The Kingdom of Cuzco is traced to the Valley of Cuzco, the central region of Peru on the Andes Mountains, the longest continental mountain range in the world, along the Western coast of South America, being about 7,000km/4,300mi long, and 200 to 700km/120 to 430mi wide, and from 4,000 to 7,000m/13,000 to 22,000 ft in height. The Andes are also part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that form the Western Backbone of North America, Central America, South America, and Antarctica.
The Kingdom of Cuzco was founded by the first Inca, Manco Capac, and began as a city-state formed by pastoral people. It became the worthy metropolis of a great and flourishing monarchy and stood on a beautiful Valley on an elevated region of the Plateau, enjoying a genial and salubrious temperature. Towards the North it was defended by a spur of the great Cordillera; and the city was traversed by a River over which bridges of timber, covered with heavy slabs of stone, furnished a mean of communication with the opposite banks. The streets were long and narrow; the houses low, and some made of clay and reeds. The health of the city was promoted by spacious openings and squares, in which numerous population from the distant country assembled to worship the Sun (Inti) and celebrate the cosmic seasons belonging to him through earthly festivals. Cuzco was the 'Holy City,' and the great Temple of the Sun. The Inca referred to their empire as Tahuantin-Suyo which meant 'The Four united Power.'
According to the oral tradition, it was a time when the ancient races were all plunged in deplorable barbarism; they worshipped nearly every object in nature indiscriminately; made war their pastime, and feasted on the flesh of their slaughtered captives. The spirit of the Sun, the great luminary and parent of mankind, taking compassion on the degrading condition of mankind, sent two of his children, Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, to gather the people into communities, and teach them the arts of civilized life. The celestial pair, brother and sister, husband and wife, advanced along the plains in the neighborhood of Lake Titicaca. They bore with them a golden wedge, and were directed to take up their residence on the spot where the sacred emblem should without effort sink into the ground. They proceeded accordingly and as far as the Valley of Cuzco the sacred emblem sank into the earth and disappeared for ever. Here the children of the Sun established their residence, and soon entered upon their beneficent mission. Manco Capac teaching men the arts of agriculture and Mama Ocllo the mysteries of weaving and spinning. The simple people lent a willing ear to the messengers of heaven, and, gathering together in considerable numbers, laid the foundations of the city of Cuzco.
Under the leadership of Manco Capac, the Kingdom of Cuzco began its power, together with the same wise and benevolent maxims, which regulated the conduct of the first Incas, descended to their successors, and under their scepter a community gradually extended itself along the broad surface of the table-land, a land formation in the Andes, asserting its spiritual superiority over the surrounding tribes. In time, either by peaceful assimilation or warfare, it grew and formed the largest Inca Empire in South America before the arrival of the Europeans that came to the Americas in search for new lands since theirs were already corrupted and in decadence. Then the Inca Empire held a mystical fascination for the people who went back to their homelands. The fabulous wealth in gold and silver and other metals possessed by the Inca Empire was the booty for people coming from European lands. Then, using the Christian faith as panacea, systematically pillaged and plundered the wealth of the Empire, and the booty they carried to their lands altered forever the whole European economic system. The wealth of the Incas became the healthy blood they needed in order to survive against all the plagues that they were suffering because of their barbarian way of exercising the power between the crowns who owned Europe at that time of history.
The far-reaching expansion of the Incas began under the command of Sapa Inca (paramount leader) Pacha-Cutec (Earth Shaker), the 9th Inca. He and his son Tupac Yupanqui incorporated a large portion of the Andes Mountains under Inca control, and its power was best centered on the Andes.
The face of the conquered land was a challenge in every aspect of the everyday life. The sandy strip along the coast where rain rarely fell, fed only by a few streams of water, furnishing a remarkable contrast to the vast volumes of water rolling down the Eastern sides of the Andes into the Atlantic Ocean. The precipitous steeps of the Mountains, with its splintered sides of porphyry and granite, and its higher regions wrapped in snows that never melted under the fierce sun rays, unless it happened from its own volcanic fires. All the communications between the parts of the long-extended territory of the empire had to be done overcoming the savage face of the region, broken up by precipices, furious torrents, and impassable broken paths. The Andean people were sufficient enough to overcome all these impediments of Nature and become what they were, the most powerful empire in South America and probably over the earth, taking in consideration the challenges that Nature put over them.
Pacha-Cutec reorganized the Kingdom of Cuzco into the Tahuantinsuyo, which consisted in a harmonized and central government with the Inca at its head and four cardinal governments with strong leaders: Chinchay-Suyo (North West), Anti-Suyo (NE), Conti-Suyo (SW), and Colla-Suyo (SE).
They symbolized in a way the power of the four elements -Fire, Earth, Air and Water living in harmony over the Inca land and its people.
The etymology of the word 'Andes' derives from the Quechua word 'Anti,' which means 'East' as in Anti-Suyo (Quechua for 'East Region'), one of the four Regions of the Inca Empire.
The topographical aspect of the land of the Incas is very remarkable. The Andean geography has a geological time from about 252 to 66 million years ago in which forces and events leading to a large structural deformation of the Earth's crust and uppermost mantle happened due to the interaction between tectonic plates. The Andes, an orogenic belt of mountains along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a zone of volcanic activity that encompasses the Pacific as well as the Asia-Pacific region, developed as the result of the broken up of the outermost shell of the planet into tectonic plates. The compression of the Western rim of the South American Plate due to the sub-duct of the Nazca Plate and the Antarctic Plate caused the rise of the Andes.
At the period of the European invasion, the Inca Empire stretched along the Pacific over the boundaries of today modern republics of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina.
The date usually assigned for these extraordinary events before the invasion of the Europeans requires but little reflection to show its improbability, even when divested of supernatural accompaniments.
On the shores of Lake Titicaca extensive ruins exist at the present day, older than the pretended advent of the Incas. The date of their appearance, indeed, is manifestly irreconciliable with their sunseqwuent story. No account assigns to the Inca dynasty more than 13 princes before the European invasion.
But this number is too small to have spread over four hundred years.
We may reasonable conclude that there existed a race advanced in civilization before the time of the Incas; and, in conformity with nearly every oral tradition, we may derive this race from the neighborhood of Lake Titicaca; a conclusion strongly confirmed by the imposing architectural remains which still endure, after the lapse of so many years, on its borders.
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