Inca

(Listening to You're Dead to Me about the Incas.)

They called themselves the Tawantinsuyu. It was centered in Cusco Peru, but went from the tip of Columbia to Chile and Argentina. Cusco means stones, stones are important in the culture. It's the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. "one of the greatest imperial states in human history" without the use of the wheel, draft animals, knowledge of iron or steel, or even a system of writing." (Gordon McEwan).

I've been to Ecuador for 2 months, and I remember thinking it's Incas, and then there's people before them, and the Spanish after them.

The Incas are around the time of War of Roses and Tudors, and was bigger than the British empire. England is 2 million people, and Incan empire is 14 million. 

There's no writing, just Spanish settlers who encounter them. As Sheldon Cooper points out the first computer might have been a Quipu.

I'm always amazed that in a way it's fairly recently that humans figured out you couldn't marry your sister.

They have a cult about the sun, they worship Inti! (For me as a Buddhist, that's Vairocana.) 

Manco Cápac was the first king and mythical founder, ruling 1200-1230.

The end begins when Francisco Pizarro starts visiting from Spain. In 1532 they find a civil war going on. There a Spanish-Inca war in the Battle of Puna near Guayaquil, which I've been to, in 1532. 1572 is the absolute end, where they kill the last ruler. Seems like disease killed off a lot of the empire, as the diseases from Europe

Machu Picchu has been visited by my friends and family. Hiram Bingham made it famous in 1911, and he's one of the people who the composite of Indiana Jones is made from. It's called Huayna Picchu then.

Indeed my mother sent these photos when I asked my mother to reminisce. (First one has their guide.):