Original subtitles

[Narrator] The Incas.

An extraordinary civilization.

In just over 100 years, from the 15th to the 16th century

three all-powerful emperors

built an astonishing empire.

The biggest the Americas had ever seen.

[Historian 1] The Inca state had a population

of 9 to 12 million people.

[Historian 2] They were highly developed people.

[Narrator] The Incas left behind monumental and intricate traces

of their genius.

But the story of these great people

remains shrouded in mystery.

Where did the Incas come from?

[Historian 3] They imitated a society that was before them.

[Historian 4] They're heirs to an ancient civilization.

[Narrator] How did they come to rule over such a vast territory

in the space of a century?

Thanks to scientific advances

and ultra-realistic computer-generated images,

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

[Historian 4] Advances in archaeology have truly

revolutionized our understanding of Inca history.

[Narrator] Revealing its fascinating

and mysterious origins,

this is the incredible story

of how the Inca Empire began.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

At dawn when the mist starts to dissipate,

a magnificent site emerges...

Machu Picchu.

Perched on an Andes ridge at an altitude of 2,400 meters,

it appears suspended in the clouds

defying the laws of nature.

This ancient city is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World,

and a spectacular symbol

of one of the most renowned civilizations in history,

the Inca Empire.

[Alicia Fernández Flórez, dubbed] The Inca Empire was one

of the greatest civilizations in South America

because they made significant advances in astronomy,

architecture and engineering.

Machu Picchu is profoundly important,

all this ancestral knowledge.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Machu Picchu demonstrates the genius

and power of a people

capable of conquering the highest peaks.

It was the jewel of a colossal empire,

which the Incas built in record time across South America.

At its peak in 1532,

Inca territory stretched

over 5,000 kilometers

along the Andes,

from Ecuador to Chile.

Yet 100 years before, the Incas

were just one of hundreds

of small tribes of Peruvians

living in a mountain valley

not far from Machu Picchu,

in Cusco.

♪ ♪

How did the Incas get out of this remote valley

and build a formidable empire so quickly?

The history of Cusco and its founders

has long remained secret,

because the Incas did not have a written language.

They communicated in a complex system of knotted cords,

known as khipus.

To date, no one has been able

to fully decipher their meaning.

So to discover the origins of the Incas,

we have to go to the archives of the Spanish conquistadors.

[César Itier, dubbed] The history of the Incas

as we know it has been handed down to us by Spanish authors,

who themselves gathered their information

from Indigenous informants, often members of the Inca elite.

[Narrator] For a long time, the Spanish conquerors,

who defeated the Incas,

were the only ones to tell the story of this empire.

Arriving in Cusco in 1533,

they documented chronicles for the King of Spain.

These precious testimonies allow us to strip back

modern-day Cusco and visualize the city

at the time of the Incas.

The conquistadors were impressed

by this small metropolis,

with its hundreds of thatched stone buildings,

and palaces decorated with gold and silver.

[Flórez] They recorded everything there,

so recounting all the details and impressions they had

arriving in Cusco.

This is very important for archaeologists,

because thanks to these early writings,

we have a more accurate idea

of what the Inca state was like, and its importance.

[Narrator] For the ancient people of Cusco,

Inca was not the name of a people, but of the leader.

The Spanish record more than 10 Inca kings.

The first is a mythical ruler called Manco Cápac,

or Manco the Mighty.

[Itier] Manco Cápac is a historical figure

since his mummy was preserved as late as the 16th century

and was seen by Spanish witnesses.

He's the first of 12 kings.

[Narrator] The Spanish only provide legendary information

about this first king.

According to Inca oral record,

Manco Cápac emerged from a cave when the sun was created.

He walked with his sister to the Cusco valley

to plant a golden scepter, and found the dynasty of people

who proclaimed themselves the Sons of the Sun.

[Alexei Vranich] This is mythic history.

But every empire creates their own origin myth.

You can't form an empire just by force.

You need ideology.

[Narrator] Who really was Manco Cápac?

Archaeologists are now beginning to unravel the truth

behind this legendary tale.

