The town of Nazca has recently been dumping its trash
on the pampa (plain), destroying some of the Nazca lines in the
process. This has caused some controversy; it is
believed the mayor issued the order to protest a lack of
aid to Nazca. Under President Alberto Ken'ya Fujimori's
rule, Nazca received money to turn the irrigation canals
(part of the Cantayo
Aqueduct system)
into tourist attractions. Unfortunately, this consisted
of tearing up some of the access points to the canals
and replacing them with reconstructions of how they were
believed to have looked. President Alejandro Toledo,
whose partner is an anthropologist, stopped the process,
and the aid as a result.
This is just one
example of the risks the Nazca Lines face daily!
Since 1997 Nazca is also the location of a major Canadian
gold mining operation. The people who were living on the
land for the previous 2000 years did not have title to
the land so they were easily displaced without legal problems
or concerns.
Since then, there have been some attempts to legalize
poor citizens' ownership of their land and their fixed
property, in response to Hernando de Soto's research on
the poor.
The Nazca (Nasca) Plain lies west of the
Andes Mountains
in the narrow coastal desert
The Nazca (Nasca) Plain lies west of the
Andes Mountains
in the narrow coastal desert
The ancient cultures of North-Western South America
Nazca (sometimes spelled
Nasca, Nosca, or Naxca) is the name of a system of valleys on the
southern coast of Peru, and the name of the region's
largest existing town. It is also the name applied to
the Nazca culture that flourished in the area between
300 BC and AD 800. They were believed to be responsible for the
Nazca
Lines and the ceremonial city of
Cahuachi; they also
constructed an impressive system of
underground
aqueducts that still function today.
The famous Nazca Flamingo!
The Nazca Lines area is generally defined
as
between the Nazca and Ingenio rivers.
However, there are large groups of lines in the
Palpa Valley, and
elsewhere up and down the
Pacific Coast of South America
One of the Nazca (Palpa) Geoglyphs illuminated at
night
Nazca Lines Location:
Central Coast, 1,929 feet (588 m.) above sea level
Distances:
460 Km (286 miles) from
Lima
135 Km (84 miles) from
Ica
205 Km (127.4 miles) from
Paracas
566 Km (351.8 miles) from
Arequipa
"the Nasca managed to
organize a society and take advantage of resources
from
the ocean and the mountains. They were truly an advanced
society," The BIG Picture: Nazca Geoglyph Zone
Map - click an item to view that page ป
The Nazca lines aren't the only geoglyphs in the world. The tradition of drawing figures on the ground spans the pacific coastal desert areas from central California to northern Chile,
as well as Europe and Asia. The drawings at Nazca, however, are unique because
of their size and density within a 500 square kilometer area in southwest Peru. Straight lines that go on for hundreds of
kilometers, only swerving out by a few degrees, huge trapezoids and spirals, and animal figures, some of which can be seen in their entirety from
space - have been holding the attention of archeologists since the 1920s. How did the Nazcans make them so precise? For whom? And why?
As it turns out, how they got their drawings so precise is the one question on which scientists can agree. The Peruvian desert provided a perfect tableau for the
Nazcan 'artists'. Covered by fist-sized volcanic rocks, blackened and varnished from exposure to the atmosphere, the desert or pampa surface makes a sharp contrast to the soft yellow soil only inches underneath the stones. By simply removing the overlying stones and piling them on each side, the Nazcans were able to sketch their drawings onto what may be the greatest scratch pad in the world. In another climate, the drawings would have been obliterated in months, but Nazca is one of the driest and most windless regions on Earth. Climate and geology conspired to create an ideal medium for the Nazcans - leaving their distinctive images to be admired and pondered over thousands of years later.
But how were the
Nazcans able to get the hundreds of kilometers-long lines so straight, and their figures in such perfect proportions?
The
Perfect Spiral
Maria Reiche in 1949 standing next to the dog's feet
In 1927, archaeologist Mejia Xespe an assistant to
Julio C. Tello, the Father of Peruvian Archeology -
was told of the presence of some mysterious
geoglyphs or lines or traces on the ground along the
Peruvian coast. In those days, he had just
started his archaeological studies and had not given
much importance to these suggestive lines in the
Pampas Nasca. It is important to
understand that the appeal of an unknown series of
lines was much lower than other, more attractive
archaeological sites, such as
Chavin, Chan-Chan,
and, of course, the majestic Machu Picchu in Cuzco
department.
It was that same year, 1927, that
Dr. Paul Kosok,
another researcher in ancient agriculture, from the
United States, came to Peru, attracted by these
pre-Columbian cultures. He learned of the
Nasca Lines, and thinking them to be remnants of
agricultural irrigation systems, chose to explore
them. On one of his first trips through the
south, he had seen the extensive lines of many on
both sides of the road near the mountains.
More than just a curiosity,
Kosok note the clean and
uniform strokes apparently used in creating these
diverse geometric figures: triangles, rectangles,
quadrangles, etc. The lines extended in multiple
directions and assembling into fine roads,
sidewalks, and broad avenues.
Great was his surprise when he discovered that the
lines formed geometric shapes, even animals!
