Inca Empire: Did you mean...?

The English historian Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) wrote and published his seminal work History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire between 1776 and 1788. The dominant theme of Gibbon's six-volume work is that the fall of the Roman Empire...

In the early days of the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550-330 BCE), the kings came to realise that, if they were to be able to administer the vast mass of land and the multicultural people who inhabited it, they had to create an organizational system...

An Inca rest station on the Inca Trail, Peru. Such stations were built at regular intervals along most major Inca highways.

The Portuguese Empire was established from the 15th century and eventually stretched from the Americas to Japan. Very often a string of coastal trading centres with defensive fortifications, there were larger territorial colonies like Brazil...

An Inca circular terracing used to increase agricultural yield. Moray, Peru, 15-16th century CE.

A map of the Inca road system which included some 40,000 km of routes.

A colonial-era illustration depicting Inca farmers using traditional tools such as the foot plough. By the native chronicler Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, c. 1613 CE.

Inca qollqa (storehouses) used for storing grain and other foodstuffs. 15-16th century CE, Ollantaytambo.

An Inca mountain road with bridge, approaching Machu Picchu.

An Inca ceramic dish with a handle in the form of a bird. Peru, 1476-1534 CE. (St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri)