All but one of the great civilizations of the ancient world were located within the northern hemisphere, with its North Star pointing toward the northern skies. The exception was the Inka Empire. Given their unique location within the southern hemisphere, which does not have a North Star in the southern skies, how did the Inkas perceive their place in the universe? What type of cosmology did the Inkas invent for themselves? How did they find, or create, order within the central Andean landscape, which is subject to extreme geological instability and the absence of a North Star to fix the cardinal points? How was their cosmology reflected in the Inka settlements, the material culture and the organization of their empire?

Based on his nearly half a century of archaeological, ethnographic, and archival research in the central Andes, Gary Urton explores and explains in this book the cosmological tradition of the Inkas, their ancestors, and their descendants. He develops a vision of Inka cosmology that is unparalleled in terms of its deep basis in natural history, astronomy, material culture, art, and the organization of society in the central Andes.