Original subtitles

[Narrator] The Incas,

an extraordinary civilization.

The Incas left behind monumental and intricate traces

of their genius.

But the story of these great people

from their epic rise to sudden fall

remains shrouded in mystery.

[Expert 1, dubbed] The fall of the Inca Empire

is a brutal collapse that is surprising and unexpected.

[Narrator] What traces of the Spanish conquest

are still visible in Peru today?

[Expert 2, dubbed] And just as he falls, like that,

he's looking up at the sky,

and a projectile pierces his skull.

[Expert 3, dubbed] The Andean population fell

from 10 million to 1 to 1.5 million.

It was a huge massacre.

[Narrator] Thanks to scientific advances

and ultra-realistic, computer-generated images,

we’re going to bring this lost civilization back to life.

[Expert 1] Advances in archaeology have truly

revolutionized our understanding of Inca history.

[Narrator] This is the extraordinary story

of the fall of the Empire of the Sun.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

At the start of the 16th century,

the Inca Empire was at its height.

A powerful administration run by Emperor Huayna Cápac.

This all-powerful emperor governed

his 12 million subjects with formidable efficiency,

utilizing a system of compulsory labor.

The capital, Cusco, was a dynamic and prosperous city

organized around palaces, a large plaza,

and its Coricancha temple.

Here the wealth of the empire amassed.

Wild landscapes were tamed by colossal stone walls.

Natural resources were exploited

and countless llama farms, agricultural terraces,

and intelligent irrigation systems

allowed food to grow in abundance.

But just 30 years later, in a matter of months,

the entire empire collapsed.

[Nino del Solar Velarde, dubbed] It's impressive the Inca Empire

collapsed or disappeared in such a short time.

[Narrator] To understand this sudden fall,

we need to look at the legacy of the last great Inca emperor.

In the first part of the 16th century

before the arrival of the conquistadors,

Huayna Cápac reigned ruthlessly,

expanding his territory,

and imposing an authoritarian regime on his people.

Local rebellions were suppressed

with extreme violence and even cruelty.

This reign of terror,

which marked the last decades of the empire,

would culminate in the biggest crisis

the Incas had ever faced.

[César Itier, dubbed] The Spanish arrived at a time

of widespread internal conflict,

without which they probably wouldn't have gained

a foothold in the country.

Perhaps if they'd arrived 10 years later or 20 years earlier,

the conquest wouldn't have taken place

or would have taken place much later.

Who knows?

[Narrator] For it to be such an opportune moment

for the Spanish, there must have been a major conflict

agitating the empire.

[Itier] The Spanish arrived in Peru at a time

when a very, very serious succession crisis had erupted.

[Narrator] When the previous

emperor died,

he left many sons,

two of which,

Huáscar and Atahualpa,

were at war with each other

in a fight for power.

[Itier] Every time a king dies,

the question of succession arises.

Because in this system, there is no right of succession

that goes directly to the eldest.

All the Inca sons are capable of taking power,

provided they can demonstrate their capacity as warriors,

their strategic and political capacity,

and their ability to retain power.

[Guillermo Cock Carrasco, dubbed] And the war between

Huáscar and Atahualpa was not a war between two brothers,

it was a war between two positions

that had different visions and policies

on how to run the empire.

[Narrator] The fraternal war took on the appearance

of a civil war.

Each brother had fighters who were at war

in different parts of the country.

In 1532, the tensions reached a peak.

Atahualpa took the throne

from his brother.

[Itier] Atahualpa had known about the Spanish

for several years.

The first Spanish voyage to Peru was in 1527.

There was a second, and it wasn't until the third voyage

in 1532 that the conquest took place.

Peruvians knew they existed, but they didn't know exactly

where they came from or what they wanted.

[Narrator] What they wanted was revealed a few months later

in Cajamarca,

a small mountain town in northern Peru,

where the Incas faced one of the most crucial confrontations

in human history.

[Sandra Cerna Merino, dubbed] The Plaza de Armas,

which has existed for several centuries,

witnessed one of the most important events

in Peruvian, American, and even world history.

