Dominic Sandbrook

This is an incredible operation.

They've built nine huge forges under Spanish supervision.

Inca smiths are going to do it.

And they are feeding the fires all day, all night, seven days a week for seven weeks with more than 600 pounds of gold a day.

So that's a total of 11 tons.

And we're talking about vases, figurines, idols, ornaments, necklaces, you name it.

These are beautiful artifacts because we know from the very few that were preserved, the high standard of Andean kind of gold craftsmanship.

Such a tragedy.

Imagine what it would be like to have those things.

The Spanish turned them into bars that would be stamped with the royal symbol.

And there were going to be 13,500 pounds of gold bars, 16,000 pounds of silver bars, which are all destined to be shipped back to Spain.

Now, you'll remember that I mentioned that Atahualpa had offered them two temples.

So one is Pachacamac, which we talked about last time, and the other was the Sun Temple of Coricancha in Cuzco.

And he has now persuaded Pizarro, send some men to Cuzco, to the Sun Temple.

Cuzco is a hell of a long way away, 750 miles across the central Andes.

Not for people who've been going 800 miles.

Well, I guess, yeah.

Yeah, except you're going across the mountains, which is hard.

Yeah, true.

So when he gets a message from Hernando, his brother, to say Pachacamac is no good, there's no gold, Pizarro says, okay, fine, we'll do it.