Tom Holland

And he said, wow, melt it down.

They melted it down.

They melted everything down.

Because they did preserve the Aztec stuff, some of it.

I mean, we do have Aztec treasures.

That's a good question about why there's a difference.

And I wonder if part of the difference, Charles V at this point is fighting, remember we mentioned he's fighting two wars simultaneously.

Yeah.

And the demand for money, you know, fighting the French in Italy must just be overwhelming.

No time for the arts.

No time for the arts.

The real star of the temple, though, is a thing called the puncao, which means the dawn.

And this was, and I quote, "...an image of the sun of great size, made of gold, beautifully wrought and set with many precious stones."

This image of the sun was the single most important of all Inca artefacts.

And no one knows what happened to it.

So there's one Bas Conquistador who basically went around for years afterwards saying, I lost it in a game of dice or something.

Very Han Solo or whatever.

That sounds improbable.

Yeah.

Other people said that's rubbish.