Divine Kingship and Bureaucracy

Gary outlines the Sapa Inca's divine legitimacy and the labor-based bureaucracy that administered the state.

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Episode notes

The Inca Empire was the largest and most sophisticated state ever created in the pre-Columbian Americas, stretching along the Andes from present-day southern Colombia to central Chile and Argentina by the early 16th century.

What makes it historically significant is that the Inca managed to build and administer this enormous realm without many technologies that Eurasian civilizations relied on, such as iron tools, wheels, draft animals, or a conventional writing system.

As great as its accomplishments were, its fall at the hands of the Spanish was just as dramatic and sudden.

Learn more about the Incan Empire on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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