Nazca Lines

Nazca DesertPeru

3 Oct

Again in Peru, this time we find ourselves, not in the mountains, but in the dry desert.

And this dry desert has preserved the Nazca Lines for centuries. Come and discover the mysterious and wonder at the why.

Why the lines

Now there’s some debate about whether it’s Nazca with a ‘z’ or with an ‘s’. Traditionally it would have been written with an ‘s’ as supposedly the letter ‘z’ didn’t appear in the Peruvian alphabet until after the Spanish arrived. But I think for the sake of today’s episode we’ll stick with the more modern ‘z’.

So in a river basin turned desert plain sit the Nazca Lines, the basin is from the Rio Grande de Nasca or the Great Nasca River. But don’t let that worry you, like most deserts water is pretty tough to come by.

The lines themselves are thought to be the artistic expression of the Nasca. They clearly enjoyed drawing massive anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and phytomorphic figures. And let’s not forget the standard straight line that just goes and goes for a good couple kms.

These giant geoglyphs, or designs etched into the ground, are on the coastal plain of Peru, which you’ll find about 400 km south of the Peruvian capital of Lima.

Now while we know that the Nazca culture created the lines, and despite the lines having been studied for a good 80+ years, there’s still so much that we don’t know about this art form even after being made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994.

And while similar artworks have been found in other parts of the world, the Nazca Lines are unmatched in their size, sheer quantity and diversity of subject.

So with the lines, you’ll find there are three basic types: you’ve got your standard straight lines, the slightly more advanced geometric shapes, and then your pictorial geoglyphs.

In regards to the straight lines, there are over 800 that have been counted, some that are as long as 48 kms. With the geometry there have been over 300 geometric designs counted and they include everything from triangles to rectangles to trapezoids. Plus there’s also spirals, zig-zags, arrows and even the odd wavy line or two, I’m kidding there’s heaps of them.

Now the Nazca Lines are best known for their depictions of animals and plants numbering about 70. But new ones are constantly being found. Some of the ones we already know about include, the hummingbird, monkey, llama, spider, cactus, whale, flower, tree, duck, dog, and lizard.

There’s also a humanoid figure, that’s been dubbed ‘The Astronaut’, and you can even see some depictions of hands and things that the experts just aren’t quite sure what they represent.

Now the reason for the existence of the lines has long been debated amongst scholars and the interested public. There are currently several theories floating around and they range from astronomical maps to an agricultural calendar to sacred routes between religious sites.

While a majority of the lines can’t be seen unless from the sky, there are some lines that appear on hillsides and it’s these designs that some believe were intended as direction finders for travellers. Whether that’s what their original intention was or not, they’ve certainly been that at times over the years.

Almost all of the lines were used in a very interesting way. In order to make the shapes the lines never cross each other and are created in a way that if you were drawing the shape on a piece of paper your pen would never lift off the page, so definitely some thought was put into the shapes. This type of design suggests that they may have been used a walking paths as part of religious ceremonies.

Some of the more out there suggestions has been interplanetary visitors, but this has been vastly dismissed due to the severe lack of evidence, and also the fact that its fairly conceivable that the Nasca culture were able to come up with this artistic style themselves without outside aid. An experiment conducted actually found that it’s fairly easy to create the lines, a small team was able to clear 16 000 square metres of the desert floor, in the same way that the lines would have been created, in just one week.

Way back in 1926, Toribio Mejia Xesspe, a Peruvian archaeologist, started a systematic study of the Nazca Lines, but his field of study didn’t really get much attention until the 1930s, when pilots started flying over the top of them, making the geoglyphs a must see around the world.

In was throughout the late 1930s, going into the early 1940s, that an American historian named Paul Kosok, studied the lines from both the ground and the air.

Whilst studying the position of the lines in relation to the sun, in particular the winter solstice, he decided that surely, the lines had an astronomical element associated with them. Kosok actually went on to call the desert that houses the lines

The largest astronomy book in the world.

Not too long after Kosok there was Maria Reiche, an archaeologist and translator all the way from Germany. She also came to the conclusion that the lines purpose had to be associated with astronomy and possibly a calendar. But she went even further, believing that some of the lines that depicted animals were actually reflections of groups of stars as seen in the sky.

But it was another American scientist, this time an astronomer, Gerald Hawkins, who disagreed with those that came before him. Hawkins arrived in the late 1960s and stayed through the early 1970s, and along with a group of researchers, they examined the lines, deciding that the lines actually had nothing to do with astronomy. Interesting conclusion for an astronomer.

But research carried out more recently has suggested that the purpose of the lines is more closely associated with water, which as we all know is an important resource in the desert.

In 1997 there was a team of international scholars, made up of archaeologists, geographers and archaeometrists, that created the Nasca-Palpa Project, whose sole aims was to document and analyse the lines.

The evidence collected from the group suggested that the lines could have been used for ceremonial processions.

Here’s Johan Reinhard, an Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic, describing the analysis completed by the multidisciplinary approach in his book The Nasca Lines: A New Perspective on their Origin and Meanings:

It seems likely that most of the lines did not point at anything on the geographical or celestial horizon, but rather led to places where rituals were performed to obtain water and fertility of crops.

Another team member who was awarded a National Geographic grant, Anthony Aveni, agrees with Reinhard:

Our discoveries clearly showed that the straight lines and trapezoids are related to water … but not used to find water, but rather used in connection with rituals.

