For himself, Pizarro claimed the weight in gold of more than 13 men. Once Atawallpa was dead, the Europeans had his priceless artifacts melted down into ingots, for ease of transport.

This sorry episode occurred after the Spaniards had already slaughtered at least 5,000 of Atawallpa’s finest soldiers, relying on cavalry, artillery and muskets to make short work of men armed mainly with hatchets and slingshots. Otherwise, they would have burned him at the stake. They killed the poor man anyway, by strangling him-a “mercy” conferred by their leader, Francisco Pizarro, after Atawallpa underwent a last-minute conversion to Christianity. The gathering of so many riches took months to accomplish, but Atawallpa was as good as his word, while his conquerors fell far short of theirs.

In the early 16th Century, an Inca prince named Atawallpa promised to fill the room in question with ornaments of gold, while also stocking two similar cubicles with silverwork, all in a bargain to save himself from execution at the hands of the alien Spaniards. It is known as el Cuarto del Rescate, or the Ransom Chamber, and it is located in Cajamarca, a green and pleasant city perched high amid the cloud-draped Andes of northern Peru-a town with a history.

The Gold Eaters by Ronald Wright