Centuries-old Inca offering discovered in sacred lake
Undisturbed for 500 years, the rare unlooted offering sheds light on Inca religion and ritual.
Lake Titicaca was a sacred space to the ancient Andean empire of the Inca, which at its height in the early 16th century controlled territory from modern-day Colombia to Chile. The Inca built more than 80 temples and other structures for a variety of rituals on the Isla del Sol, or Island of the Sun, in the southern part of the lake in Bolivia, where their origin myth said the sun god was born and their primordial ancestors emerged from a rock. And they lowered offerings into the surrounding waters as they sent up fervent prayers.
A new discovery, published today in the journal Antiquity, offers fresh insights into the Inca belief system, which was likely tied