That one of the drawings actually produced the
unmistakable shape of a bird in flight. But he had
found the key to the riddle? Some at the time simply
thought this was the
World's Largest Book of
Astronomy, equating the lines and symbols with the
constellations.
Subsequent studies suggested that the Nascans built
these lines in order to mark various dates on their
astronomical calendar, such as the arrival of
winter, summer, and other events related to their
agricultural and cultural activities.
In 1946, he returned to the United States, but not
before suggesting to Maria Reiche, who had assisted
in the investigation, that she pursue the study of
the drawings that he had begun to decipher.
Maria
devoted her life to this work.
Since many of the drawings must be viewed from the air to be seen in their entirety, the task of getting such large figures so perfectly proportioned and the lines so straight was thought to have required an observer from above to guide the drawings. This led some to hypothesize that the Nazcans may have been capable of flight! (however, there
is NO PROOF of this!)
But Dr. Persis B. Clarkson, an archeologist and geoglyph expert at the University of Winnipeg says the technology required was very easy and straightforward. "It was not a difficult technology... all you need is the will." As Clarkson explains, all it took was careful and diligent attention to sight lines.
For the straight lines, two wooden stakes could be used to guide the placement of a third stake along the line. One person 'sights along' the first two stakes and instructs a second person where to place the third stake. Strings could also have been used to help ensure the lines were straight. This process could be repeated for hundreds of kilometres with due diligence
and time.
During the summer of 1984, ten volunteers from Earthwatch, an international nonprofit organization that supports scientific field research, helped Anthony Aveni, an astronomer and anthropologist at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York in a study of the Nazca lines. They constructed a straight line that wound up into a spiral 35 meters long and one meter wide in just an hour and a half - without a printed plan. One group squatted in the interior of the figure, uncovering the stones to let the pale yellow soil underneath to show, while another group moved these stones to the edge of the figures and arranged them into piles about a half a meter high. A third group supervised the edging process to ensure that things lined up correctly. The result, says Aveni, was a figure that was as accurate as any Nazca drawing measured with a surveyor's instrument.
By extrapolating their results, Aveni and his team concluded that the work crew could have cleared an average-sized trapezoid spanning an area of 16,000 square
meters in about a week. With a work force of 10,000 people, Aveni estimates that every line and trapezoid on the entire pampa could have been made in less than a decade.
Aveni's article in Archaeology (August 1986) sets the Nazca lines in perspective and adds some new observations. First, Aveni deflates their mystery a bit. You do not have to be in an airplane to appreciate the lines; most can be viewed from ground level, even better from nearby foothills. Although there are some 1,300 kilometers of lines and about 300 geometric figures, their construction did not really involve much labor or special engineering skills. Even so, the Nazca lines are remarkable, and we really do not know for certain why they were etched on the Peruvian pampa.
In his early research on the Nazca lines, Aveni noted their strong similarity to the
"ceque" system of 41 imaginary lines radiating outwards from the Inca's Temple of the Sun, at Cuzco -- the "navel" of the Inca universe.
"...the ceque system was a highly ordered hierarchical cosmographical map, a mnemonic scheme that incorporated virtually all important matters connected with the Inca world view." continued ...
A young Maria Reiche standing by a long line in 1949
Could the Nazca lines have been a forerunner of the ceque system? Aveni also noticed that the Nazca lines and geometrical figures were closely related to watercourses. Also, many of the lines definitely functioned as footpaths. It was also apparent that the animal figures, which were laid down much earlier than the line systems, were not related conceptually to the line scheme.
Aveni concluded:
"...whatever the final answer may be to the mystery of the Nazca lines, this much is certain: the pampa is not a confused and meaningless maze of lines, and it was no more intended to be viewed from the air than an Iowa wheat field. The lines and line centers give evidence of a great deal of order, and the well-entrenched concept of radiality offers affinities between the ceque system of Cuzco and the lines on the pampa. All the clues point to a ritual scheme involving water, irrigation and planting; but as we might expect of these ancient cultures, elements of astronomy and calendar were also evident."
According to Viktoria Nikitzki of the
Maria Reiche Centre
(an organization dedicated to studying and 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
easily 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." 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." However, it is worth noting that
undiscovered and undocumented geoglyphs may well
have been lost, hence the need for exhaustive
mapping of all geoglyph areas.
MYSTERY PERU Adventure Tour Operator
Ignacio Morsesky 126,
NAZCA PERU
Telephone: 0051-56-52-23-79
Mobile: 0051-56-969-11-55
Fax: 0051-56-52-23-79
E-mail:
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A note about
image quality: images of lines and
symbols taken by air or from satellite
images are adjusted to improve contrast and
visibility of the artifact (line or symbol).
The results vary from image to image.
We apologize for the quality of some of the
images, but it is due to the original source
images, and the difficulty of
photographing subject object.
NazcaMystery.com
An Archaeology Site
by Tim McGuinness, Ph.D.
Maria del Mar Moreno, Sr. Editor; Kyra McGuinness,
Research Staff The
information presented is believed to be correct and accurate.
However,
please let us know of any errors.
This is a scholarly work for non-profit educational purposes.
Some content used under "Fair Use"
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Nazca Plateau & The
Nazca Geoglyphs
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