[speaking French]

[Itier] Archaeology shows that a state was formed

in the Cusco valley during the 13th century

between 1200 and 1300.

[Narrator] Manco Cápac was a chief, a warrior,

who arrived from the Andean high plateau,

gained control of the local tribes,

and founded the Inca Empire.

The modern development of Cusco has gradually erased

the original buildings in the heart of the valley.

After more than 500 years of urbanization,

the traces of the first Inca kingdom are buried beneath

the modern streets of the city center.

But high above Cusco, the hills of Sacsayhuamán

could hold precious information.

[Vranich] We think this is where they first settled in Cusco,

where they had their houses

and their other important structures.

So we're looking for the first foundations of Inca Cusco,

what is the start of what became the capital of the Inca Empire?

[Narrator] The site of Sacsayhuamán

intrigues scientists.

Most of the visible ruins date back to the 15th century

and the beginnings of the Inca Empire,

but some stones appear to be much older.

To find out for sure,

an international team of researchers

are studying the area.

[Dominika Sieczkowska] We hope to find

during the excavation process organic remains like charcoal,

seeds, and everything that the Inca left

when they were constructing this site.

[Narrator] These remains could provide a date

for the birth of Cusco.

But in an area partially covered by dense forest,

advanced tools are needed.

The drone is equipped with LiDAR, a laser technology

that can pierce through vegetation

to reveal human-made structures beneath.

Scientists are searching for structures

that could indicate Manco Cápac's early work.

[Sieczkowska] We can find the walls under this vegetation

and the soil, and those walls might be related

to the Inca construction of the Sacsayhuamán.

[Narrator] To identify the hidden walls more accurately,

the hill is imaged using ground-penetrating radar.

Signals are beamed through the soil

to detect buried structures up to two meters deep.

[Vranich] With this investigation,

we'll be able to find the moment when we can actually start

to say yes, the Inca are here.

They are starting to form their capital city.

[Narrator] This new exploration of Sacsayhuamán will make it

possible to determine the date of Manco Cápac's settlement.

Current estimates lie between 1200 and 1230,

more than 300 years before the arrival of the Spanish.

[Sieczkowska] Thanks to chronicles,

we know a lot about relative history of the Incas,

but we don't know when and how everything happened.

[Narrator] The archaeologists' work fills in the blanks

in the Spanish archives.

And the remains that have been studied

now allow the Incas to tell their own story.

[speaking foreign language]

[Denise Pozzi-Escot] Today, thanks to these new technologies

we can learn much more about this great empire.

We are trying to reconstruct its history

from the remains left by these people.

[Narrator] But what do the pre-colonial remains

tell us about the Inca Empire itself?

Can they explain how this small kingdom

suddenly became a continental power?

[Narrator] To shed light on the birth of the empire,

we must examine the best preserved Inca site,

Machu Picchu.

Thanks to its isolated location,

this ancient city escaped the violence

of the Spanish conquistadors.

[Sieczkowska] Spaniards never actually destroyed the site.

They were possibly aware that this site was here,

but they never got in here, they never destroyed it.

[Narrator] When the American explorer Hiram Bingham

was shown the ruins of Machu Picchu in 1911,

the city had been abandoned for over 300 years,

and enveloped by thick tropical vegetation.

But the first excavations revealed

the buildings were exceptionally well preserved.

[speaking Spanish]

[Flórez] Some buildings were gradually destroyed

by the spread of nature.

But fortunately, at the structural level,

Machu Picchu survives and is one of the most important examples

of how a city was built during the Inca era.

[Narrator] After more than 100 years of archaeological work,

it is now possible to virtually reconstruct

the city at its peak.

Over 500 years ago, experts estimate the town

was inhabited by 400 people.

And during annual pilgrimages,

it expanded to host 1,000 people.

[Sieczkowska] Machu Picchu was some kind of sanctuary itself

because it was a destination for pilgrims to getting in here.

So, in Machu Picchu, you will find many ceremonial aspects

that were possibly related to the rituals

that were taking place in here.

[Narrator] Thanks to the Spanish chronicles,

historians know that the site was the major work

of the first Inca emperor, Pachacutec.