[Narrator] In this square, in the autumn of 1532,

came the unlikely meeting of two worlds.

On one side, Pizarro,

the leader of 200 Spanish conquistadors.

On the other, Emperor Atahualpa,

accompanied by thousands of nobles in traditional dress.

A clash between an emissary of Christianized Europe

hungry for conquest and gold,

and an Inca chief perceived as a demigod of the Andean people.

[Itier] This was the pivotal moment

in the European colonization of South America.

[Narrator] When Pizarro's army summoned the Inca emperor

to meet him, Atahualpa did not know what to expect.

It had been five years

since the small group of conquistadors

had disembarked in the Andes,

and began pillaging the populations in search of gold.

He was relaxing in the hot baths outside the city

when the invitation arrived,

and he was intrigued.

[Itier] Atahualpa was curious,

but he was aware of the acts of violence

committed by the Spanish against Inca officials

and the local population.

His idea was probably to impress them, to scare them,

and then perhaps massacre them to get rid of them.

[Narrator] A meeting was scheduled

for the following morning, in this square in Cajamarca.

[José Bello Espinoza, dubbed] When Pizarro arrived,

he didn’t find many people in Cajamarca.

[Itier] The city, like other administrative centers,

was almost empty for most of the year.

There were only a few civil servants

who worked there all the time.

[Espinoza] The Incas are intrigued by these visitors.

They're tall, white and bearded,

and they’re curious to know who they are.

[Merino] The Inca emperor shows up without a soldier,

without his general, but he is accompanied by a whole entourage

of dancers amid flowers, feathers.

[Espinoza] When Atahualpa arrived, with all his people,

all his entourage,

he saw there weren’t many people in the square.

In fact, the Spanish were hiding.

[Merino] A few were waiting for him in the square,

but most were hidden with their cannons.

[Narrator] The Incas were caught off guard.

[Espinoza] Atahualpa thought he could easily overwhelm them.

But what he didn't realize was that they were there

with a very specific intention,

with their advanced technology, firearms and animals,

which were also used as weapons.

[Narrator] The stalemate took a turn

when the priest accompanying the conquistadors

handed a bible to the Inca emperor.

[Merino] Let's not forget that the Inca couldn't read

and didn’t know what writing was, let alone books.

[Itier] Atahualpa took it, glanced at it quickly,

and returned it with contempt,

perhaps throwing it to the ground.

[Merino] And that, for the Spanish, is heresy!

In the name of the church, the kings, and the conquest,

everyone comes out of hiding and an ambush breaks out

against the Inca and everyone around him.

[Espinoza] The population was frightened

and started running in panic.

[Narrator] The ambush turned into a massacre;

a bloodbath that killed thousands of Inca.

On the Spanish side,

the conquistadors didn’t lose a single man.

But the historic takeaway of the battle is how it ended,

with the capture of the emperor of the Sons of the Sun.

[speaking Spanish]

[Espinoza] This is a crucial moment for the empire,

because Atahualpa is the Son of the Sun,

and so is one of the gods.

He is the representation of God on Earth.

If God falls, no one will be able to protect the people.

So, the very moment he's captured,

the Incas are already witnessing the fall of their empire.

[Narrator] It’s a spectacular reversal of power.

[Narrator] A few hundred meters from the square,

researchers and the local municipality

are carrying out excavations

at an intriguing site buried beneath modern buildings.

[Merino] When the Spanish captured Atahualpa,

this is where they kept him prisoner.

[Narrator] During Inca time,

this place was part of a large structure

that is still hiding secrets to this day.

[Espinoza] We want to know if this is part of a larger

building, like a house or a religious structure.

Why was this space originally built?

What function did it have within the Inca Empire?

And why was it chosen as a place of detention?

[Narrator] Although he was held as a prisoner,

the emperor was permitted to move around the building.

[Merino] During this period,

he learnt to live with the Spanish.

He also retained some power,

because he wore his ceremonial clothes

and kept his wives in this captive space.

He also learned to play chess,

and thought of a thousand ways to buy his freedom.

[Narrator] It's in this small rectangular room,

preserved for 500 years, where one of the most romantic tales

of the fall of the Inca Empire takes place.

