-THE INCAS-
Written by: David Efrati and Michael Aframian
Class: 10th
Teacher's name: Judy
Date: 27.02.06
Table of contents:
Subject: / Page number/s:Introduction. / 3
Chapter 1 – The history of the Inca. / 4
Chapter 2 – The everyday life of the Incan people. / 5-6
Conclusion. / 7
Reflection – David. / 8
Reflection – Michael. / 9
Bibliography. / 10
Appendix A – Photocopied sources. / 11
Appendix B –Drafts. / 12
Appendix C – Documents. / 13
Introduction:
In this project we are researching about the Mayan culture - its history, its civilization, its everyday life and the cause of its people disappearance.
In chapter 1 we write about the history of the Incan empire, the civilization, mythology, the citizens and its culture.
In chapter 2 we get more specific about how the people lived and what they have done in their everyday lives.
The Inca was an ancient civilization based in west-south America. The Inca's culture is also known as the Maya. Mayan citizens believed in their own gods and performed many kinds of religious rituals. The Incan people had many occupations such as art, hunting, barters, agriculture, politics and their own fashion. Their empire was also knownfor its high population counting about 6 million people. The Mayan culture fell as its people started to rebel and consequentlyledto the fall of the kingdom.
Our research question is: How did the development process of the Incanempire caused to its fall in the end?
Chapter 1 – The history of the Inca:
The Incas - an ancient civilization that its empire spread across Central America; also Known as the Mayan culture. By the time the Mayan empire reached its peak and glory, it controlled a huge territory of more then 5000 Km, in addition to its 2,000,000 citizens population. The empire was based in the lands we call these days Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Northern Chile and Argentina. The spoken language of the Inca was Quechua.
The Inca's mythology tells us about the rising of the empire. It says that the sun god had noticed that chaos was ruling the earth. Then the sun god decided to send his two children into the world in order to bring prosperity and order. The god's two children were the two first rulers of the empire.
The two rulers of the empire started building what we know today as the biggest empire ever seen in the American continent. It was called the Inca or the Mayan empire and it grew bigger and more sophisticated through time and periods. This huge development of the Mayan empire couldn't reach this scale without the intellect of the Mayans, which they were famous for. The Mayans developed their own way of living, already on the fifth century B.C. The classic period brought with it many innovations in arts. Many great cities were built in the classic period therefore the culture kept growing and developing. In the 9th century all the citizens left the great cities. The reasons however were left as a mystery until these days.
The beginning of the 1500's brought with it the Spanish conquerors. Since the Mayans left the big cities their culture started collapsing and now that the Spanish conquerors came, most of the cities that still existed will be destroyed, along with the Mayan books and literature.
Chapter 2 – The everyday life of the Incan people:
The Incan people lived in their everyday life in villages as every family had its own house, which included no furniture and the house members slept on the floor. Childhood was pretty hard for the children in comparison to today's life- little babies were washed with cold water after their birth, they spent time inside a pit in the ground which functioned as a crib and learned to walk by their own. When the children passed a ceremony which announced that they are already men, they got a special representative cover to their hips' area and started to help with house works. Two main languages were spoken by the Incan citizens – the "Quechua" and the "Aymara", which were chosen to advertise the Christianity around the Incan lands (The Mayan culture was founded to unite a number of nations who spoke about 700 different languages).
Money had many meanings around the Inca kingdom. The people had many occupations and works, such as painting, fishing, agriculture, gold digging, farming, hunting, and bartering – which was the acceptable way of trading at those days. Agriculture was very developed among the agriculturists – the Incan people raised about 240 types of potatoes and 20 types of corns. Lots of gold and silver mines were found around the Incan lands and the citizens utilized it by digging gold and paying to their workers with it. Hunting was the regular way of getting food – the Incas had a special way of hunting lions and pumas by surrounding the animal with a number of hunters using barrels and arrows to attack it. A successful medical implementation the people have made was simple skull surgeries.
Art was a major issue related to the Incan empire. The residents used to work a lot with arts as a use for cults and daily usage. Incan artwork included pottery, wood, cloths and even geometric or animal shaped metals. In addition to the material, the Incan people also had many kinds of arts like ceramics, textile, paintings, feather art and more. Music was involved in some religion ceremonies of the Incan people. In addition to wind instruments such as flutes, trumpets and silver bells they played percussion instruments like drums.
The Inca kingdom had many strong religion believers. They made sacrifices in many special days like holidays, war days, the remembrance of the sun day, and so on. Holidays helped to unify the believers and the residents as they prepared all the ceremonies together.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, the Mayan empire surly is, with no doubts, one of the most fascinating and amazing empires ever to exist. The wise and powerful Incan who formed the Mayan culture were the reason for the empire's long existence. The Mayan culture was the first to form an organized government, education institutions and society formation. In other words – the Mayan culture is the base for all modern cultures.
How did the development process of the Inca Empire caused to its fall in the end? We could not find an answer for this question. It seems like the mystery surrounding the people's reason to leave the big cities, an action that will eventually bring devastation on the empire, is left unclear until these days.
We can't answer our research question since no one exactly knows the reason for the Mayan's motive to leave the big cities which caused to the Incan empire's fall in the end.
Reflection – David:
This project was a great enjoyment for me, since I find the Mayan culture very fascinating. In addition to the great fun I had while I was researching and learning about the Inca, this work also gave me a new perspective about today's cultures. Furthermore, I enjoyed the new working system in this project, which is much more professional compared to old projects I have done.
I think that the research I have made about the Inca enriched my knowledge. I find it amazing to discover that such an old culture achieved so much, so long ago. It taught me that the Inca was the most developing culture comparing to its time.
I think the group work in this project was very demanding because of the project's scale and its material division. In order to manage this work properly I had to keep in touch with my group members. I found it hard, since there was a problem of distance between me and my group members. This fact made things harder, but I managed staying in touch through the net.
Although I already made few researches before, I think this was the only research I actually enjoyed. The demanding work, scale of the project, amount of material, group work and fascinating subject made this project unforgettable.
Reflection – Michael:
I had a wonderful time doing this project. I never knew about the existence of neither the Incan empire northe Mayan culture, andthis work made me learn a lot about them. Researching the subject with many sources was interesting to me since I never met English encyclopedias and history related information Internet websites before. After I've learnt a lot of new things about the Incas I can finally tell that I really enjoyed researching and reading fascinating information about them.
The social part of the work was fun. The group had about 2-3 meetings in class, and a single one at home. We had a lot of fun researching together with many sorts of different sources. Most of the group work wasthroughthe internet as me and my group mate helped one another and corrected some mistakes and misunderstandings. It was funny since we've noticed some odd words we wrote without paying attention.
I can summarize and say that this work was very helpful for my English because I met many words that I've never seen before. This project made me use the dictionary more than I did before and improve my writing quality as I got many advices and corrections from my partner.
Bibliography:
2006. 'Inca.' (accessed on Jan., 2006:1).
'Andean technology.' (accessed on Jan., 2006:1-15).
'Inca: architecture and ritual.' (accessed on Jan. 2006:1).
The world book encyclopedia., 1961. 258. Field enterprises educational corporation, U.S.A.
Yedioth Ahronoth. Vol I: 180. Yavne. Ltd., Israel.
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