Pachacutec appears 200 years

after Manco Cápac,

as the ninth Inca ruler.

He was the first whose reign transformed the kingdom

into an empire and the lives of millions of Andeans.

Pachacutec ruled from his palace

located to the north of the main plaza.

From here, he ordered

the complete reconstruction of Cusco.

The capital was just the beginning.

He transformed the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu.

This hilltop city was not just a sacred site.

It was a manifesto of Pachacutec's vision

for South America.

Covering an area 530 meters long and 200 meters wide,

the complex features 170 structures

and almost 700 terraces,

built from thousands of cubic meters of stone.

How can so much material be found

in the middle of these cliffs?

The nature of the rock provides a clue.

[Sieczkowska] It's constructed with granite mostly,

and we can find it in basically every single building

that was made in here.

[Narrator] Granite is one of the hardest and heaviest rocks

on the planet, weighing 2 1/2 tons per cubic meter.

An average-sized rock here

weighs the equivalent of two modern cars.

But the Inca builders were expert geologists.

[Sieczkowska] We are located in the middle of the Andes,

that were created because of the geological movement

between all the plates.

[Narrator] The Andes, stretching from the Caribbean

to Tierra del Fuego,

formed over hundreds of millions of years

from the Oceanic plate sliding under the American plate.

As the Earth's crust lifted, it cracked,

producing volcanoes,

still active in Chile and the Bolivian Plateau.

Machu Picchu is surrounded by two major faults

created by these tectonic movements.

[Sieczkowska] You can see the elements

of these geological fault at site,

and what we see in the quarry right now is just a piece.

This is how the Machu Picchu looked like

before the Inca started the urbanization process.

[Narrator] Before the arrival of Pachacutec,

the ridge of Machu Picchu was an open-air quarry,

littered with huge granite boulders,

which Inca workers patiently cut into bricks using hammers.

[Sieczkowska] They didn't have any metallic iron tools.

You can see a lot of elements where the stones

were possibly carved, there are traces where the Incas decided

to cut it and took some elements.

[Narrator] Even without iron tools,

the clear traces of cutting

prove the mastery of the carvers.

[speaking French]

[Itier] It's stone architecture with irregular

but fine-tuned fittings,

which may represent what the empire is all about.

This mosaic of diverse groups that fit perfectly together.

[Narrator] Terraces were constructed by building walls,

and leveling the ground

with thick layers of stone,

sand and earth.

For Archaeologist Dominika Sieczkowska,

who excavated the area, this clever method of terracing

provides solid foundations and allows water runoff

in a region that receives up to two meters of rainfall a year.

[Sieczkowska] It's quite challenging to get here

and to start the foundation of the city basically from nothing.

We don't know the estimation about how many people

constructed the site, but it has to be thousands of people.

[Narrator] At this altitude,

Machu Picchu shows the power of the Incas.

From the mid-15th century, the empire was already capable

of mobilizing thousands of workers.

It also bore witness to an unprecedented development

of knowledge and techniques

that Pachacutec encouraged throughout his Empire.

To transform a rocky spur in the middle of a seismic region

into a home,

Pachacutec's builders deployed elaborate engineering.

[Itier] Throughout their empire, the Incas try to mark

the landscape to signal their presence

with a highly distinctive architecture,

very different from that

of the peoples who had come before them.

And so this very homogenous architecture

is a way of visually marking this reunification of the world,

this unity that the Incas claimed to have brought it.

[Narrator] The technical engineering introduced

by Pachacutec represented a new era and a new way of thinking.

But what exactly were the beliefs of the man

who called himself Son of the Sun?

[Narrator] This ideology was born 600 kilometers south

of Machu Picchu,

near Lake Titicaca.

This site is known as Tiahuanaco,

and its remains have intrigued experts for years.

[Itier] Tiahuanaco was a religious center,

both a pilgrimage center and an economic center

where a large city developed

with very important monumental architecture.

[Vranich] It's probably the most important or the largest society

before the Inca.

But they left us monumental architecture

and some very elaborate, beautiful artifacts.

