Hanan Qusqu

The Hanan Qusqu, or Upper Cusco, was the second Inca dynasty, drawn from the upper half of the city's dual moiety system. Around 1350 its leader Inca Roca overthrew the Hurin Qusqu branch and became the first Cusco lord to call himself Inca, leaving the Hurin with religious office while the Hanan monopolized secular and military power.

Pachacuti, as Cusi Yupanqui, saved Cusco from the Chanka invasion of 1438 and then built the Tawantinsuyu, the Inca Empire. His son Topa Inca Yupanqui and grandson Huayna Capac extended its rule from Quito to central Chile.

Huayna Capac's death in a smallpox epidemic around 1527 brought a civil war between his sons Huascar and Atahualpa, and the Spanish under Pizarro captured and executed Atahualpa in 1533. A Hanan prince held out in Vilcabamba until 1572, when Tupac Amaru I was executed in Cusco.