The Incas knew very well that food was power and that the sun was the ultimate source of food. Manko Capak, the founder of the dynasty, once declared that his father was the sun and his mother was the moon. He also

The Incas knew very well that food was power and that the sun was the ultimate source of food. Manko Capak, the founder of the dynasty, once declared that his father was the sun and his mother was the moon. He also fed a group of stonemasons with surplus produce provided by agricultural production in the Andes region, and ordered them to build a temple of the sun in his capital, Cusco.

When the Spaniards arrived, they found a high wall of boulders interlocked together, decorated with friezes made of pure gold on the outside, and a gilded entrance and exit on the wall. Inside the temple, there is a courtyard dedicated to the sun, with silver corn stalks as tall as the real thing, and gold corn cobs on top. The ground was littered with gold nuggets, the size and shape of potatoes.

The Incas used their managerial talents and supreme power to purposefully promote agricultural techniques and cultivated plants throughout the empire. In the event of a local rebellion against their rule, the Incas would forcibly relocate thousands of people, along with the crops they had stored in the area, to new places where their subjects were loyal to the monarch.

- "Dinner with Darwin"