[Narrator] Tiahuanaco was

the birthplace of a society

that developed between

500 and 1100 AD,

and whose influence spread

across the high plateau

of Bolivia, southern Peru

and northern Chile.

[Vranich] Tiahuanaco was abandoned in 1000 AD,

about 500 years before the Inca.

So when the Inca arrived to conquer the area

with their armies, they looked at it and they go, this is huge.

This is a monumental city that existed way before us.

[Narrator] Modern tools give us a more precise idea

of what the Incas discovered at the time.

[Vranich] The buildings are completely ruined,

and the stones are scattered across the site.

So we were able to record the stones both by hand

and using drones and other photogrammic methods.

And from there we created these virtual models

that we were able to piece together.

[Narrator] American archaeologist Alexei Vranich

has reconstructed some of the buildings

by scanning and digitizing each stone,

then placing it back into its original position.

[Vranich] We are able to reconstruct the form

of one of the more impressive buildings.

And one of the things about it was how similar it was

to Inca architecture.

[Narrator] On a site not far from Machu Picchu,

Inca engineers built a near-identical replica

of this monument.

The trapezoidal openings, typical of the Inca style,

are directly inspired by the doors at Tiahuanaco.

[Vranich] The Inca were relatively new.

They had to demonstrate to people that they were ancient.

So they imitated a society that was before them.

[Narrator] This passage along the shores of Lake Titicaca

was fundamental to the Inca Empire's destiny.

Pachacutec not only found his architectural signature here,

but found the place where he would rewrite history,

and give birth to the legend of the Sons of the Sun.

In Inca mythology,

Lake Titicaca is the cradle of the world,

where the creator God gave life to the elements.

It was he who made the sun appear,

as well as the very first Incas.

Among them, Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo,

who walked to the fertile valley of Cusco

to plant a golden scepter and found the Inca Dynasty.

[speaking Spanish]

[Flórez] The Inca rulers needed strong arguments

to legitimize their divine origin.

They did so with the legend of Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo,

and from there it all began,

the empire with all the conquests.

[speaking Spanish]

[Narrator] Thanks to these mystical origins,

the Incas became rulers of divine right,

justified in their conquests.

[speaking French]

[Itier] Just as the sun brings its fertile force

to agriculture, enabling plants to grow,

the Inca also spread benefits to their subjects,

their dependents, and to the peoples they conquered.

[Narrator] How did Pachacutec, self-proclaimed Son of the Sun,

transform the daily lives of millions of Andeans?

Could the key lie in the Inca religion?

Machu Picchu, where the most revealing building

of the new Inca civilization

is recognizable by its unusual shape.

This is the Temple of the Sun,

with two perpendicular sides and a uniquely rounded facade.

[speaking Spanish]

[Julio Córdova Valer, dubbed] It's angled, so it's square

on one side and semicircular on the other.

Inside there are open windows and niches

where offerings were likely made during ceremonies.

[Narrator] More than 500 years ago,

the buildings at Machu Picchu had a steep thatched roof.

But the Temple of the Sun was an open-air building.

[Valer] The space has always been exclusively open

without a roof.

It's a place for observation from dawn to dusk.

[Narrator] This unique structure seems to have served

as an astronomical observatory.

♪ ♪

But the precise way in which the Incas used it

is still unknown.

The center of the building is occupied by a large boulder,

engraved with mysterious lines.

[speaking Spanish]

[Valer] This was a sort of table on which they watched the sun

come through the window.

The astronomer could say what's happening,

what's going to happen on this date.

Is it the cold season or the hot season?

[Narrator] The building's three openings

are perfectly positioned.

The largest faces magnetic north.

The central window is aligned with the rising sun

on the June solstice, while the second window

aligns on the December solstice.

During both phenomena,

the sun's rays land on the engraving

on the central boulder.

[Valer] There's a time when we're in the rainy season

and another when we're in the dry season,

'cause here there are only two types of climate, rain and sun.

Astronomers are going to observe this, and from that moment

will change the agricultural direction of the Andean world.

[Narrator] The Temple of the Sun was used to track the path

of the sun and mark the changing of the seasons.

