Nazca Lines

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**Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca and Pampas de Jumana**^a
**UNESCO World Heritage Site**

State Party	Peru
Type	Cultural
Criteria	i, iii, iv
Identification	#700
Region^b	Latin America and the Caribbean
Inscription History
Formal Inscription:	1994 18th Session
a Name as officially inscribed on the WH List b As classified officially by UNESCO

The Nazca Lines are gigantic geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert, a high arid plateau that stretches 53 miles between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana in Peru. They were created by the Nazca culture between 200 BC and 700 AD. There are hundreds of individual figures, ranging in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, and lizards. The Nazca lines cannot be recognized as coherent figures except from the air. Since it is presumed the Nazca people could never have seen their work from this vantage point, there has been much speculation on the builders' abilities and motivations.

1 Building and preserving the lines
2 Theories
- 2.1 Accepted explanation
- 2.2 Alternative theories
3 New Developments
4 References
5 See Also
6 External links

[edit] Building and preserving the lines

The lines were made by removing the iron oxide coated pebbles which cover the surface of the Nazca desert. When the gravel is removed, they contrast with the light-colored earth underneath. There are several hundred simple lines and geometric patterns on the Nazca plateau, as well as over seventy curvilinear animal, insect, and human figures. The area encompassing the lines is nearly 200 square miles, and the largest figures can be nearly 900 feet (270 meters) long. The lines persist due to the extremely dry, windless, and constant climate of the Nazca region: the Nazca desert is one of the driest on Earth and maintains a temperature around 25°C (77°F) year round, and the lack of wind has helped keep the lines uncovered to the present day.

[edit] Theories

[edit] Accepted explanation

Map depicting location of most nazca lines.

Since their discovery, various theories have been proposed regarding the methods and motivations underlying the lines' construction. The archaeological explanation as to who made them and how is widely accepted; namely that the Nazca people made the lines using simple tools and surveying equipment. Wooden stakes in the ground at the end of some lines (which were used to carbon-date the figures) and ceramics found on the the surface support this theory. Furthermore, researchers such as Joe Nickell of the University of Kentucky, have reproduced the figures using the technology available to the Nazca Indians of the time without aerial supervision. With careful planning and simple technologies, a small team of individuals could recreate even the largest figures within a couple of days.

Satellite picture of an area containing lines. (Coordinates: 14°43′S, 75°08′W)

However, there is less existing evidence concerning why the figures were built, so the Nazca people's motivation remains the lines' most persistent mystery. Many scholars believe that their motivation was religious, making images that only gods in the sky could see clearly. In 1985 the archaeologist Johan Reinhard published archaeological, ethnographic, and historical data demonstrating that worship of mountains and other water sources played a dominant role in Nazca religion and economy from ancient to recent times. She presented the theory that the lines and figures can be explained as part of religious practices involving the worship of deities associated with the availability of water and thus the fertility of crops. The lines were interpreted as being primarily used as sacred paths leading to places from which these deities could be worshiped and the figures as symbolically representing animals and objects meant to invoke their aid. However, the precise meanings of many of the individual geoglyphs remain unsolved.

[edit] Alternative theories

This glyph of a dog is one of the more complex Nazca figures. Like all of the Nazca lines, it can only be seen from the air.

Another theory involves the work of David Johnson. Johnson has spent long hours researching the Nazca Lines and their apparent connection with underground waterways. Johnson has allegedly used dowsing to track these water tunnels and claims that the lines indicate whether the ground contains water or not. The areas with the most geoglyphs are purportedly centered around areas with high amounts of underground water and are usually close to wells and other on-land water sources. A suggestion Johnson makes is the fact that the inhabitants living in such a dry land would spend a significant portion of their time searching for water sources. By creating a giant, full-scale map they would know exactly where to find their water no matter what area of the desert they were in. The geoglyphs would then be religious figures for the gods or names given for each water source.[1]

Kosok and Reiche advanced one of the earliest reasons given for the Nazca Lines: that they were intended to point to the places on the distant horizon where the Sun and other celestial bodies rose or set. This hypothesis was evaluated by two different experts in archaeoastronomy, Gerald Hawkins and Anthony Aveni, and they both concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support an astronomical explanation.

