Over the centuries, Lake Titicaca has accrued great symbolic and religious significance for the civilizations that have occupied it. From time immemorial, the Andean region has woven together a mythology in which the creation of the world did not come out of the void. Rather, the emergence of a new deity gave rise to the reordering of existence and the birth of a new cosmos. One of the most popular tales recounting the o-rigin of the Inca Empire in the Hispanic world was the one presented by Garcilaso de la Vega, where the Sun god, on contemplating the woeful state of mankind, created Manco Cápac and Mama Ocllo. These two new beings, who emerged from the waters of Lake Titicaca holding a golden rod, founded Cuzco, the first city of a new civilization.

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