What kind of houses did incas live in

The most common shape in Inca architecture was the rectangular building without any internal walls and roofed with wooden beams and thatch. There were several variations of this basic design, including gabled roofs, rooms with one or two of the long sides opened, and rooms that shared a long wall. Rectangular buildings were used for quite different functions in almost all Inca buildings, from humble houses to palaces and temples.

Even so, there are some examples of curved walls on Inca buildings, mostly in regions outside the central area of the empire. Two-story buildings were infrequent; when they were built, the second floor was accessed from the outside via a stairway or high terrain rather than from the first floor.

Wall apertures—including doors, niches, and windows—usually had a trapezoidal shape; they could be fitted with double or triple jambs as a form of ornamentation. Other kinds of decoration were scarce; some walls were painted or adorned with metal plaques, and in rare cases walls were sculpted with small animals or geometric patterns. The most common composite form in Inca architecture was the kancha, a rectangular enclosure housing three or more rectangular buildings placed symmetrically around a central courtyard.

Kancha units served widely different purposes as they formed the basis of simple dwellings as well as of temples and palaces; furthermore, several kancha could be grouped together to form blocks in Inca settlements.

A testimony of the importance of these compounds in Inca architecture is that the central part of the Inca capital of Cusco consisted of large kancha, including Qurikancha and the Inca palaces.

The best preserved examples of kancha are found at Ollantaytambo, an Inca settlement located along the Urubamba River. Machu Picchu is a 15th century Inca citadel situated on a mountain ridge 7, feet above sea level. It is located in the Cusco region above the Sacred Valley, which is 50 miles northwest of Cuzco.

Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti — The Incas built the estate around but abandoned it a century later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Although known locally, it was not known to the Spanish during the colonial period and remained unknown to the outside world until American historian Hiram Bingham brought it to international attention in Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls.

Most of the outlying buildings have been reconstructed in order to give tourists a better idea of how they originally appeared. The site is roughly divided into an urban sector and an agricultural sector, and into an upper town and a lower town. The temples are in the upper town, while the warehouses are in the lower. The architecture is adapted to the mountains: approximately buildings are arranged on wide parallel terraces around an east-west central square, and the various compounds are long and narrow in order to exploit the terrain.

Sophisticated channeling systems provided irrigation for the fields. Stone stairways set in the walls allowed access to the different levels across the site. The eastern section of the city is thought to have been residential, and the western section, separated by the square, is believed to have been for religious and ceremonial purposes.

Machu Picchu : Machu Picchu is a 15th century Inca citadel situated on a mountain ridge 7, feet above sea level. After the conquest and the destruction of the city of Cusco, the Spanish built new structures over much of the Inca architecture. Some of the most noteworthy architectural sights in Cusco include the following:. Textiles were sometimes adorned with feathers, gold, or silver plates.

Colored dyes were created from plants containing tannin, mole, or walnut; these dyes also came from animals like the cochineal and minerals like clay, ferruginosa, and mordant aluminum.

The people also used varieties of cotton that grew naturally in seven different colors. Textiles were widely prized within the Inca empire—in part because they were somewhat easily transported—and were widely manufactured for tax collection and trade purposes. Cloth and textiles were divided among the classes in the Inca empire. Awaska was used for common clothing and traditional household use and was usually made from llama wool. The finest textiles were reserved for the rulers as markers of their status.

For example, Inca officials wore stylized tunics decorated with certain motifs, and soldiers of the Inca army had specific uniforms. They were all built in the Andes on flat plateaus. Their temples, however, were built on circular mounds made by the Inca, sort of like a slanted cylinder. At the top, there was a plateau. On this plateau, the main buildings were built. A strange thing about the Inca was that they didn't use any iron tools to help them cut and shape the stone for their houses.

Instead, they used round balls of stone to pound out blocks of stone for their buildings. The blocks of stone were not usually rectangles, but were very strange looking shapes that fit together much like the pieces of a puzzle. Many of the stone walls the Inca built are still so strong and well made that it is impossible to slide the blade of a knife between the stones.

The Inca ate potatoes and corn. They drank llama milk and water and ate llamas and alpaca for their daily protein because they didn't have pigs, cows, sheep or turkeys. They built rest houses called tampus about every 12 to 20 miles along the roads. In addition to providing a place to rest, most tampus also had food available. One of the most important aspects of the Inca daily life was the ayllu. The ayllu was a group of families that worked a portion of land together.

They shared most of their belongings with each other just like a larger family. Once a person was born into an ayllu, they remained part of that ayllu their entire life. Four or more of these buildings were built around a central plaza forming a kancha, several kancha would make blocks. Many cities in Peru are built around this layout. In the heart of Cusco in a plaza called Huacapata the most important religious building, Coricancha or Temple of the Sun, was built.

The Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations ate simple food. Corn maize was the central food in their diet, along with vegetables such as beans and squash. Potatoes and a tiny grain called quinoa were commonly grown by the Incas. Construction Process Some were chiseled from the granite bedrock of the mountain ridge. Built without the use of wheels, hundreds of men pushed the heavy rocks up the steep mountain side.

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