National Museum of the American Indian - The Great Inka Road

One of the places that we visited for the first time while in Washington DC in May 2019 was the National Museum of the American Indian.  I found it a fascinating museum to explore and one of its main exhibits is on the Inka highway system

Construction of the Inka Road stands as one of the monumental engineering achievements in history. A network more than 20,000 miles long, crossing mountains and tropical lowlands, rivers and deserts, the Great Inka Road linked Cusco, the administrative capital and spiritual center of the Inka world, to the farthest reaches of its empire. The road continues to serve contemporary Andean communities across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile as a sacred space and symbol of cultural continuity. In 2014, the United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, recognized the Inka Road as a World Heritage site.

The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire explores the foundations of the Inka Road in earlier Andean cultures, technologies that made building the road possible, the cosmology and political organization of the Inka world, and the legacy of the Inka Empire during the colonial period and in the present day.
-from National Museum of the American Indian website

The museum looks nothing like the neoclassical structure that houses the  Natural History Museum.

Inside (once you get past security) is a central rotunda where you can look up and see the other floors.  You can walk upstairs or take an elevator.

After starting with an introductory movie on the fourth floor we headed down to the third floor to see the Inka exhibit.  We ended up seeing part of it one morning (before our Capitol tour) and coming back later to see the rest, but I'm going to cover all of it in one post.

The 45,000-mile Interstate Highway System that unites our nation and powers our economy took 40 years and $425 billion to build.  Five hundred years earlier, a vast empire was bound by a 24,000-mile road network built without benefit of iron or the wheel.  Today, indigenous South American peoples still use parts of that engineering marvel--the Inka Road.
-from exhibit signage

The start of the exhibit advertised both an app and ways to engage children.

While the Inka are prominent in most histories, they aren't the first people groups we know of to occupy their region of South America.  There were also the Chavin, Tiwanaku, Wari, and Chimú.  You can learn more about each of these cultures here.

The Inka spoke the Quechua language, which is still spoken today in the Andes.  Phonetic spellings will help you pronounce the key words in this exhibition.

--from exhibit signage

The exhibit started out with a long timeline that explored the history of western South America.

Inset into the walls were a number of artifacts from pre-Inka civilizations.

Here you can see where each of these civilizations spread along the Pacific coast.

We found an interesting interactive display that let you experience some stories from local mythology.

According to the Inka myth of origin, Inti (Father Sun) sent two of his children--Manco Copac and Mama Ocllo--to bring order and civilization to humankind.  The pair emerged from Lake Titicaca and headed north to found a city.  The city was Cusco, and their path was the first Inka Road.  Manoc Capac became the first Shapa Inka, ruler of the Inka people.

--from exhibit signage

Another display emphasized the Milky Way which had a deep connection to mythology where it functioned as a literal river bringing water to earth.

I really enjoyed learning more about Cusco, the capital of the empire.

I had never heard that the city was said to be a symbolic shape representing a puma.

This is a tunic from circa 1450-1570 and could have been worn by someone who lived on the coast but worked in the central administration.

Since I love geography I'm always going to pay attention to maps whenever I come across them, scuh as this one detailing the expansion of the empire not too long before conquest.

Quite a number of artifacts were located throughout the exhibit.

Both my wife and I enjoyed this large display that let us explore the city of Cusco.

I found the grass bridges built by the Inka quite fascinating.

It is even more interesting when you realize that many are still built today, and not just for museum displays like this example.

One thing to remember about the road is that the Inka didn't used wheeled vehicles.  Except for some toys in Mesoamerica no wheels have been discovered in the Americas.  The Inka roads were designed for foot traffic and for llamas.  There are stories of mounted Spaniards that disdained the roads because at places they were closer to stairs, easy for llamas but difficulty for horses with riders to navigate.

You can even see one of the bridges being built in this video.

Did you know that potatoes were first domesticated in the Andes?  They are many, many different varieties still located in the South American mountains, far more than the common varieties grown in the United States.

The Inka used many terraces for their agriculture to help maximize cropland in the steep mountains.

Ultimately the roads built to bind the empire together proved to aid in the invasion that brought the nation to its knees.

You can see even more photos in this album from our visit.

~Matt