Qorikancha

The most sacred temple in the Inca Empire, originally built around 1200 AD as Inticancha and later magnificently renovated by Pachacutec, who renamed it Qorikancha ("golden enclosure"). Its walls were lined with over 700 gold plates each weighing 2 kg, and its garden contained life-size golden replicas of animals and crops. The complex served as the religious, geographic, and political center of the Inca world, housing temples to Inti, Viracocha, and Quilla. Spanish conquistadors stripped the gold to ransom Atahualpa, and the Dominican order built the Church of Santo Domingo atop the ruins, though the original Inca stonework survived multiple earthquakes.