Pizarro Enters Cuzco

November 15, 1533

Francisco Pizarro marched into Cuzco, the navel of the Inca world, past temples sheathed in gold. His men stripped the Coricancha and melted its gardens into ingots. A puppet emperor, Manco Inca, was enthroned. The conquest of the central Andes was, on paper, complete. The looting of the Coricancha, whose walls were sheathed in gold plate, produced a treasure so vast its division took months.