And it was dedicated to the sun god, Inti.

♪ ♪

As the Son of the Sun,

Pachacutec gave Inti a central role in running his empire.

The solar calendar governed the daily life of his subjects,

from agriculture to architecture,

to religious festivals.

And many of Machu Picchu's buildings were aligned

with the stars for religious ceremonies,

including the most enigmatic one of all: sacrifice.

[Narrator] Historical writings tell us

that the Incas sacrificed animals, like llamas,

but also human beings,

at mountain ceremonies called capac hucha.

[speaking French]

[Itier] In special circumstances,

such as political or climate crises,

the Incas also practiced human sacrifice,

especially the sacrifice of children or adolescents.

[Narrator] In 1954, the body of a young boy was found

5,000 meters high on the summit of a Chilean volcano.

The body, mummified by the cold, is kept out of sight

at the National Museum of Natural History

in Santiago, Chile.

[Marcela Sepulveda] This entire set of objects is high quality.

They are exceptional and exclusive pieces,

which were most likely made

especially to accompany the child in death.

[Narrator] For more than 50 years, this child's body

and every object that accompanied it

have been scrutinized by experts.

Carbon-dating confirmed that he died during the Inca period.

A study of his bone and teeth development determined

that he was between

eight and nine years old.

Using x-ray scanning technology,

Verónica Silva Pinto is trying to uncover

the exact cause of death.

Highly accurate modeling of the skull has made it possible

to detect a previously unseen fracture;

a fatal injury caused by a hammer blow.

[speaking Spanish]

[Verónica Silva Pinto] This weapon is a star-shaped club

typical of the Inca periods.

Here, a wooden handle was fitted to deal the blow.

Basically the angle had to be like this.

The weapon was brandished and hitting there,

that's the cause of death.

If he didn't die instantly, he died as a result of the blow.

[Narrator] A brutal way to die.

But this act was not perceived as cruel by the Incas.

[speaking Spanish]

[Pinto] Death for the Inca was not as we know it.

Death was a journey.

So the child wasn't dying.

He was joining the world of spirits and gods,

and so would have greater power

than if he had remained in the living world.

[Narrator] This child is not an isolated victim.

In the 1990s, while exploring the peaks of the Andes,

archaeologist Johan Reinhard discovered several other bodies

of children sacrificed in the same way.

[Itier] There's a very political dimension

to these sacrifices of young people.

As far as we know, these children, these teenagers

were often the children of the local authorities of the empire.

[Sepulveda] Ultimately, the Incas carried out

these sacrifices, these capacocha,

to mark places that were sacred to the local populations.

By sacrificing what was most precious to them.

This Inca ritual is not only a symbolic act,

but also a political one.

[Narrator] Human sacrifice was practiced in South America

long before the emergence of the Incas.

But the Incas used it as an instrument of power,

in order to rule over other religious practices

in the Andes.

Before Pachacutec, the Andeans worshipped

a number of other deities,

traces of which can still be seen in Cusco.

In the royal capital,

the Spanish conquerors described several temples.

But in the lower city,

one building in particular captivated them--

a sacred structure with gardens

dotted with golden statues of llamas and maize.

The site is now occupied by a Catholic church.

♪ ♪

[Alex Usca Baca, dubbed] This church was first built in 1534

by the Dominican Order.

[Narrator] Baroque architecture has destroyed

the most beautiful monument of Pachacutec's empire,

known as the Coricancha, which means "golden enclosure"

in the language of the Incas.

Some traces of the most sacred Inca temples

still remain today.

A curved facade

and foundations of the building around an inner courtyard,

where each of the rooms was dedicated

to one of the main Inca deities.

[speaking Spanish]

[Baca] One of the main rooms in the Coricancha

was the Temple of the Sun.

We can locate it where the Coricancha Church

is currently located.

[speaking Spanish]

Inside the Temple of the Sun there is a golden plaque

with features that represent the Andean worldview.

[Narrator] This plaque shows the richness of the Inca religion.

[speaking Spanish]

[Baca] The architecture of this room

is refined and well-finished.

