Abstract
Half a millennium ago in the central Andes of Peru, the movements of the sun, moon, and stars were watched and interpreted by the Inca. The astronomical observations made in and near the former capital, Cuzco, formed the nuclei of the most important public rituals of the empire. As the regulator of time, the ruling Inca scheduled the rituals that bound this society together. In this article, we review the major astronomical observations that were made by the Inca and discuss their importance in defining the ritual calendar.
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Dearborn, D.S.P., Bauer, B.S. (2015). Inca Astronomy and Calendrics. In: Ruggles, C. (eds) Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_78
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6141-8_78
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