea of what the Inca state was like, and its importance.
04:55For the ancient people of Cusco, Inca was not the name of a people, but of the leader.
05:06The Spanish record more than ten Inca kings.
05:09The first is a mythical ruler called Manco Capac, or Manco the Mighty.
05:18Manco Capac is a historical figure since his mummy was preserved as late as the 16th century,
05:22and was seen by Spanish witnesses. He's the first of 12 kings.
05:28The Spanish only provide legendary information about this first king.
05:32According to Inca oral record, Manco Capac emerged from a cave when the sun was created.
05:39He walked with his sister to the Cusco valley, to plant a golden sceptre,
05:45and found the dynasty of people who proclaimed themselves the sons of the sun.
05:51This is mythic history, but every empire creates their own origin myth.
05:56You can't form an empire just by force. You need ideology.
06:02Who really was Manco Capac?
06:05Archaeologists are now beginning to unravel the truth behind this legendary tale.
06:10Archaeology shows that a state was formed in the Cusco valley during the 13th century between 1200 and 1300.
06:24Manco Capac was a chief, a warrior who arrived from the Andean high plateau,
06:31gained control of the local tribes, and founded the Inca empire.
06:37The modern development of Cusco has gradually erased the original buildings in the heart of the valley.
06:43After more than 500 years of urbanization,
06:46the traces of the first Inca kingdom are buried beneath the modern streets of the city center.
06:52But high above Cusco, the hills of Sacsayhuaman could hold precious information.
07:01We think this is where they first settled in Cusco, where they had their houses and their other important structures.
07:08So we're looking for the first foundations of Inca Cusco. What is the start of what became the capital of the Inca empire?
07:17The site of Sacsayhuaman intrigues scientists.
07:22Most of the visible ruins date back to the 15th century and the beginnings of the Inca empire.
07:30But some stones appear to be much older.
07:33To find out for sure, an international team of researchers are studying the area.
07:40We hope to find during the excavation process organic remains like charcoal,
07:45but seeds and everything that the Inca left when they were constructing this site.
07:50These remains could provide a date for the birth of Cusco.
07:58But in an area partially covered by dense forest, advanced tools are needed.
08:05The drone is equipped with LiDAR, a laser technology that compares through vegetation
08:12to reveal human-made structures beneath.
08:14Scientists are searching for structures that could indicate Manco Capac's early work.
08:25We can find the walls under this vegetation and the soil,
08:29and those walls might be related to the Inca construction of the Sacsayhuaman.
08:37To identify the hidden walls more accurately,
08:40the hill is imaged using ground-penetrating radar.
08:47Signals are beamed through the soil to detect buried structures up to two meters deep.
08:53With this investigation, we'll be able to find the moment when we can actually start to say,
09:00yes, the Inca are here, they are starting to form their capital city.
09:04This new exploration of Sacsayhuaman will make it possible to determine the date of Manco Capac's settlement.
09:13Current estimates lie between 1200 and 1230, more than 300 years before the arrival of the Spanish.
09:22Thanks to chronicles, we know a lot about the relative history of the Incas,
09:26but we don't know when and how everything happened.
09:31The archaeologists' work fills in the blanks in the Spanish archives,
09:36and the remains that have been studied now allow the Incas to tell their own story.
09:44Today, thanks to these new technologies, we can learn much more about this great empire.
09:51We are trying to reconstruct its history from the remains left by these people.
10:01But what do the pre-colonial remains tell us about the Inca empire itself?
10:07Can they explain how this small kingdom suddenly became a continental power?
10:12To shed light on the birth of the empire, we must examine the best preserved Inca site,
10:22Machu Picchu.
10:25Thanks to its isolated location, this ancient city escaped the violence of the Spanish conquistadors.
10:34Spaniards never actually destroyed the site. They were possibly aware that the site was here,
10:41but they never got in here, they never destroyed it.
10:45When the American explorer Hiram Bingham was shown the ruins of Machu Picchu in 1911,
10:52the city had been abandoned for over 300 years and enveloped by thick tropical vegetation.
10:59But the first excavations revealed the buildings were exceptionally well preserved.
11:04Some buildings were gradually destroyed by the spread of nature, but fortunately, at a structural level,
11:14Machu Picchu survives and is one of the most important examples of how a city was built during the Inca era.
