Incans smashed and burned before leaving...

[mol]

Incan pilgrims smashed and burned their own temple, and a tower containing a golden statue of a king, rather than letting them fall into Spanish hands, says an Australian archaeologist.

Ian Farrington from Canberra's Australian National University is excavating the temple site in Peru with Professor Julinho Zapata from the National University de San Antonio Abad del Cusco.

The site, called Pambokancha, is 30 kilometres from the Incan capital of Cusco.

The site had religious significance, and local villagers still use the hill behind it to celebrate the festival of Santa Barbara on 4 December, the same date used from Incan times.

Farrington told ABC Science Online from Peru that the site was unusual because it suffered damage only at the hands of the Incas. Nearby villagers had taken stones from some of the buildings, but the site was never looted.

"[The Incas] literally closed the placed down," said Farrington. "It's the find of a century."

More:
http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1199007.htm

[Laisrean]

Supposedly Inca priests dumped alot of religious objects into lake Titicaca so that they would not fall into Spanish hands. Well, that's what some believe, but either way alot of treasures disappeared and no one knows where they are because the Incas hid them and they remain hidden to this day. And they were right to do this because the Spanish would have destroyed everything that wasn't gold or silver, and the objects which were made of gold or silver would have been melted into ingots.