Cusco and the Inca Road: Life at the Center of Tawantinsuyu, 1438-1532 | Calm Bedtime History

The Sapa Inka Pachacútec Yupanqui has just died after thirty-three years of rule, and his body lies in state in the Coricancha, the temple whose interior walls are lined with beaten gold. The city of Cusco sits at 3,416 meters in the Andean highlands, the administrative, political and military center of an empire that now stretches across 950,000 square kilometers. From here, four roads lead outward to the four suyu, the quarters of the world. Relay runners carry news of the king's death along stone-paved highways that reach from Quito to Santiago, from the Pacific coast to the Amazon basin. It is the height of Tawantinsuyu, the empire of the four parts, and the machinery of its daily life continues without pause.