Notwithstanding Gerald Hawkins' and Anthony Aveni's dismissal of an astronomical explanation of the Nazca Lines and geoglyphs, eclipsologist Robin Edgar has theorized that the Nazca Lines, particularly the biomorph geoglyphs that depict animals, human figures, birds and "flowers" are almost certainly an ancient response to the so-called "Eye of God" that is manifested in the sky during a total solar eclipse. An unusual series of total solar eclipses over southern Peru coincided with the time period during which the Nazca Lines and geoglyphs were created. The totally eclipsed sun distinctly resembles the pupil and iris of a gigantic eye looking down from the sky thus providing an explanation as to why the Nazca Indians created gigantic geoglyph artworks that are best viewed by an "Eye in the Sky".

Some (for example Jim Woodmann) have proposed that the Nazcan lines presuppose some form of manned flight (in order to see them) and that a hot air balloon was the only possible available technology. Woodmann actually made a hot air balloon from materials and using techniques that would have been available to people at the time in order to test this hypothesis. The balloon flew (after a fashion) demonstrating that this hypothesis was possible, but there is no hard evidence either way.

Another theory contends that the lines are the remains of "walking temples," where a large group of worshipers walked along a preset pattern dedicated to a particular holy entity, similar to the practice of labyrinth walking. Residents of the local villages say the ancient Indians conducted rituals on these giant drawings to thank the gods and to ensure that water would continue to flow from the Andes. This take on the Nazca lines' purpose and importance is far more likely, as it correlates with the purposes of other North American geoglyphs. It also ties in with the extensive network of underground canals and waterways found dating from the same period.

Perhaps the most controversial theory was put forward by Erich von Däniken in his book Chariots of the Gods, who proposed that the lines were in fact landing strips for alien spacecraft. His argument is similar to Woodman's, claiming that the designs are so large and complex that they could only have been constructed using flying machines.

[edit] New Developments

According to Viktoria Nikitzki of the Maria Reiche Centre, an organization dedicated to protecting the Nazca Lines, pollution and erosion caused by deforestation threaten the continued existence of the Nazca lines. She is quoted as saying "The Lines themselves are superficial, they are only 10 to 30cm deep and could be washed away... Nazca has only ever received a small amount of rain. But now there are great changes to the weather all over the world. The Lines cannot resist heavy rain without being damaged."[2] However, Mario Olaechea Aquije, the archaeological resident from Peru's National Institute of Culture in Nazca, Peru, and a team of specialists surveyed the area after the flooding and mudslides occurring in the area in mid-February of 2007. He announces that "the mudslides and heavy rains did not appear to have caused any significant damage to the Nazca Lines," but that the nearby Southern Panamerican Highway did suffer damage, and "the damage done to the roads should serve as a reminder to just how fragile these figures are."[3]

[edit] References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Nazca lines

Aveni, Anthony F. (ed.) (1990). The Lines of Nazca. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. ISBN 0-87169-183-3
Aveni, Anthony F. (2000). Between the Lines. Austin Texas: University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-70496-8
Lambers, Karsten (2006). The Geoglyphs of Palpa, Peru: Documentation, Analysis, and Interpretation. Lindensoft Verlag, Aichwald/Germany. ISBN 3-929290-32-4
Reinhard, Johan (1996) (6th ed.) The Nazca Lines: A New Perspective on their Origin and Meaning. Lima: Los Pinos. ISBN 84-89291-17-9
Living in Peru. "Peru: Nazca Lines escape mudslides", Living in Peru, February 20, 2007. Accessed April 02, 2007.
Meghji, Shafik. " Flooding and tourism threaten Peru's mysterious Nazca Lines", The Independant, July 17, 2004. Accessed April 02, 2007.

The Nazca Lines in Fiction The Nazca Lines also featured in the Anthony Horowitz novel Evil Star where they were an ancient gate which kept back a group of evil titans called the Old Ones.