The theory is that the lines weren’t used as a system or guide to find water, but more as a part of a ritual to the gods in an effort to receive more of the much-needed rain.

Some scholars point out that some of the animal depictions are symbols for rain, water or fertility, in an effort to support this school of thought. And these symbols have actually been found at other ancient sites in Peru, mainly on pottery, but it still counts.

So the lines have also been thought to have been used as paths that led to places where the gods could be worshipped and the figure of the paths was all part of symbolically representing the offering to the god.

Animal symbolism is actually super common all throughout the Andes. Spiders were believed to be a sign of rain, and if you’ve ever seen the onslaught of spiders after a flood you’ll understand why. Hummingbirds were believed to have been associated with fertility, and monkeys, that are mainly found in the very wet Amazon, were a symbol of a lot of water.

But it was much more recently in 2015 that researchers who attended the 80th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology argued that the main purpose of the lines actually changed over time.

It was thought that the early people would go to temples using the lines as part of the processional route. Later on, it’s thought that the lines were parts of a religious rite, especially since smashed ceramic pots have been found at the spot where some lines intersect.

Here’s Reinhard again:

No single evaluation proves a theory about the lines, but the combination of archaeology, ethnohistory and anthropology builds a solid case.

If we continue our research of the lines it’s sure that the purpose and understanding of the lines will continue to evolve and change the more we learn.

How the lines

The precision of the Nazca Lines has amazed people right up to today. The scale of the lines is something truly amazing. But it’s actually pretty interesting that the Nasca weren’t actually the first to create lines like this.

While anthropologists generally agree that the Nasca culture, who were around the first couple of centuries in the AD, created the majority of the lines that we see today. But we actually know that the Chavin and Paracas cultures, which were around before the Nasca, also created geoglyph lines.

The fact that the act of creating the lines lasted over three cultures and close to 1000 years, suggests that this was an important activity for these people, and they clearly had strong feelings about it to have continued when cultural groups diminished and flourished.

The lines that date to the Paracas are more humanlike in their style and actually bear quite the resemblance to even earlier glyphs seen throughout the region.

This proves that the Nasca culture we know was clearly heavily influenced by the preceding culture, which also shows its influence for complex textiles. As we also know, the Nasca produced wonderful crafts that included ceramics and textiles. All learnt from their predecessors.

Now finally down to how the lines were actually created. So the desert floor is covered with pebbles, these pebbles are a deep rust colour. This is from the pebbles being coated with iron oxide, giving them their colour.

But the Nasca, and those that came before them, created their designs by removing the top layers of rock, revealing the lighter coloured earth below. They are essentially made to create a ‘negative’ image.

Because the desert is the ultimate preservatory, meaning there’s almost no rain, very little wind and therefore limited erosion, the designs have been able to remain for over 2000 years.

The fact that the desert is one of the driest places and has a pretty steady temperature the year round and especially a lack of wind, the lines are in pretty good condition for today’s visitors.

See the lines

Ideally, you want to be in the air to see the Nazca Lines. Especially the massive ones. You can catch a plane from Nazca airport, be flown over the lines, admire the lines and then get dropped off at Paracas airport, or the other way round if that’s your fancy.

But if planes aren’t your thing, and they’re not for everyone, no need to stress. There’s also an observation tower that sits just outside Nazca City. You can see some of the lines from there. But if you want to get the full effect, then the plane is where you want to be.

There are several different ways you can enjoy the lines or even tours that you can partake in, so make sure you do your research for the one that’s right for you.

Way back when, in 2011, there was a team of Japanese scientists that actually discovered a new glyph, the glyphs appears to represent a decapitation and is relatively small compared to other lines at 4.2 by 3.1 metres. Meaning that this one is actually better to see from the top of a hill, if there’s one around, because ironically it’s too small to be seen from a plane.

And about five years later, in 2016, the same team from Japan found another geoglyph, what is it with these guys. This time they found a nice big one, a mythical create with lots of legs, spotted markings, and its tongue sticking out. This weird creature measures about 30 metres, meaning it’s perfect for a flight viewing.

Much more recently, in 2018, a team of Peruvian archaeologists announced that they had found an astonishing 50 new geoglyphs. They used new drone technology to map landmarks and create amazing detail.

And in the turbulent 2020, another geoglyph was discovered, this time a cat on a hillside. Based on its style, the cat is believed to have been created by the Paracas culture and is a pretty decent size at 37 metres.

Unlike many other relics that are found around the world, the Nazca Lines have been preserved from destruction by the modern world, mainly in part due to their location. It’s like they always say, location, location, location.

But this doesn’t mean they’re completely safe. It was in 2009, that the Lines suffered their first known damage due to rain. In heavy downpours, sand and clay were seen to have run through the geoglyph that is in the shape of a hand.

And about five years later, in 2014, Greenpeace, that environmental group, actually damaged the area under the hummingbird while performing a media stunt. They disturbed the top layer of rocks when a whole group of them ran through the area, that is actually forbidden for feet, so that they could put down a sign about using more renewable energy.

And in the not too distant past in 2018, a truck driver was actually arrested when he drove through some of the lines. Horrifically, the wheels of his truck left massive grooves in the ground that are about 50 by 100 metres, that can’t have been accident.

The damage that the truck driver caused actually renewed calls for better security and more surveillance at and around the sites where the lines sit.

So if you find yourself in the Nazca desert, just remember to be respectful, and try and get on that plane if you want to really experience the magnificence of the Nazca Lines.