At the emperor's request,

the room is filled with gold and silver

flowing in from across the land;

a treasure intended to be the ransom for his release.

[Merino] Atahualpa realizes the greed of the Spanish

and knows that the only way to obtain his freedom

is to pay for it with what they worship: gold and silver.

For the Incas, gold has a special meaning,

it has a sacred significance,

whereas for the Spanish, it has a monetary value.

[Narrator] In this room, known as the Ransom Room,

a trace remains of this transaction.

[Espinoza] The emperor raised his hand and indicated

that the proposed reward for his release

would go as high as that,

and you can see that mark on the wall.

[Narrator] The treasures offered by the emperor

would have reached the height of this mark.

But his release would never happen.

In spite of the deal made with the Spanish,

Atahualpa was executed,

having accepted a conversion to Christianity

to avoid being burnt at the stake.

[Itier] After Atahualpa's execution,

the Spanish quickly left Cajamarca,

because Atahualpa’s armies were threatening them nearby.

They left for Cusco.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] How did the Spanish travel so easily?

Why weren't they slowed down by the Inca defense lines

built across the empire?

♪ ♪

In the Atacama Desert,

200 meters down

in the heart of the gorge,

lies a defensive site of the Sons of the Sun.

But the ruins appear as a residential structure

rather than a military one.

[Marcela Sepulveda, dubbed] It's a large village that was built

on a strategic high point.

On the one hand, it is naturally protected by the river canyon,

and on the other, it has a defensive wall

that protects and closes off the site.

[Narrator] These kinds of sites, called Pukara, were designed

to counter rebellions from local communities.

They served primarily as a refuge

for threatened populations.

Far from imagining they would one day be at the mercy

of armed combatants, the Inca's military defense strategy

fell a long way short of Europe’s at the time.

[Sepulveda] And so it's not a fortified site

like you might imagine a medieval fortress to be,

for example.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] These fortified villages gave the Incas

no chance against Pizarro and his army

who easily bypassed them.

The Sons of the Sun had neither the tactics

nor the infrastructure to halt the rapid advance

of the Spanish on horseback.

But even in the face of a non-existent defense strategy,

how could 200 Spanish warriors win

against an army of tens of thousands of Inca soldiers?

A strength of the Empire of the Sun

was its impressive army.

[Itier] Among the services conquered peoples owed

the Inca state was military service.

It could last 10 years or more.

And so, each small local community

would provide the Inca army with people

that would make it grow in a very, very significant way.

[Narrator] The Incas' army was large,

but with only rudimentary equipment.

For weapons, the Inca used slingshots,

arrows, and large axes.

No match for the Spanish arms.

[speaking Spanish]

[Alex Usca Baca, dubbed] The Spanish arrived

with a great mastery of weapons.

They had horses and long guns with them.

A whole military strategy.

[Itier] They had weapons that would play a crucial role

in battles with Indigenous troops and armies.

[Baca] And the local people knew nothing about it.

[Narrator] The Spanish have a strategic

and military advantage, but that’s not all.

They also benefited from strong divisions within the empire.

Some local communities that were conquered by the Incas

rebelled and joined the conquistadors.

[Baca] Many ethnic groups saw the Spanish as saviors.

[speaking French]

[Sepulveda] The local populations,

who were subjected to control by the Incas,

to paying tributes and to being displaced,

sometimes thousands of kilometers,

also chose to stop supporting the Inca in some places,

because the Inca regime was too much to bear.

[Baca] This internal struggle

was an opportunity for the Spanish.

They took advantage of the social unrest

to conquer the Inca state as quickly as possible.

[Narrator] It was in this period of collapse in November 1533

that the Spanish reached the imperial capital of Cusco.

♪ ♪

They were stunned.

[Baca] When the Spanish arrived in the city of Cusco,

they were not only impressed by the Inca architecture,

they were also amazed by the roads

that exist in the Cusco valley.

[Itier] The Spanish were impressed

by the Inca Empire’s prosperity.

