The state also undertook a number of government projects to develop the empire. These projects used labor drawn from conquered populations in the form of a special tax called the mita. The mita was a labor tax on male citizens of the empire, which required them to serve an work projects for a specific period of time each year. Entire cities were sometimes built to house the work forces who were fed by the state during their mita tenure. Bridges, temples, agricultural developments, roads, and government buildings were all built through this system of taxation.
The empire was linked by a vast road network which ran and the coast, with smaller roads linking small towns and communities to the main thoroughfares. The construction of roads was a tradition which had begun before the Inca. Along the roads were way stations, maintained by towns and villages for the state, where official travelers and messengers could find lodging and food. Over the road traveled mita laborers, llama caravans carrying goods for state warehouses, and the imperial armies. Since wheeled vehicles were unknown in the Andes, the roads sometimes made steep, stepped ascents and descents along mountain ridges and through valleys. The road system linked modern Ecuador with the northwest of Argentina. The roads centered on Cuzco and ran out to the four provinces of the empire.
From Cuzco a corps of Inca bureaucrats managed the empire and kept tally of its population and wealth. One third of the lands of subject communities was the property of the ruler (called the Inca) and his family. The crops produced by these lands were stored in large warehouses that can still be seen standing along the flanks of valleys. From these warehouses, food to feed the mita laborers and wool to clothe the empire were drawn. Each family in the empire was theoretically due a yearly ration of wool from the state. The foodstuffs collected in the warehouses also fed the empire's bureaucrats and artisans and provided communities with food during periods of famine.
Metalsmiths, textile workers, potters and other artisans in Cuzco were frequently state employees and were housed, fed, and clothed by the state. Craftsmen and women manufactured a variety of goods for the state. Bronze tools and gold and silver objects were manufactured in great numbers. The practice of metalworking was widespread throughout Andean America. Gold and silver objects have been found in very old sites, frequently in the burials of the elite. Copper and later bronze were used to manufacture tools, weapons, and decorative objects.