11:22After more than a hundred years of archaeological work, it is now possible to virtually reconstruct the city at its peak.
11:34Over 500 years ago, experts estimate the town was inhabited by 400 people.
11:45And during annual pilgrimages, it expanded to host a thousand people.
11:50Machu Picchu was some kind of sanctuary itself because it was a destination for pilgrims to getting in here.
12:01So in Machu Picchu, we will find many ceremonial aspects that were possibly related to the rituals that were taking place in here.
12:10Thanks to the Spanish Chronicles, historians know that the site was the major work of the first Inca emperor, Pachacutec.
12:21Pachacutec appears 200 years after Manco Capac as the ninth Inca ruler.
12:29He was the first whose reign transformed the kingdom into an empire and the lives of millions of Andeans.
12:40Pachacutec ruled from his palace, located to the north of the main plaza.
12:46From here, he ordered the complete reconstruction of Cusco.
12:53The capital was just the beginning.
12:55He transformed the sacred valley and Machu Picchu.
13:00This hilltop city was not just a sacred site.
13:03It was a manifesto of Pachacutec's vision for South America.
13:13Covering an area 530 meters long and 200 meters wide,
13:19the complex features 170 structures and almost 700 terraces,
13:25built from thousands of cubic meters of stone.
13:29How can so much material be found in the middle of these cliffs?
13:34The nature of the rock provides a clue.
13:37It's constructed with granite mostly,
13:40and we can find it in basically every single building that was made in here.
13:47Granite is one of the hardest and heaviest rocks on the planet,
13:51weighing two and a half tons per cubic meter.
13:54An average-sized rock here weighs the equivalent of two modern cars.
13:59But the Inca builders were expert geologists.
14:03We are located in the middle of the Andes that were created
14:08because of the geological movements between all the plagues.
14:11The Andes, stretching from the Caribbean to Chiara del Fuego,
14:18formed over hundreds of millions of years from the oceanic plate,
14:22sliding under the American plate.
14:25As the Earth's crust lifted, it cracked, producing volcanoes,
14:31still active in Chile and the Bolivian plateau.
14:34Machu Picchu is surrounded by two major faults created by these tectonic movements.
14:43You can see the elements of this geological fault at site,
14:47and what we see in the quarry right now is just a piece.
14:51This is how the Machu Picchu looked like before the Inca started the urbanization process.
14:57Before the arrival of Pachacutec, the ridge of Machu Picchu was an open-air quarry,
15:05littered with huge granite boulders, which Inca workers patiently cut into bricks using hammers.
15:12They didn't have any metallic iron tools.
15:16You can see a lot of elements where the stones were possibly carved.
15:21There are traces where the Incas decided to cut it and took some elements.
15:28Even without iron tools, the clear traces of cutting prove the mastery of the carvers.
15:37It's stone architecture with irregular but finely tuned fittings,
15:41which may represent what the empire is all about.
15:44This mosaic of diverse groups that fit perfectly together.
15:47Terraces were constructed by building walls and leveling the ground,
15:56with thick layers of stone, sand and earth.
16:04For archaeologist Dominika Siskowska, who excavated the area,
16:08this clever method of terracing provides solid foundations and allows water runoff
16:14in a region that receives up to two meters of rainfall a year.
16:18It's quite challenging to get here and to start the foundation of the city basically from nothing.
16:25We don't know the estimation about how many people constructed the site,
16:29but it has to be thousands of people.
16:34At this altitude, Machu Picchu shows the power of the Incas.
16:38In the mid-15th century, the empire was already capable of mobilizing thousands of workers.
16:48It also bore witness to an unprecedented development of knowledge and techniques
16:53that Pachakutec encouraged throughout his empire.
16:57To transform a rocky spur in the middle of a seismic region into a home.
17:02Pachakutec's builders deployed elaborate engineering.
17:09Throughout their empire, the Incas tried to mark the landscape,
17:13to signal their presence with a highly distinctive architecture,
17:16very different from that of the peoples who had come before them.
17:20And so this very homogenous architecture is a way of visually marking this reunification of the world,
17:27this unity that the Incas claimed to have brought it.
17:33The technical engineering introduced by Pachakutec represented a new era and a new way of thinking.