The main function of these niches

was to house important objects used to worship the god

known as Illapa, or lightning or thunder.

[Narrator] The Coricancha, the heart of the Inca religion,

is a sanctuary dedicated to the Andean pantheon of gods.

[Baca] The Incas didn't just have a main god, the sun,

they also had other minor deities such as K'uychi,

the god of the rainbow,

and Illapa, the god of thunder or lightning.

[Narrator] In addition to these forces of nature,

the Andean people also worshipped the mountains

that surrounded them.

[Itier] Each local territory is not only represented

but also fertilized and protected

by the mountain that overlooks it.

And so people worship and make offerings to this mountain god.

[Narrator] Andean religion is a complex system

of ancestral beliefs.

But within this broad pantheon,

Pachacutec gave the sun a new decisive role.

[Baca] When Pachacutec began to conquer other peoples,

these local groups had to submit

to the general government of the Inca state.

They had to worship the sun god.

[Narrator] Worship of the sun spread

to more than 10 million people in the empire,

despite the fact their religious beliefs

were much older.

How did the Incas achieve this?

[Narrator] On the shores of the Pacific, this desert landscape

was one of the first regions to be conquered

by the Sons of the Sun.

After taking Cusco and the area

around Lake Titicaca,

the Inca armies reached

the western coast near Lima,

to capture the site

of Pachacámac.

Occupied since 200 AD,

this town was the sacred site of the most worshipped divinity

in South America at that time.

[Rocio Vilar Astigueta, dubbed] Pachacámac comes from

the Quechua words pacha meaning land,

and camac meaning the spirit that animates or gives life.

Pachacámac was the force that animated the world.

He was the spirit of the world.

[Pozzi-Escot] The simple movement of his head

causes the Earth to tremble.

This god is so powerful that he brought the peoples

of the region together in this important ceremonial center.

It was a pilgrimage center.

[Narrator] At the time of the Inca conquest,

pilgrims had been gathering for hundreds of years

from across the Andes to worship the god Pachacámac

at his colorful temple.

[speaking Spanish]

[Astigueta] It was entirely decorated with motifs

of flora, fauna and people, which adorned the structures

and were linked to the worship of Pachacámac.

You can see the head of a fish,

further on, here's another head,

and finally here's a part of the head

and what could be the eye of a third fish.

[Narrator] When the Incas conquered this temple,

they respected the rites of the pilgrims,

who prayed to Pachacámac or consulted the oracle.

[Astigueta] In these places, the Pachacámac oracle

must have provided insight.

It was a prestigious oracle in the pre-Hispanic world.

We know that when the Incas arrived at Pachacámac,

they, too, probably consulted the oracle.

[Narrator] The Incas did not stop the worship of Pachacámac.

But they placed their sun god above him

and transformed the landscape

with the empire's signature architecture.

♪ ♪

[Astigueta] There are several features that could be replicas

of those in Cusco.

This wall must have been standing,

and we can see here that it has a three-sided configuration

similar to the doors that could be found,

for example, in Cusco's most sacred places.

[Narrator] On the highest peak,

above the Temple of Pachacámac,

the Incas erected their Temple of the Sun.

[Astigueta] They built the Temple of the Sun

to impose a new regime,

the worship of their principal god, Inti, or the sun god.

This building dominates the landscape of Pachacámac

allowing it to be seen and appreciated by the people

who come to worship Pachacámac or to carry out activities here.

[Narrator] This Temple of the Sun

was a skillful demonstration of imperial rule.

But the Incas didn't stop there.

Excavations have just revealed a new room

adjoining the Temple of Pachacámac.

[Astigueta] Its location on the facade

at the center of the temple probably indicates

that it was a building dedicated to controlling worship.

The Incas controlled the flow of people and offerings

that reached the Temple of Pachacámac.

[Narrator] Religion was an instrument of conquest

for the Incas.

They tolerated the ancient gods and beliefs,

but they physically imposed the sun religion

in order to dominate all others.

[Pozzi-Escot] This way of controlling the other gods

without destroying them

means that the population submits peacefully

because there is no confrontation.