On the one hand, by the Incas' concentrated population

in order to intensify agriculture,

build agricultural terraces and irrigation canals,

and on the other hand,

because something that impressed the Spanish greatly

amassed in Cusco-- gold and silver,

the precious metals that were almost a monopoly of the Incas

and the capital, where there were temples full of goblets,

gold statues, and all kinds of golden objects.

[Narrator] The Coricancha temple with its statues

and gold ornaments was quickly desecrated

and stripped by the Spanish.

But a new turning point was brewing elsewhere.

In 1533, the conquistadors placed an Inca

as the new head of the empire,

Manco Cápac II.

He was the half-brother

of Huáscar and Atahualpa,

both now deceased.

But he was not

a natural born leader.

[Baca] Manco Cápac II was used by the Spanish

as a puppet Inca emperor.

That way, once he was appointed,

the Indigenous people had to obey him.

But this was a Spanish strategy.

[Itier] It wasn't until the middle of 1534 that the Incas

understood that the Spanish hadn't just come for gold,

but they’d come to stay.

[Baca] Manco Cápac II realizes that he is being used

by the Spanish.

And he decides to revolt against them.

[Alexei Vranich] So one day, he was able to escape on a ruse.

[Narrator] In 1536, Manco Cápac II freed himself

from the Spanish.

[Vranich] And he raised a huge army.

[Narrator] He gathered more than 30,000 men

who occupied the Cusco hills and the site of Sacsayhuaman,

the most imposing Inca site with its big zig-zagging walls.

A recent 3D reconstruction of Sacsayhuaman

shows a large rectangular building, likely to be housing,

next to another with much smaller rooms,

probably for weapons storage.

[Vranich] Took over Sacsayhuaman,

fortified it, and put the entire city under siege.

[Narrator] The siege of Cusco began.

[Baca] They encircled the whole city

and the whole valley of Cusco.

And they start burning all the buildings, all of the houses.

[Vranich] And all the Spanish were down in the city.

[Baca] And that's why in 1536, totally frightened,

the Spanish thought they were going to be defeated.

[Narrator] Despite its symbol of power and impressive size,

Sacsayhuaman was not suitable for combat.

♪ ♪

In 1537, the siege

created by Manco Cápac II

to fight back against

the Spanish failed.

After a year of fighting,

Cusco was handed over to the Spanish.

[Itier] The siege of Cusco failed

because it lasted too long.

And these Inca warriors were basically farmers

who had to return to their productive activities.

They had a family to feed,

and they gradually abandoned the siege, which was lifted in 1537.

[Narrator] The Incas didn't have the best fighters

to defend the city of Cusco.

But this wasn't the only factor

that led to the empire’s abrupt fall.

On the outskirts of Peru's capital, Lima,

the hills of this town are home to an archaeological treasure.

In the year 2000,

thousands of mummies were unearthed for study.

Guillermo Cock is the archaeologist who led

the excavations, which revealed a crucial piece of information

about the Spanish conquest that had long been overlooked.

[Carrasco] This cemetery surprised us,

because it was intact.

[Narrator] These bones belong to Inca warriors

who died battling conquistadors for the city of Lima in 1536.

[speaking Spanish]

[Carrasco] We can see from this sample that most of these bones

have fractures caused by masses of stone.

More than three quarters, probably 80% of the skeletons,

have injuries caused by local weapons, not European weapons.

[Narrator] Forensic examinations have determined that there were

very few injuries caused by sharp weapons or guns.

Most were caused by blows from stone clubs,

which are weapons used by the people of the Andes.

[Carrasco] This is how we came to the conclusion

that the conquest was not the Spanish

against Indigenous populations.

It was the Spanish with Indigenous people

against other Indigenous people.

[Baca] Although 200 Spanish initially succeeded

in conquering a large number of Indigenous people,

these 200 Spanish were soon joined

by other Indigenous peoples

who were in total disagreement with the Inca state.

[Narrator] Pizarro, the leader of the conquistadors,

didn't just rally Indigenous people to his cause,

he made them fight for him.

The myth of the Spanish, who managed to bring down an empire

with 200 men, is beginning to crumble.

