How civilized were Inca?

Answer 1

The Inca (or Inka) civilization began as a tribe in theCuzco area, where the legendary first Sapa Inca, Manco Capac founded the Kingdom of Cuzco around 1200.Discussing the level of civilization in a people, Kingdom or place is very difficult due to the inherent difficulties involved in defining and measuring "civilization". For example, does one judge a society's relative civilization in comparison with it's own past, with contemporary civilizations or with the current world? I believe that Civilization should be a measure of improvements in organisation and living standards from the past, and relative to other societies in the time period.

The Incas had a very advanced society with an complex system of government, a detailed social structure, high levels of organisation and knowledge of engineering techniques. They were capable of building large, impressive structures and cities in very difficult geographic settings, such as the hidden mountain fortress of Machu Picchu. They developed an intricate system of recording and communication represented in a Quipu, a set of multicoloured and knotted strings. The knowledge of how to read these has since been lost. These are elements that would imply that the Incas were a very civilized society.

On the other hand, the Incas were violent and bloodthirsty people, although not as much so as the more famous Aztec Empire. They were very superstitious and highly religious, but so was every other state during this period. They had no comprehension of modern science or mathematics - does this make them uncivilized? I do not believe so. They used slavery, mainly of war prisoners, but this too was not unusual.

Consequently, I believe that the Incan empire can be classified as a very civilized society, in view of their achievements, abilities and organisation. This is of course just a personal opinion, however, because the level of civilization any society possesses is determined by the interpretation and definition of civilization each person applies.