The Inca did not use the road network only for travelers through the empire, the road system also provided many religious and military purposes for the Inca culture.
Transportation
The Inca used the chasqui (runners) and llamas and alpacas for the transportation on the roads.
The chasqui were able to run 240 km (150 mi) per day. They were in charge of delivering everything much like the Pony Express of the 1860s in North America.
Alpacas and llamas are lightweight animals. They cannot carry much, but they are incredibly quik. When transporting big values of goods across the country it was more productive for the Incas to use flocks of llamas or alpacas and have two or three herders. The herdsmen would herd the animals up the raised mountain trails without having to risk peoples’ lives and while still being estimate to carry larger amounts of tnings.
Trade
All resources in the Incas country were the ownership of the ruling elite, the Inca. The delivery of these goods was known as vertical archipelago. This system for trade was throughout the Inca empire. Distinctive regions of the country had distinctive resources. The roads were helped to send out the resources to other divisions of the empire that were in need of them. This is one of the senses the Inca empire was so influential. They not only had a multitude of resources, but a set system to make sure all parts of the empire were able to obtain all the resources.
(to be continued)