During battles, when the Incas faced the Spanish warriors

and their European weapons, they were helpless.

[Carrasco] There was a surprise factor, obviously,

because certain weapons were unknown

to the local populations.

They didn't know that a sword could cut off a leg or an arm

with a single blow.

That didn't exist, any more than there was a projectile

capable of blowing someone’s head off.

[Narrator] Yet this is what happened to this warrior.

[Carrasco] This individual dies in a doubly tragic way.

The mandible is broken into pieces,

both the upper and lower jaw.

Our reconstruction tells us that this person received

a blow to the face and probably died as a result.

[speaking Spanish]

And just as he falls, like that,

he's looking up at the sky,

and a projectile pierces his skull.

We should have found the projectile inside.

[Narrator] Surprisingly, the bullet was not found,

although the skull has no exit wound.

The explanation is worth its weight in gold.

[Carrasco] The likely explanation

is that the projectile was recovered.

They extracted the bullet.

But why?

Because in 1536, there was more gold than iron.

Iron was extremely scarce.

[Narrator] When the conquistadors arrived,

the Inca were not only killed by bullets.

Another deadly scourge hit the population.

[Carrasco] The conquest led to a demographic collapse,

a rapid decline in the population.

It reduces from 65%, 70%

to 85%, 90%

over a period of 40 years.

The Europeans do not have the military or numerical capacity.

They don't have enough soldiers

to wipe out local populations in this way.

So how can this be explained?

[Narrator] In addition to weapons,

the conquistadors brought viruses from Europe,

which decimated the Inca populations.

[Itier] The Indigenous Americans,

isolated from the rest of the world,

hadn't developed a defense against diseases

such as measles, smallpox and many others

that the Spanish unintentionally introduced

with devastating effects.

[Sepulveda] Quickly, the Andean population dropped

from 10 million to 1 to 1.5 million.

It was a huge massacre.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Despite a dwindling population

due to war and disease, the Inca resistance continued.

In 1537, after the failed siege of Cusco,

Manco Cápac II did not give up.

He headed to Ollantaytambo,

a city 60 kilometers northwest of Cusco.

[Vranich] When Manco came down here not only to prepare this

as a fortress, but he took advantage

of all the agricultural terracing

that had been created here by the Inca.

This was an ideal place to settle down

and to transform this into the new headquarters

for his army and for all his followers.

[Narrator] These fortresses allow us to unravel

the mysteries of Inca construction,

with their perfect assembly of giant monolithic blocks.

[Vranich] I think Ollantaytambo is probably one of the more

megalithic sites that you can find in the Andes.

And here they ended up using a lot of polygonal forms,

but also some other forms that are a little bit more geometric.

[Narrator] These walls, like those in Sacsayhuaman or Cusco,

captivate visitors.

Some have even proposed bizarre theories,

such as alien involvement,

to explain how a civilization without wheels or metal tools

could have constructed them.

The first mystery is transportation.

These stones come from a quarry several kilometers from here,

on the other side of a river.

[Vranich] When it gets to the river,

we don’t know how they got them across the river.

All the way from the quarry,

they were dragged up to this location.

We have specially prepared ropes that they could have dragged

these stones down using ropes, a lot of people, and so on.

[Narrator] As well as ropes, wooden logs could have

been used to drag the stone blocks over.

But above all, the task would require power.

Up to 20,000 laborers would have been needed.

Once the stones arrived, how could the blocks

have been so precisely carved without iron tools?

♪ ♪

[Vranich] The Inca were incredible stonemasons,

and they used stones of different sizes

to reduce these blocks.

You can see that here it was used with large hammer stones

to reduce it.

Smaller here, more accurate.

But what's special here at Ollantaytambo

is the precision of the joints.

Right here. The smoothness is, is unique.

[Narrator] These joints, which are assembled

with millimeter precision, still amaze today.

How would this be technically possible for the Inca?

[Vranich] There were mentions, both by chroniclers

and later people, of the Inca using some type of mortar

that would have been used to grind down,

some sort of fine sand,

perhaps mixed with some other organic materials.

Some claim that this mortar

would have disappeared afterwards.

