and their success on the throne. As noted above, these individuals sometimes
ruled in the place of a king when he was away from the capital, and some
sources describe regents who coruled for a young emperor before he was of the
age to govern on his own. Inca nobles could extend the scope of royal power, but
they could also challenge it, and there are accounts of usurpers and palace coups
that installed rulers who are not included in the 12-ruler king list.
The rulers included in Colonial king lists represented surviving noble Inca
lineages, and royal mummies and “brother” (huauque) statues of rulers offered a
material way of organizing and performing the dynastic history (see Kingship,
Divine). The Spanish Crown used the 12-ruler dynasty to recognize who was, or
was not, an Inca noble, and by the end of the sixteenth century there was an
emphasis on male descent back to a recognized ruler on the royal genealogical
tree. The king list that continued into the seventeenth century considered Huayna
Capac to be the last ruler to found a royal descent group (panaca), effectively
treating the dynasty as ending in the civil war between Huascar and Atahualpa
(see Wars, Dynastic). These rulers were recognized as descendants of Huayna
Capac, as were other Inca rulers up to 1572—Túpac Hualpa, Manco Inca, Sayri
Túpac, Titu Cusi Yupanqui, and Túpac Amaru (see Vilcabamba).
Archaeology has a difficult relationship with the modern Inca king list. Some
scholars treat the palaces and properties supposedly belonging to a ruler as
material evidence of the dynasty. Documentary research has identified country
estates belonging to the later (hanan [upper moiety] Cuzco) rulers, and
archaeologists have investigated the monumental ruins still surviving at Pisac,
Ollantaytambo, Machu Picchu, and other sites with royal affiliation (see
Estates, Royal). Archaeological dates from these sites suggest that they were
not all built at one time, making it difficult to develop a chronology of estate
construction that could be checked against the chronology of the king list. At
present, archaeology cannot determine whether the royal lineages laying claim to
country estates in the early Colonial period were the families who built the
estates, or whether estates changed hands as new factions gained power. At the
same time, archaeologists and historians are shifting their attention from a line of
male rulers to try to understand how the men and women of royal Inca families
extended and contested power in the Inca heartland and beyond.
Further Reading
Cieza de León, Pedro de. The Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru. Translated and edited by Clements R.
Markham. London: Hakluyt Society, 1883 [1553].