So they also have political control.

[Itier] The Inca emperor is a kind of god on Earth,

a kind of human sun.

You can only talk to him through a curtain.

You can't touch him.

[Narrator] How did Pachacutec make himself immortal

in the eyes of the people?

[Narrator] The emperor relied on one of the oldest beliefs

on the American continent: the worship of ancestors.

[Narrator] On the outskirts of Lima,

the suburbs of Puruchuco are home

to the largest pre-Hispanic necropolis ever discovered.

Thousands of the buried were exhumed

to be preserved and studied in the laboratory.

♪ ♪

[Clide Valladolid Huaman, dubbed] When people die,

they make a funeral bundle in the shape of a character,

then place a head on it with eyes.

[Narrator] These funeral bundles are large cloths

that wrap the body of the deceased.

This is an ancestral practice in the Andes,

where the dry air makes it possible to preserve remains.

♪ ♪

[Huaman] When we unwrap these funerary packages,

we find the body of a mummified person.

It's a natural mummification, not an artificial one.

Adults from the Inca era are buried in a fetal position

with their hands like this.

[Narrator] To find out more about the deceased,

these funerary bundles undergo a process called tomography,

which scans and constructs the interior in three dimensions.

[Huaman] With the scanner, we can see in detail

the person's sex and age, and even observe other objects

inside without having to open them.

[Narrator] Beneath the fabric,

offerings such as shells and tools

accompany the deceased on their final journey.

[Pozzi-Escot] In ancient Peru,

death is like a passage to another life.

That's why these burials always contain a collection of items

that accompany the dead.

[Narrator] Unlike ordinary mortals,

Inca emperors and their families

were not placed in funerary bundles or buried.

They became mummies, stored and displayed in niches.

These royal mummies were kept

in the palaces and temples of Cusco.

They were honored as gods,

and displayed during ceremonies for everyone to see.

[Itier] They were taken out to the main plaza of Cusco

to celebrate.

People sat with them and offered them drinks.

[Narrator] Ever present among the living,

the deceased emperor becomes immortal.

The imperial mummies also traveled to the empire's

most sacred sites, including Machu Picchu.

In the upper part of the hilltop city,

hidden beneath the Temple of the Sun,

Inca builders carved a room into the rock.

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[Flórez] There are similarities with other Inca burials

in which a few traces of bone have been identified,

which could indicate that this was a mausoleum

intended for members of the Inca elite.

[Narrator] This cave could have housed the mummy

of Emperor Pachacutec himself.

[Flórez] We have no proof that Pachacutec's mummy

was in this mausoleum.

But there are a few clues that make it probable.

[Narrator] Pachacutec revolutionized the religion

of 10 million people,

using every ancestral rite to benefit his own power.

[Sieczkowska] There is still a lot of mystery

regarding the Inca state,

and every day we are discovering new things.

[Narrator] Every trace left behind by the Incas

sheds light on the founder of the empire.

And new clues still reveal fundamental discoveries.

[Sieczkowska] Based on chronicle information, at the beginning,

we're thinking that Pachacutec started his conquest

in this region more or less in 1438,

and the construction of Machu Picchu

started approximately in 1450.

[Narrator] This chronology, established in 1945,

has recently been called into question by excavations

at Machu Picchu and nearby Chachabamba.

Carbon-dated remains of charcoal show that

these two sites are older than previously thought.

[Sieczkowska] The classical date of 1450 is no longer reliable

because the Machu Picchu and Chachabamba were constructed

approximately 30 or even more years before.

Now we know that the empire start to grow

much time before what we knew.

So the date of 1438, it's no longer date

for the rise of Pachacutec's empire.

[Itier] It's often said that the Inca state was built

in 100 years,

and that it dominated the Andes for only a century.

But in fact, for many regions,

it was more like a century and a half or even two centuries.

[Narrator] Little by little, modern archaeology

is learning more about this vast and enigmatic empire.

Pachacutec was not the first ruler,

nor the first to spread influence beyond Cusco.

But he was the first emperor,

and with him, the Incas transformed.

It was the birth of what would become

the largest South American empire.

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