Could the Inca Empire become the "Rome" of South America?

The Inca empire was on a technological parity to something similar to the Babylonians

I... disagree very much. I don't know what "Babylonians" you mean but I can't think of a group where Babylonians is appropriate and would have the same-ish technology as the Inka
 
I... disagree very much. I don't know what "Babylonians" you mean but I can't think of a group where Babylonians is appropriate and would have the same-ish technology as the Inka
I honestly didnt mean that in an insulting way. I meant that both the Incas and Babylon had a similar ability to govern wide amounts of territory with bronze-age tools
 
I honestly didnt mean that in an insulting way. I meant that both the Incas and Babylon had a similar ability to govern wide amounts of territory with bronze-age tools
Oh no I'm not insulted I just disagree. But alright, if we're going by sheer size and ability to rule and govern then the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the largest of the Babylons, was Iron Age (around 630 BCE to 530 BCE) and had somewhere about this size:

mg43WmYXoDmSjj2gMKUznNN6.gif


And the Inka on the other hand were "Bronze Age" and in far more rugged terrain across far more latitudes and about this size:

expanziainkov.jpg


Which is much bigger and much more populous.


This is nothing against you of course, it just really annoys me when people try and compare the Old World Civilizations of the Bronze Age to the New World Civilizations that also used Bronze a lot. Personally I'd say even the Mesoamerican civilizations, which were not too big on metal working even compared to the Andeans, were more advanced than the Middle East in the 600s BCE.



EDIT: Just did some estimating on Google Earth and the Inka was somewhere from 3 to 4 time bigger than the largest potential borders of the largest Babylonian Empire.
 
also turns out that an even relatively high estimate for world population in 500 BCE is about 150 million, meaning that if the Inka were in that time they'd have somewhere about 10% of the world population in their borders!

(ISOT idea...)
 
also turns out that an even relatively high estimate for world population in 500 BCE is about 150 million, meaning that if the Inka were in that time they'd have somewhere about 10% of the world population in their borders!

(ISOT idea...)

A quick google search (it's a tourist page, but it cites it's sources, and frankly the papers are too dry for me to read rn) brings up these sources, which range to an upwards of 14 million. Some gave even higher estimates. 16-18 million seems plausible, given that we now know that the Americas were much more developed in Pre-Columbian times.
 
A quick google search (it's a tourist page, but it cites it's sources, and frankly the papers are too dry for me to read rn) brings up these sources, which range to an upwards of 14 million. Some gave even higher estimates. 16-18 million seems plausible, given that we now know that the Americas were much more developed in Pre-Columbian times.
The logic doesn't follow, 14 million is not a small estimate, it's an high estimate of its own, saying "we now know they were more developed" would put us towards 10-15 million estimates and not even higher, because actually low estimates would have them just have a couple million people(and yes there were estimates like this)
 
I think the key would be establishing conquerable communities earlier. So we need Mesoamerican style urbanisation in Modern Venezuela, Panama, etc - effectively a continuity of civilisation between the Inca and Maya, as well as communities that existed in Argentina becoming wealthier, focusing perhaps on the "Mesopotamian" region and the Pampas - which could form almost a "North Africa" for the Inca to invade.

Basically, organise targets earlier.
 

Brunaburh

Gone Fishin'
Regardless of whether or not Incan culture is highly regarded couldn't it still have successor states? If not what nation would have to replace Greece? @EMT has already suggested the Chimu.

It did have two successor states, the kingdom of Vilcabamba and the Viceroyalty of Peru.

The Spanish used Inca governmental structures and territorial units adapted them to their new systems, for example the Ayllu system which was the basic unit of production in the colonial (and republican until about last week) Andes. Their system of labour drafts (mita) evolved from an Inca system. Also, Quechua actually spread during the Viceroyalty, replacing other Andean languages as it was the primary working language of most aspects of the early Viceroyalty.
 
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