17:40But what exactly were the beliefs of the man who called himself son of the sun?
17:48This ideology was born 600 kilometers south of Machu Picchu, near Lake Titicaca.
17:54This site is known as Tiahuanaco, and its remains have intrigued experts for years.
18:02Tiahuanaco was a religious center, both a pilgrimage center and an economic center,
18:07where a large city developed with very important monumental architecture.
18:12It's probably the most important or the largest society before the Inca.
18:15They left us monumental architecture and some very elaborate beautiful artifacts.
18:20Tiahuanaco was the birthplace of a society that developed between 500 and 1100 AD,
18:29and whose influence spread across the high plateau of Bolivia, southern Peru and northern Chile.
18:37Tiahuanaco was abandoned in 1000 AD, about 500 years before the Inca.
18:41So when the Inca arrived to conquer the area with their armies, they looked at it and they go,
18:46this is huge. This is a monumental city that existed way before us.
18:53Modern tools give us a more precise idea of what the Incas discovered at the time.
18:59The buildings are completely ruined and the stones are scattered across the site.
19:03So we were able to record the stones both by hand and using drones and other photogrammethods.
19:10And from there we created these virtual models that we were able to piece together.
19:15American archaeologist Alexey Vranich has reconstructed some of the buildings
19:21by scanning and digitizing each stone, then placing it back into its original position.
19:27We were able to reconstruct the form of one of the more impressive buildings.
19:31And one of the things about it was how similar it was to Inca architecture.
19:35On a site not far from Machu Picchu, Inca engineers built a near identical replica of this monument.
19:45The trapezoidal openings, typical of the Inca style, are directly inspired by the doors at Tiahuanaco.
19:52The Inca were relatively new. They had to demonstrate to people that they were ancient.
19:59So they imitated a society that was before them.
20:02This passage along the shores of Lake Titicaca was fundamental to the Inca Empire's destiny.
20:09Pachacutec not only found his architectural signature here,
20:12but found the place where he would rewrite history and give birth to the legend of the Sons of the Sun.
20:18In Inca mythology, Lake Titicaca is the cradle of the world, where the creator God gave life to the elements.
20:29It was he who made the sun appear, as well as the very first Incas. Among them, Manco Capac and Mama Oklo,
20:38who walked to the fertile valley of Cusco to plant a golden scepter and found the Inca dynasty.
20:45The Inca rulers needed a strong argument to legitimize their divine origin.
20:53They did so with the legend of Manco Capac and Mama Oklo, and from there it all began.
20:59The empire with all the conquests.
21:06Thanks to these mystical origins, the Incas became rulers of divine right, justified in their conquests.
21:14Just as the sun brings its fertile force to agriculture, enabling plants to grow,
21:22the Inca also spread benefits to their subjects, their dependents, and to the peoples they conquered.
21:30How did Pachacutec, self-proclaimed son of the sun, transform the daily lives of millions of Andeans?
21:37Could the key lie in the Inca religion?
21:42Machu Picchu, where the most revealing building of the new Inca civilization is recognizable by its unusual shape.
21:52This is the Temple of the Sun, with two perpendicular sides and a uniquely rounded facade.
21:58It's angled, so it's square on one side and semi-circular on the other.
22:09Inside, there are open windows and niches, where offerings were likely made during ceremonies.
22:16More than 500 years ago, the buildings at Machu Picchu had a steep, thatched roof.
22:27But the Temple of the Sun was an open-air building.
22:33The space has always been exclusively open, without a roof.
22:38It's a place for observation from dawn to dusk.
22:45This unique structure seems to have served as an astronomical observatory.
22:55But the precise way in which the Incas used it is still unknown.
22:59The center of the building is occupied by a large boulder, engraved with mysterious lines.
23:14This was a sort of table on which they watched the Sun come through the window.
23:19The astronomer could say, what's happening?
23:22What's going to happen on this date?
23:25Is it the cold season or the hot season?
23:30The building's three openings are perfectly positioned.
23:35The largest faces magnetic north.
23:39The central window is aligned with the rising sun on the June solstice,
23:46while the second window aligns on the December solstice.
23:49During both phenomena, the sun's rays land on the engraving on the central boulder.