This has been almost the stuff of legend,

but more recent studies are looking to see if, in fact,

certain types of mortars

and certain types of organic materials can soften slightly

the surface of the stone to allow this type of polish.

[Narrator] The abrasive nature of the mortar would allow

the stones to fit together like jigsaw pieces.

Despite their ingenuity, the walls of Ollantaytambo

wouldn’t be enough to keep the fighting Sons of the Sun safe.

[Narrator] In 1537, after months of siege,

Manco Cápac II,

the last Inca chief,

was once again forced to flee

in the face of Spanish attacks.

[Baca] After his defeat,

Manco Cápac II had no choice

but to take refuge

in the Vilcabamba jungle.

[Narrator] In the jungle, Manco Cápac II

is joined by the Inca elites

who are resisting the Spanish colonizers,

including those who occupied

the majestic site of Machu Picchu.

[Dominika Sieczkowska] Thanks to radiocarbon dating,

we will be able to establish that possibly the site

was abandoned after the Spanish arrived to, to this zone

and the people moved somewhere else.

[Narrator] The mountaintop city, perched 2,430 meters high,

had avoided the attacks that shook Peru during the conquest.

Built by the great-grandfather of Manco Cápac II,

the megalithic treasure of the Andes

was not designed as a military site.

For a century, it served as a second home for the Inca elite,

an agricultural site,

an astronomical observatory, and a sanctuary.

Perhaps the Spanish never knew of its existence.

[Alicia Fernández Flórez] Fortunately, the topography

of the area prevented them from reaching Machu Picchu

and subjecting it to the same fate as Cusco,

where the layout was completely different.

[Narrator] At the start of the conquest,

the Spanish came in search of a mythical city

of gold and riches.

[Denise Pozzi-Escot, dubbed] It is said that the Spanish arrived

in search of El Dorado, but once they arrived in America,

they discovered that not all the gold they dreamed of

existed there.

[Narrator] The conquistadors mainly found gold in mines.

Beyond Cusco, there was no other city

where gold and wealth were ostentatiously displayed.

In 1533, when the Spanish arrived in Pachácamac,

they set about searching for treasures.

[Pozzi-Escot] They stay here for six months looting the site,

which is why it’s full of holes.

They're destroying the temples in search of gold

that didn’t exist in the quantities they were hoping for.

[Narrator] And here, the Spanish didn't just loot

material goods.

In 2016, archaeologist Rocio Villar Astigueta

discovered the scars of the abuses of the conquistadors,

etched into the ground.

[Rocio Villar Astigueta, dubbed] On the surface of the ground,

we can see an accumulation of ash and burnt earth.

There are even fragments of coal.

[Narrator] These are the organic remains of a fire

that burnt 500 years ago.

[Astigueta] The red earth tells us where the fires occurred.

It’s the clay that, when burnt, takes on this reddish color.

So the ashes tell us about the nature of the materials

that were burnt.

[Narrator] As archaeologists excavated the zone

around the fire, they made an astonishing discovery--

thousands of human bones.

[Sarita Fuentes Villalobos, dubbed] We recovered 10,000

bones in various states.

Complete bones, like this tibia, for example,

or fragments like these, from ribs.

[Narrator] The degree of carbonization and the color

of some of these bones indicate that the bodies

were already dead and buried at the time of the fire.

[Villalobos] Here the combustion is high,

because the material has changed

more than 50% from gray to white.

[Narrator] To understand, an investigation

combining archaeology and forensic medicine begins.

[Villalobos] While excavating, we identify three fire cores.

[Narrator] Archaeologists wanted to understand

what these sporadic fires corresponded to.

[Astigueta] We started to excavate, and we realized

that there were very well-defined areas of burning.

And the remains of human bones

were precisely where the fires had taken place.

[speaking Spanish]

This enabled us to understand that this mass grave, this fire,

had been maintained with the specific aim

of burning the bones of people who had already been buried.

[Narrator] Around 1533, in one of the most sacred

Inca temples, thousands of dead bodies

were deliberately exhumed and set alight.

