South America

A hammered silver and gold-alloy miniature camelid (llama) figurine of the Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu), 1400–1535 CE — among the most sacred objects of the Inca state religion, buried as capacocha offerings at high-altitude mountain shrines.

Perched at 2,430 metres in the Peruvian Andes, Machu Picchu was built by the Inca emperor Pachacuti around 1450 CE and abandoned less than a century later, remaining hidden from the outside world until 1911.

Between 1810 and 1826, Simon Bolivar led one of the most ambitious military campaigns in history, liberating six countries from Spanish colonial rule and dreaming of a unified South American republic.

The Inca Empire, the largest in the Americas, stretched 4,000 kilometres along the Andes and governed 12 million people through an extraordinary system of roads, storehouses, and administrative centres.