Cuarto del Rescate (Ransom Room)

The room where the Inca emperor Atahualpa offered to fill a chamber with gold

The Cuarto del Rescate is a small stone building a few blocks from Cajamarca's Plaza de Armas, and it is one of the most historically significant places in South America. This is where the Inca emperor Atahualpa was held after Francisco Pizarro captured him in November 1532, and where Atahualpa made his famous offer: to fill the room with gold — a line drawn on the wall shows the promised height — in exchange for his freedom.

The building is the only surviving Inca construction in Cajamarca. It is modest in size — barely six metres long — which makes the scale of the ransom collected all the more extraordinary: an estimated six tonnes of gold objects (melted down by the Spanish) and twelve tonnes of silver. The room can be visited; a guide will explain the history in detail. The building is managed by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and admission is by ticket.

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A story
In November 1532, Pizarro captured Atahualpa at the ambush in the plaza. Atahualpa, recognizing the Spaniards' hunger for gold, offered a remarkable ransom: to fill the room he was held in once with gold and twice with silver. The room is 6.25 metres long, 5.17 metres wide, and about 2.4 metres tall. Over the following months, llama trains arrived from across the empire carrying golden objects. The ransom was paid — and then Pizarro had Atahualpa garrotted anyway. It was one of the most consequential acts of treachery in the history of the Americas.