The Treasure of the Llanganates refers to a huge amount of gold, silver, platinum and electrum artifacts, as well as other treasures, supposedly hidden deep within the Llanganates mountain range of Ecuador by the Inca general Rumiñahui.
[citation needed] In 1532 Francisco Pizarro founded the town of San Miguel de Piura and began the conquest of the Inca Empire.
[citation needed] The legend holds that the Inca general Rumiñahui was on his way to Cajamarca with an enormous amount of worked gold for the ransom when he learned that Atahualpa had been murdered.
Accounts of the amount of gold involved varies in different versions of the legend, but all agree that on the news of Atahualpa's death, he sent the porters East to areas that are to the present day uninhabited and later returned to Quito and hauled more treasures, including tiles of the temple of the Sun and possessions of the ñustas (temple dancers).
Rumiñahui continued fighting against the Spanish, and though he was eventually captured and tortured, he never revealed the location of the treasure.