Manuscripts discovered near the fires,

written in Spanish, leave no doubt.

It was the conquistadors

who were responsible for this massacre.

[Astigueta] This demonstrates the intention

to destroy sacred beliefs.

I don't know if the Spanish were aware

of the magnitude of these acts,

because one of the greatest fears of the Andean people

was that their bodies would be burnt after they died.

And that’s precisely what they did.

[Pozzi-Escot] To plunder the dead

is to violate an entire religion.

It’s attacking all their rituals.

These foreigners arrive and destroy everything.

[Narrator] The conquistadors sought to destroy Inca beliefs

and impose their vision of the world on the region.

A new calendar.

A new language.

New rituals.

Even a new god.

[Baca] There have been many changes

imposed by the Spanish Crown.

Religion, Catholicism, Evangelization.

And this has greatly, greatly diminished Indigenous society.

[Narrator] The fall of the Inca state

spanned more than three decades,

from the reign of Manco Cápac II in 1536,

until the fall of the last resistance fighters.

By 1572, nothing remained

of the administration of the Sons of the Sun.

[speaking Spanish]

[Baca] When the Spanish succeeded in capturing

the last Inca emperor, a new chapter in history began.

The Spanish began to reorganize Cusco in their own way,

with Spanish decor, with Western architecture.

[Narrator] The conquistadors set about methodically destroying

everything that represented Inca identity.

To achieve this, they dismantled

the most symbolic monuments,

like the imposing site of Sacsayhuaman in Cuzco.

[Vranich] They took the most impressive stone

from Sacsayhuaman and brought it down

to make doorways and lintels.

And as they continued to build, this became an open quarry,

and the colonial city that we see today

is mostly built with the stones from Sacsayhuaman.

[Narrator] The Spanish built churches

in almost all Inca cities.

But even when crushed, Indigenous culture lives on.

♪ ♪

In Cajamarca, a church demonstrates

how Indigenous and Christian architecture fused.

♪ ♪

[Merino] When these churches were being built,

Indigenous peoples were used,

and they began to develop this European architecture.

And we know there were no photos, there were no models.

And so their inspiration for sculpting these faces,

these cherubs that make up the façade,

as well as these flowers,

came from the flora of Cajamarca and the Indigenous faces.

[Narrator] Representations adapted, as did beliefs.

The Feast of the Sun God,

devoutly celebrated throughout the Inca Empire,

was postponed by the Spanish for three days

to coincide with the Christian festival of Saint John.

The Inca religion lived on

by adorning itself with Christianity.

[Itier] The religion of the mountains,

which in the Andes is thousands of years old,

continues to exist alongside the religion of the saints,

the Virgin Mary and Christ.

[Velarde] These two aspects have blended harmoniously

to create what Peru is today, a Peru of mixed origins,

a Peru that owes as much to its Andean past

as to its Spanish past.

[Narrator] The Inca Empire itself,

even before the Spanish conquest,

the legacy of centuries of different cultures.

[Baca] These pre-Inca cultures were conquered by the Incas.

We can describe the Inca culture as the cultural synthesis

of all the advances that took place across ancient Peru.

[Velarde] The different societies of Peru

are in many social, economic, cultural, political,

and religious aspects founded on the foundations

of pre-Hispanic religions and customs.

In this sense, it isn't possible to talk about

the disappearance of the Inca imprint.

[Narrator] Not only has Peru's ancient culture

not disappeared, it has become

much more visible in recent years.

Because the Inca civilization,

known mainly through the writings

of those who annihilated it,

is now revealing itself unfiltered,

thanks to technological advances in modern archaeology.

The mysterious history of the Inca Empire

is even more captivating.

[Sepulveda] With all the knowledge we have today,

we can truly consider the Incas as one of the great,

if not the greatest civilization of the Andes.

They knew how to innovate by reappropriating

numerous technologies based on traditional ancestral knowledge

dating back thousands of years.

[Narrator] Half a millennium after the fall

of the Empire of the Sun, its legacy endures.

In certain stones, in certain gestures,

the mystical breath of the Inca still lives.

A spiritual imprint.

A monumental imprint.