Inca Lost City of Gold

The Inca ruled South America for years.  They were the people of the sun.  They built grand cities.  Eventually, they would be destroyed by the Spanish in their quest for gold.  David Adams is on a search for a lost city of gold.  These were cities that were never sacked by the Spanish.  Perhaps hidden in these jungles is the legendary “Great Sun Disk of the Incas.”  Will David Adams find this lost city, tune into this episode to find out.

​After the Spanish invaded, the Incas retreated to the jungle and found refuge in its tree.  David Adams’ first tip leads him to meet Gary Ziegler, an archeologist.  Gary talks about finding major Incan roads and these roads always lead to somewhere.  Perhaps following these roads will lead to a lost city.  David will start in Cusco, the ancient Incan capital.  Here he takes part in the ancient Incan celebration of the Sun.  Gary heads up into the mountains.  David wants to learn more about the Incan Empire.
​
The Sun was the Incan Supreme god and they built their temples to the sun.  David goes to the Temple of Gold.  The gold is gone now but the walls were covered with gold and there were figures that were in the temple.  The first Spanish explorers stripped the temple of the gold, leaving behind the sun disk.  That too eventually vanished before the Spanish could return.  Where did it go?  Where was it hidden?
After taking in the sites of the Incan festival and learning more about the Incan people, David heads up into the mountains.  He will follow a trail over 500 years old and into the lost realm of the Incas.

From the start, the Incas believed that they were the children of the sun.  They were born on an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca.  Soon they would move from the island and into the mountains, where they would build an empire.  They ruled the largest empire since the Romans and they built a network of roads.  These roads ran north and south and went across the South American Continent.  David threads his way through the sacred valley and into another town.  It was in this valley where corn and potatoes were grown.  Corn and potatoes were a staple of the Incan Empire. 

David continues to make his way up to the mountains and learns more about the Incan culture along the way.  The trip into the mountains is exhausting.  However, as the trip moves forward, water is discovered and where there is water there are Incan ruins.  An earlier explorer found a watercourse and it leads to some Incan remains.  This site was important to the Incan people because one of the Incan rulers re-established an Incan capital.  It is here that David’s guides put together an oven and cook a meal.  The Incans were masons who had no competition.  Do the people of the mountains still consider themselves Incan?  The answer is yes.

David’s journey continues into the mountains to meet up with Gary Ziegler.  While the porters look for Gary’s camp, David explores the area.  The Incas had destroyed some of the roads to stop the Spanish from coming and taking their holy places.  However, even with the roads destroyed, it would have been a challenge for the Spanish to make their way up to the mountains with their heavy armor and horses.  How did the Incas manage to build their cities in the clouds?  What were their motivations?  Continue to watch this episode to find out.

This would be a good documentary to show for a high school and middle school history class.