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What happened to all the Inca gold?
Most of the gold and silver had been melted down, but a handful of the most beautiful pieces of Inca metalwork were sent along intact. These were displayed for a time in Spain before they, too, were melted down. It was a sad cultural loss for humanity.
What did Spanish do with Inca gold?
These were stolen from the Incas and the mines that the Spanish came to control. The gold was used by the Spanish monarchy to pay off its debts and also to fund its ‘religious’ wars.
Who melted down a lot of the Inca gold?
The Inca’s Treasure Greedy Spaniards smashed priceless objects to pieces so that the room would fill up more slowly. All of this treasure was melted down, forged into 22 karat gold and counted. Atahualpa’s ransom added up to over 13,000 pounds of gold and twice that much silver.
How did the Incas find so much gold?
The Inca gold and silver came entirely from surface sources, found as nuggets or panned from river beds. They had no mines. The Spaniards soon discover mines to produce massive wealth – particularly, from 1545, the silver mines at Potosí.
Did Incas use gold money?
In exchange for their king, the Incas offered Pizarro a room filled once with gold and twice with silver. Gold, therefore, was used as a payment in the form of ransom to the Spanish conquistadores for the return of the Inca emperor.
Did Machu Picchu have gold?
Machu Picchu Inkari Research Institute discovers Inca mausoleum with large quantities of gold and silver. However, the [Peruvian] Ministry of Culture has stalled the project.
Why was gold important to the Incas?
Even wealthy members of the nobility had to wait until they had been put in their burial chambers to surround themselves with gold. The Incas believed the creator, a light-skinned god, would return to earth. He had taken his leave of them, heading over the ocean and would return one day, emerging from the sunset.
Where did Inca gold come from?
How did the Incas get so much gold?
Where is the Lost Gold of the Incas?
Archaeologists are searching for answers to questions over what happened to the lost Inca gold of Atahualpa. Steeped in death, conquest, desire, and mystery, the legend of the lost Inca gold is guarded by remote, mist-veiled mountains in central Ecuador.
How did Pizarro get the gold from the Inca?
Pizarro agreed to release Atahualpa in return for a roomful of gold, but the Spaniard later reneged on the deal. He had the Inca king put to death before the last and largest part of the ransom had been delivered. Instead, the story goes, the gold was buried in a secret mountain cave.
Where did the silver coins of the Incas come from?
One silver mine of Potosí in Bolivia alone produced 41,000 metric tons of silver coins known as Pieces of eight. The Lima mint opened in 1568 to make silver Pieces of eight coins but was not till 1696 that the mint started to make gold coins known as cobs and were minted in Cuzco also and are now highly collectible.
What was the name of the Inca ruler who died?
Portrait of Atahualpa, Fourteenth Inca. In 1526 or 1527, the Inca ruler, Huayna Capac (“the young mighty one”), had died, possibly due to an infectious disease brought to the New World by the Europeans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYZP1GJUR-Q