The Inca Empire, called Tawantinsuyu by its subjects, was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilization rose from the Peruvian highlands sometime in the early 13th century. The Spanish began the conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 and by 1572, the last Inca state was fully conquered.
Manco Cápac, First Inca, 1 of 14 Portraits of Inca Kings, Probably mid-18th century. Oil on canvas. Brooklyn Museum
An Inca prince accompanied by nobles, priests and warriors
The first image of the Inca in Europe, Pedro Cieza de León, Crónica del Perú, 1553
Sapa inkakuna, a 17th-century Cusco painting with the Inca lineages mentioned by colonial chronicles and their relationship with the royal queens of Cusco, which hide behind a complex representation of the Inca social organization.
Quechua, also called Runasimi in Southern Quechua, is an indigenous language family that originated in central Peru and thereafter spread to other countries of the Andes. Derived from a common ancestral "Proto-Quechua" language, it is today the most widely spoken pre-Columbian language family of the Americas, with the number of speakers estimated at 8–10 million speakers in 2004, and just under 7 million from the most recent census data available up to 2011. Approximately 13.9% of Peruvians speak a Quechua language.
The vocabulary of the general language of the Indians of Peru, called Quichua (1560). From Domingo de Santo Tomás the first writer in Quechua.
Act of Argentine Independence, written in Spanish and Quechua (1816)
