-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
2
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 known for its high population counting
about 6 million people. The Mayan culture fell as its people started to rebel
and consequently led to the fall of the kingdom.
Our research question is: How did the development process of the
Incan empire caused to its fall in the end?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Reflection – Michael:
I had a wonderful time doing this project. I never knew about the
existence of neither the Incan empire nor the Mayan culture, and this 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 was through the
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.
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Bibliography:
http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/:‫אינקה‬., 2006. 'Inca.' (accessed on Jan., 2006:1).
http://incas.perucultural.org.pe/english/histec1.htm.,2003. 'Andean
technology.' (accessed on Jan., 2006:1-15).
http://www.e-mago.co.il/e-magazine/inca.html., 2004. '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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