The Llama, the Incas, Perú and the Andes
by Charles Young and Karl Klooster

Perú
(continued)

Cuzco became a depository for all the gold and silver from every corner of the Empire. At its height, the quantities received annually were 15,000 arrobas of gold and 50,000 arrobas of silver (1 arroba = 25 pounds). Imagine thousands upon thousands of pounds of gold and silver every year.

All of the Inca's household service - plates, jars, goblets, knives, spoons, kettles, vases - were made of gold or gold and silver. Gold, silver and turquoise were used to make and decorate all manner of items from the regal: crowns, jewelry, funeral masks, statuettes, helmets, breastplates and ceremonial garments, to the mundane: bells, tweezers, belts and purses.

If any one Inca structure could be called a monument to gold, it was Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun. According to chroniclers, molten gold sealed the cracks between the stones of its interior walls, which, themselves, were completely covered, with a tapestry of solid gold placards.

All the artifacts within the Temple - the sacred vessels (queros) from which the Sapa Inca drank, plates on which he dined, bins where the corn for his drink (chicha) was stored, large jars (urpus) and skins (carasso) in which his drink was kept - were made of gold.