Tupaq Yupanki III
| Tupaq Yupanki III | |
|---|---|
 Name written in Kaya script | |
| Sapa Inka | |
| Reign | 27 April 1953 – 14 May 1956 |
| Coronation | 22 June 1953 |
| Predecessor | Titu Rimachi II |
| Heir | Monarchy abolished |
| Born | 13 May 1926 Tupawasi, Kayahallpa |
| Died | 24 March 2022 (aged 95) Tupawasi |
| Burial | Qhapaq Pikchu, Tupawasi Suyu |
| Spouse | Mama Kusi Quya (m. 1948) and others |
| Issue | 34 |
| House | Qhapaq Dynasty |
| Father | Titu Rimachi II |
| Mother | Mama Uqllu Quya |
| Religion | Yuyaqpi Sakbeism |
Tupaq Yupanki III (Sapan Inka Tupaq Yupanki; born 13 May 1926, died 24 March 2022) was the last Sapa Inka of Kayahallpa, having ascended to the throne some time after the death of his father, the previous Sapa Inka Titu Rimachi II in April 1953. Chosen according to traditional Kayahallpan ascension procedures, he was the 7th eldest son and 12th eldest child of Titu Rimachi II. He served as the head of Kayahallpa's greatly weakened monarchy for three years until 1956, when the monarchy was finally abolished in national leader Kaman Yashakphi's self-coup. Typified as a political and social traditionalist, he resented the changes to the Kayahallpan Constitution which had stripped the royalty and nobility of their powers, inevitably bringing him into conflict with Yashakphi's increasingly socialist Kayan Workers' Party. After being deposed, he and his immediate family and relatives lived in several countries until they were invited back in 1988, several years after the 1960 Kayahallpan Revolution which established a Sakbeist republic. Faced with a greatly diminished political capital, most of his activities went into his various attempts at recovering the vast former properties of the Sapa Inkas, to little avail. He was also entirely unsuccesful in his pleas to restore the monarchy after the revolution, as the first Kamasqa, Pitiy Achtil, viewed the monarchy as the ultimate source of all evil in Kayahallpan society. Tupaq Yupanki's health began to seriously decline in the late 1990s, and he most likely lied in a vegetative state between December 2007 and his death in March 2022, when his death was announced by Kayahallpan media.
Tupaq Yupanki was born in the capital city Tupawasi inside the Imperial Palace to the previous Sapa Inka, Titu Rimachi II and his first wife Mama Uqllu Quya on the 13th of May 1926. He spent much of his upbringing at the Temple of Chak, a religious structure and organization near the city of Sarallaqta.
After his death, he was given an official state funeral and buried in the grounds of the ancient imperial palace. The funerary proceedings, carried out in the traditional manner for a late Sapa Inka, commenced from the holy city of Qusqu to the Qhapaq Pikchu outside the capital city of Tupawasi, were attended by roughly half a million people and numerous foreign dignitaries. His third eldest son Kuntur Rimachi was confirmed as the heir to the Qhapaq house shortly thereafter, the first who will not receive a formal coronation.