24:00There's a time when we're in the rainy season, and another when we're in the dry season.
24:05Because here, there are only two types of climate, rain and sun.
24:10Astronomers are going to observe this, and from that moment,
24:13we'll change the agricultural direction of the Andean world.
24:16The temple of the sun was used to track the path of the sun,
24:23and mark the changing of the seasons, and it was dedicated to the sun god, Inti.
24:29As the sun of the sun, Pachukutec gave Inti a central role in running his empire.
24:42The solar calendar governed the daily life of his subjects,
24:47from agriculture to architecture to religious festivals.
24:51And many of Machu Picchu's buildings were aligned with the stars for religious ceremonies,
25:00including the most enigmatic one of all, sacrifice.
25:08Historical writings tell us that the Incas sacrificed animals, like llamas,
25:14to the people of the sun, to the people of the sun, to the people of the sun, to the people of the sun.
25:19In special circumstances, such as political or climate crises, the Incas also practiced human sacrifice,
25:30especially the sacrifice of children or adolescents.
25:33In 1954, the body of a young boy was found 5000 meters high,
25:41on the summit of a Chilean volcano.
25:48The body, mummified by the cold, is kept out of sight at the National Museum of Natural History in Santiago, Chile.
25:59This entire set of objects is high quality.
26:03They are exceptional and exclusive pieces,
26:06which were most likely made especially to accompany the child in death.
26:12For more than 50 years, this child's body and every object that accompanied it have been scrutinized by experts.
26:22Carbon dating confirmed that he died during the Inca period.
26:27A study of his bone and teeth development determined that he was between eight and nine years old.
26:32Using X-ray scanning technology, Veronica Silva Pinto is trying to uncover the exact cause of death.
26:45Highly accurate modeling of the skull has made it possible to detect a previously unseen fracture,
26:53a fatal injury caused by a hammer blow.
26:55This weapon is a star-shaped club typical of the Inca period.
27:08Here, a wooden handle was fitted to deal the blow.
27:11Basically, the angle had to be like this.
27:15The weapon was brandished and hit him there.
27:18That's the cause of death.
27:20If he didn't die instantly, he died as a result of the blow.
27:26A brutal way to die.
27:28But this act was not perceived as cruel by the Incas.
27:33Death for the Inca was not as we know it.
27:36Death was a journey, so the child wasn't dying.
27:39He was joining the world of spirits and gods, and so would have greater power than if he had remained in the living world.
27:55This child is not an isolated victim.
27:59In the 1990s, while exploring the peaks of the Andes,
28:03archaeologist Johann Reinhard discovered several other bodies of children sacrificed in the same way.
28:11There's a very political dimension to these sacrifices of young people.
28:15As far as we know, these children, these teenagers, were often the children of the local authorities of the empire.
28:23Ultimately, the Incas carried out these sacrifices, these cafacocha, to mark places that were sacred to the local populations.
28:33By sacrificing what was most precious to them.
28:37This Inca ritual is not only a symbolic act, but also a political one.
28:45Human sacrifice was practiced in South America long before the emergence of the Incas.
28:51But the Incas used it as an instrument of power, in order to rule over other religious practices in the Andes.
28:58Before Pachacutec, the Andeans worshipped a number of other deities, traces of which can still be seen in Cusco.
29:08In the royal capital, the Spanish conquerors described several temples.
29:13But in the lower city, one building in particular captivated them.
29:17A sacred structure with gardens dotted with golden statues of llamas and maize.
29:24The site is now occupied by a Catholic church.
29:27This church was first built in 1534 by the Dominican order.
29:38Baroque architecture has destroyed the most beautiful monument of Pachacutec's empire,
29:44known as the Kori Kansha, which means golden enclosure, in the language of the Incas.
29:52Some traces of the most sacred Inca temples still remain today.
29:56A curved facade, and foundations of the building around an inner courtyard,
30:04where each of the rooms was dedicated to one of the main Inca deities.
30:08One of the main rooms in the Kori Kansha, was the Temple of the Sun.
30:21We can locate it, where the Kori Kansha church is currently located.
30:25Inside the Temple of the Sun, there is a golden plaque,
30:34with features that represent the Andean world view.
30:41This plaque shows the richness of the Inca religion.
