III.
Inca Civilization
F. Science
and Arts
Although priests treated most illness with
healing ceremonies, the Incas were capable of amazing feats
of surgery, including amputations and perhaps even bone
transplants. The patient was first made unconscious by drugs,
intoxicants, or possibly hypnotism. Many of these surgeries
were successful, and the patients lived for years after
the operations.
The Incas seem to have reckoned time by a lunar calendar.
They had accurate standards of measurement, including a
fathom that equaled about 163 cm (64 in) in length, and
they used a balance beam for measuring weight.
The
Incas were skilled in such crafts as textiles, pottery,
and metalwork. They wove wool and cotton into intricate
geometric patterns.
In addition to painted pottery vessels, the Incas made small
objects of clay that were sometimes decorated with animal
forms.
They created a few standardized forms, chiefly llamas and
human figurines, in stone and metal.
Goldsmithing
was an Inca specialty. Smiths who worked gold and silver
lived in a special district and did not have to pay taxes.
The best examples of their art have not survived, because
the Spanish melted most Inca articles made of gold and shipped
them to Spain.
Craftsmen
made wide use of copper and bronze for tools and ornaments,
while fashioning gold and silver into jewelry and other
items for use by the nobility or the priests.
The
Incas produced a rich body of music, of which only fragments
survive. Inca music often accompanied ritualized religious
dancing. Musicians used repetitive rhythms and dissonant
tones to induce an almost hypnotic state in the dancers.
Inca instruments were made of wood, reeds, pottery, bone,
shell, and metal. The Incas played two basic kinds of instruments:
wind and percussion.
Wind instruments, such as horns and flutes, produce a sound
when a musician blows into a tube or hollow chamber.
Percussion
instruments, such as bells or drums, produce a sound when
a musician strikes the instrument.
Drums
and flutes were the most common instruments used by the
Incas. Flutes came in many varieties. The panpipe-a series
of cane or pottery flutes tuned to different notes and tied
together in a row-are still common in the Andes today.
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