Cusco Region historical timeline

Cusco was the centre of Tawantinsuyu, the Inca state, and its history since 1533 is largely the story of what was built on top of that.

The Inca

From around 1438 under Pachacuti, a local kingdom expanded rapidly into an empire running from Colombia to central Chile — perhaps ten million people, connected by some 40,000 kilometres of road, administered without writing or the wheel through knotted quipu records and a system of labour tribute. Cusco was rebuilt as the ceremonial capital, laid out, by tradition, in the shape of a puma. Machu Picchu was built around 1450, probably as a royal estate for Pachacuti.

The conquest

Francisco Pizarro arrived in 1532 into a state weakened by smallpox and a civil war between Atahualpa and Huascar. Atahualpa was captured at Cajamarca, ransomed and killed; the Spanish entered Cusco in 1533. Manco Inca rebelled in 1536, besieged the city and withdrew to Vilcabamba, where a rump Inca state held out until 1572.

Colonial Cusco

Churches and mansions were built on Inca foundations. The earthquake of 1650 destroyed much of the Spanish construction while the Inca walls stood, which is why the city looks as it does. A major indigenous rebellion under Tupac Amaru II in 1780 was crushed brutally.

Why Machu Picchu survived

The site sits off the main highland routes on a ridge reached only by Inca paths, and it appears to have been abandoned around the time of the conquest — possibly as its population died of disease, possibly deliberately. The Spanish never recorded it, so it was never looted or built over, and the forest simply closed around it. A handful of local families were farming its terraces when Bingham arrived.

Machu Picchu

Known locally but unknown abroad until Hiram Bingham, guided by local farmers, published it in 1911. He removed thousands of artefacts to Yale, which returned them a century later after a long dispute.