30:48The architecture of this room is refined and well finished.
30:52The main function of these niches was to house important objects,
30:59used to worship the god known as Eyapa, or lightning, or thunder.
31:07The Kori Kansha, the heart of the Inca religion,
31:11is a sanctuary dedicated to the Andean pantheon of gods.
31:17The Incas didn't just have a main god, the Sun.
31:21They also had other minor deities, such as Kuichi, the god of the rainbow,
31:27and Eyapa, the god of thunder or lightning.
31:32In addition to these forces of nature,
31:35the Andean people also worshipped the mountains that surrounded them.
31:39Each local territory is not only represented,
31:46but also fertilized and protected by the mountain that overlooks it.
31:52And so people worship and make offerings to this mountain god.
31:56Andean religion is a complex system of ancestral beliefs.
32:04But within this broad pantheon, Pachacutec gave the Sun a new decisive role.
32:10When Pachacutec began to conquer other peoples,
32:17these local groups had to submit to the general government of the Inca state.
32:22They had to worship the sun god.
32:29Worship of the sun spread to more than 10 million people in the empire,
32:35despite the fact their religious beliefs were much older.
32:38How did the Incas achieve this?
32:40On the shores of the Pacific, this desert landscape
32:46was one of the first regions to be conquered by the Sons of the Sun.
32:51After taking Cusco and the area around Lake Titicaca,
32:55the Inca armies reached the western coast near Lima to capture the site of Pachacamac.
33:02Pachacamac. Occupied since 200 A.D., this town was the sacred site of the most worshipped divinity
33:09in South America at that time.
33:13Pachacamac comes from the Quechua words pacha, meaning land,
33:17and camac, meaning the spirit that animates or gives life.
33:20Pachacamac was the force that animated the world. He was the spirit of the world.
33:25The simple movement of his head causes the earth to tremble.
33:34This god is so powerful that he brought the peoples of the region together
33:41in this important ceremonial center. It was a pilgrimage center.
33:50At the time of the Inca conquest, pilgrims had been gathering for hundreds of years
33:54from across the Andes to worship the god Pachacamac at his colorful temple.
34:03It was entirely decorated with motifs of flora, fauna and people,
34:08which adorned the structures and were linked to the worship of Pachacamac.
34:13You can see the head of a fish. Further on, here's another head.
34:18And finally, here's a part of the head and what could be the eye of a third fish.
34:29When the Incas conquered this temple, they respected the rights of the pilgrims,
34:34who prayed to Pachacamac or consulted the oracle.
34:37In these places, the Pachacamac oracle must have provided insight.
34:46It was a prestigious oracle in the pre-Hispanic world.
34:50We know that when the Incas arrived at Pachacamac, they too probably consulted the oracle.
34:55The Incas did not stop the worship of Pachacamac, but they placed their sun god above him
35:07and transformed the landscape with the empire's signature architecture.
35:16There are several features that could be replicas of those in Cusco.
35:22This wall must have been standing and we can see here that it has a three-sided configuration,
35:30similar to the doors that could be found, for example, in Cusco's most sacred places.
35:41On the highest peak, above the temple of Pachacamac,
35:46the Incas erected their temple of the sun.
35:52They built the temple of the sun to impose a new regime,
35:57the worship of their principal god, Inti, or the sun god.
36:02This building dominates the landscape of Pachacamac, allowing it to be seen and appreciated by the
36:07people who come to worship Pachacamac or to carry out activities here.
36:14This temple of the sun was a skillful demonstration of imperial rule,
36:19people. But the Incas didn't stop there. Excavations have just revealed a new room
36:25adjoining the temple of Pachacamac.
36:28Its location on the facade, at the center of the temple, probably indicates that it was a building
36:36dedicated to controlling worship. The Incas controlled the flow of people and offerings that reached the
36:43temple of Pachacamac.
36:43The religion was an instrument of conquest for the Incas, they tolerated the ancient gods and beliefs,
36:55but they physically imposed the sun religion in order to dominate all others.
37:00This way of controlling the other gods, without destroying them, means that the population
37:08submits peacefully because there is no confrontation. So they also have political control.
37:15The Inca emperor is a kind of god on earth, a kind of human son. You can only talk to him through
37:25a curtain, you can't touch him. How did Pachacamac make himself immortal in the eyes of the people?
