For many people, the word Inca conjures up images of an ancient civilization in South America.

Of their so-called lost cities like Machu Picchu in Peru.

The word Inca is also often associated with the Spanish for in the 1500s the Spanish sought to conquer the Inca's and the inland's for gold and to spread Christianity.

The old story is one of the Spaniards seemingly Herk Leon and instant conquest, Spanish guns, horses, armor and germs, known match for the Inca's.

Time for some debunking.

As today's guests will explain, the Inca's were a cosmopolitan, wealthy, complex people, and while the history is absolutely an inextricably linked with Spain, this is no simple story of a speedy conquest.

Many ways the Inca and the Spanish shared a similar trajectory and their stories are tightly woven in decades-long battles, resistance, defeat and success on both sides.

I'm delighted to be joined today by Alan Covey, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin.

Professor Covey's research addresses the development and organisation of ancient empires with a particular focus on the Inca's.

He continues to conduct archaeological surveys and excavations to collect data on the rise in full of the Inca's and works in the archives of Peru and Europe to construct a richer understanding of the impact of early modern European expansion in the Andean world.

He is the author of Inca Apocalypse, the Spanish Conquest and the Transformation of the Andean World, published by Oxford University Press in 2020.

And this podcast was recorded at St. Cross College Oxford.

Professor Covey, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to Not Just the Tudors.

Thanks, I'm glad to be here.

Can we start today by defining what we mean by Inca, who were the Inca's when and where did they live?

Sure, I like to think of the Inca's at three different levels. One is the actual Inca ruler.

So the Inca is a title, first of all, and the male ruler of the empire took the title, Sapa Inca, which meant the ruler that has no counterpart or equal.

So there was something unique about that title.

But then there's something also unique about the people that we think of as the Inca's.

And they're a group of people that live in the Cusco Valley of what is today, the Highlands of Peru.

And so just that part of the Andean mountains, a bunch of maze farming, valley bottom dwelling farmers that trace back about 12 generations to a common ancestral emergence.

And then the biggest sense would be what we would call the Inca Empire.

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