Ingapirca Inca-Style Doorways

Architectural elements characteristic of many Inca sites are ‘double-jammed’ entryways and distinctive trapezoidal doors, windows, and niches. South American pre-Columbian masonry of this style is only found within the boundaries of the Inca Empire, primarily concentrated in Cusco, the heart of the empire.The distribution of this distinctive architectural style, along with their oral history as recorded by the Spanish, should dispel unsupported alternative-history theories suggesting that earlier cultures constructed these sites. The Inca were the only empire to expand this far throughout the continent, with a population of more than ten million. These subject paid various forms of tribute to their rulers, often in the form of labor for the construction of sites like this.