37:35The emperor relied on one of the oldest beliefs on the American continent, the worship of ancestors.
37:42On the outskirts of Lima, the suburbs of Puruchuco are home to the largest pre-Hispanic necropolis ever discovered.
37:54Thousands of the buried were exhumed to be preserved and studied in the laboratory.
38:05When people die, they make a funeral bundle in the shape of a character,
38:10and then place a head on it with eyes.
38:16These funeral bundles are large cloths that wrap the body of the deceased.
38:22This is an ancestral practice in the Andes, where the dry air makes it possible to preserve remains.
38:28When we unwrap these funerary packages, we find the body of a mummified person.
38:40It's a natural mummification, not an artificial one.
38:44Adults from the Inca era are buried in a fetal position with their hands like this.
38:49To find out more about the deceased, these funerary bundles undergo a process called tomography,
38:59which scans and constructs the interior in three dimensions.
39:05With the scanner, we can see in detail the person's sex and age,
39:09and even observe other objects inside without having to open them.
39:17Beneath the fabric, offerings such as shells and tools accompany the deceased on their final journey.
39:26In ancient Peru, death is like a passage to another life.
39:37That's why these burials always contain a collection of items that accompany the dead.
39:48Unlike ordinary mortals, Inca emperors and their families were not placed in funerary bundles or buried.
39:56They became mummies, stored and displayed in niches.
40:02These royal mummies were kept in the palaces and temples of Cusco.
40:08They were honoured as gods and displayed during ceremonies for everyone to see.
40:15They were taken out to the main plaza of Cusco to celebrate.
40:19People sat with them and offered them drinks.
40:21Ever present among the living, the deceased emperor becomes immortal.
40:32The imperial mummies also travelled to the empire's most sacred sites, including Machu Picchu.
40:41In the upper part of the hilltop city, hidden beneath the temple of the sun,
40:47Inca builders carved a room into the rock.
40:56There are similarities with other Inca burials, in which a few traces of bone have been identified,
41:02which could indicate that this was a mausoleum intended for members of the Inca elite.
41:12This cave could have housed the mummy of emperor Pachacutec himself.
41:18We have no proof that Pachacutec's mummy was in this mausoleum,
41:22but there are a few clues that make it probable.
41:28Pachacutec revolutionised the religion of 10 million people,
41:34using every ancestral right to benefit his own power.
41:37There is still a lot of mystery regarding the Inca state, and every day we are discovering new things.
41:48Every trace left behind by the Incas sheds light on the founder of the empire,
41:54and new clues still reveal fundamental discoveries.
41:57Based on chronical information, at the beginning we were thinking that Pachacutec started his conquest in this region,
42:07more or less, in 4038, and the construction of Machu Picchu started approximately in 1450.
42:15This chronology, established in 1945, has recently been called into question by excavations
42:22at Machu Picchu and nearby Chachabamba. Carbon dated remains of charcoal show that these two sites
42:32are older than previously thought.
42:37The classical date of 1450 is no longer reliable because the Machu Picchu and Chachabamba were constructed
42:47approximately 30 or even more years before.
42:50Now we know that the empire started to grow much time before what we knew, so the date of 1438,
42:59it's no longer date for the rise of Pachacutec's empire.
43:05It's often said that the Inca state was built in a hundred years,
43:09and that it dominated the Andes for only a century, but in fact for many regions,
43:13it was more like a century and a half, or even two centuries.
43:16Little by little, modern archaeology is learning more about this vast and enigmatic empire.
43:26Pachacutec was not the first ruler, nor the first to spread influence beyond Cusco,
43:32but he was the first emperor, and with him, the Incas transformed.
43:36It was the birth of what would become the largest South American empire.
43:50Pachacutec is from the South American empire.
43:53It was also known as the Great ŠŗŃŠ¾Š²i and the first to spread influence beyond Cusco.
43:54It was known as the first learning place between the two centuries.
43:54Let us have a great teacher of the world'sį»nipo, andkolom of the South American empire.
43:57It was a great teacher of the world's history, and we discovered it in the past.
44:04The Yetis Institute from the Eastlake
44:09is currently studying the North American empire.
44:11It was become a big teacher of the South American empire.
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