When I wrote that Amaterasu is the last facet of the Sun, which I could write about, I had overlooked Inti. But Heretical Oracles didn’t overlook it. Inti is asteroid #9480, also known as 2553 P-L (this designation refers to the Palomar-Leiden survey), and a member of the Themis asteroid-family. Inti was discovered by the married couple Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld. Inti is named after the Sun god of the Incas.

Inti was usually represented in human form, his face portrayed as a gold disk from which rays and flames extended. The Incas believed that Inti was their ancestor and Inti was the head of the state cult. Inti was also called Apu-Punchau. Inti has an elder sister, who is named Mama Killa and was portrayed as a silver disk with human features. Mama Killa is the Moon and also the wife of Inti. She is also spelled Mama Quilla. The Inca main god Viracocha (Asteroid #2738 is named after him.) and his wife Mama Qucha (the sea) are the parents of Inti, or Tayta Inti, and Mama Killa. These two were the parents of Manco Cápac, who was the first ruler of the Incas, and his wife Mama Ocllo or Mama Uqllu. Mama Killa was also the mother of Pachakamaq, a creator god, who the Incas adopted from the Chimú when the Chimú joined the Inca empire.

Inti is the Sun, but he’s also the god of rainbows. The Inca ruler has always to be seen as an incarnation of Inti. Although it was the ninth ruler of the Incas, Pachacútec Yupanqui, who introduced the cult of Inti. Pachacútec Yupanqui is also the first historically proven ruler of the Incas and it is believed that Machu Picchu was built for him.

Inti actually represents a trinity. Apu Inti (the supreme Inti) is the father or Lord Sun. Churi Inti (son Inti) is the son (of Apu Inti) or the daylight. Inti Wawqi (Inti brother) is also spelled Inti Gauaqui or Inti Huaoqui and is the founding father of the Inca reign and is the center of the Inca state’s official ancestor cult.

Inti portrayed as a gold disk and his sister/ wife as a silver disk shows that the Sun and the Moon were for the Incas as much connected with gold and silver as for the European alchemists. They even had similar ideas of how the metals came into existence. European alchemists believed in an evolution, which involved also metals. The alchemist theory of evolution says that noble metals develop from ignoble metals because all metals would develop from a baser level to a nobler level. The second-noblest level for the alchemists was the level of silver and the noblest level the level of gold. Hence gold existed because it would develop from silver (and silver from copper and so on). The alchemists used the symbol for the Sun ☉ as the symbol for gold. Pre-Columbian South Americans (not only the Incas) believed that gold grows under the Earth as long as humans worship and please the Sun. The god, who is the Sun, would let the gold grow as he also lets grow the crops on the fields. This made gold a very religious matter for the Incas.

From all facets of the Sun seems Inti to me the one, that is closest associated with gold. Inti represents this alchemist secret. Besides pointing to the Andean culture and Andean nations of course. And also to the Andean crops, that grow also because of the Sun in the Andes.