The Mysterious Nazca Lines

Imagine one of the driest places on earth. A barren landscape where the rain falls for only twenty minutes a year . Where the ground is flat and stony with hardly a covering of dust or sand. Barely a breath of wind passes over it and the dry red crust is never disturbed. This is the Nazca desert, located in a high flat area of South Peru between the towns of Nazca and Palpa.

The Nazca desert is the home of a mystery which has confused archaeologists and anthropologists for years, because etched into the dark red ground are over 300 gigantic images of birds, animals and human figures as well as sharp lines and geometric shapes. The largest designs are over 200 metres across. But what makes these geoglyphs - these huge drawings in the sand - so extraordinary is the fact that they were created thousands of years ago, between the years of 190BC and 600AD, and yet they need to be viewed from the air to see them in their entirety. In fact they were only discovered when airoplanes began to fly over the area in the 1920's. So how were these images created? How could an ancient civilisation master the skills and technology required to draw these huge designs in the sand, so vast that the individuals creating them could not even see the final result?

The desert surface and the stones that pepper it contain ferrous oxide which creates the red colouring of the ground. Over the centuries this darkens into a deep red. The images in the sand were made by scraping away the red crust to reveal the white soil underneath. The stark contrast of the white furrows in the red desert means that the designs stand out in strong relief, and the landscape is the perfect setting for ancient artists to leave a message from their culture.

The unusual climate of the desert means that whatever marks are etched on the ground are likely to remain undisturbed. There is little wind or rain to wear the images away, and the desert is so isolated that for many years the lines were safe from the damage done by vehicles or foot fall.

So who drew these mysterious images in the ground, and what were they for?

Are they images of ancient animal gods? Could the straight lines and grids be maps of the stars? Are they roads, alien landing strips or a gigantic map of the world as the people of that time saw it?  Could they be irrigation channels or some kind of giant calender? Because they are best viewed from above, does this suggest that they were created by a long gone civilisation who had mastered the power of flight?

Since their discovery numerous theories have been presented over the years as to who, why and how the Nazca lines were created.

One of the most 'new age' theories is that of the Swiss writer Erich von Daniken, who suggested that the lines and grids were evidence of landing pads for alien spaceships. After all, who else but aliens would even be able to look down and view the geoglyphs?

However exciting as it is to contemplate the notion of visitors from space landing in the desert, the truth is that the ground in the Nazca plain is not suitable for landing a light aircraft never mind an alien space ship. Furthermore, the design and images overlap, spiral and run into each other and do not offer an easy landing guide to anyone looking down! To discredit this theory further we could point to the fact that there is no evidence of an actual alien landing.

So if not for alien visitors, then for who?

Paul Kosok, an American explorer, suggested that the lines coincided with important astrological events. He believed that the Nazca desert acts as a giant observatory.

Maria Reiche worked as Kosoks assistant and stayed on in the desert to carry on with his research, devoting most of her life to examining and preserving the geoglyphs. She firmly believed that the Nazca images were intended as a solar calender and an indicator of solar cycles. Her theory was proved in part when she established that many of the geometric designs did match up with significant astronomical events.

However, astronomer Gerald Hawkins showed that the lines which did match up to astrological occurrences was mostly down to chance. Essentially, there are so many lines and shapes that some of them were inevitably going to match up to the theory.

The work of David Johnson attempted to establish links between the designs and the search for underground waterways. Using the method of dowsing Johnson suggested that the lines illustrated if water was under that area of the Nazca desert or not. He theorised that the areas with the most geoglyphs were the areas with the most water sources. Perhaps this theory needs to be investigated further because Johnson's unscientific methods brings about questions of validity.

Archaeological finds within the Nazca desert indicate that a Nazca Indian tribe lived in the region, and in an area to the south of the Nazca lines a small, ancient site has been uncovered, named Cahuachi. The site was built nearly two thousand years ago and was abandoned for an unknown reason 500 years later. Discoveries in Cahuachi may help to answer some of the questions about the Nazca lines. The site was apparently a ceremonial area. It overlooks some of the Nazca designs and evidence suggests it was very sparsely populated. Archaeologists surmise that pilgrims travelled to the area, and point to the Nazca images of whales and monkeys - creatures not native of the Nazca region - as evidence of travellers who had seen these creatures as they made their way to the Nazca desert.

Tony Morrison, an English explorer, has put forward what could be one of the most realistic theories so far. He researched the lifestyles and ceremonies of the Peruvian people and discovered a tradition of shrines linked by pathways. Pilgrims would walk from shrine to shrine praying and asking for help or giving thanks. Are the Nazca lines a trail of pilgrimage on a vast scale? Residents of modern day local villages tell stories of ancient Nazcans who conducted ceremonies on the images and asked the Gods for water to come from the Andes.

Perhaps the human like images and the animal designs were pictures of the Gods themselves, drawn on a vast scale so that they could be seen by the Gods in their heavenly realm?

Because the Nazca lines are so precise and yet so vast, we find it hard to imagine that an ancient race of people could have carried out such an engineering feat. In 1984 a team from Leicester University, UK, demonstrated that the huge Nazcan geoglyphs could indeed be constructed by a small team in a relatively short space of time. Using the kind of tools and techniques available to the Nazcan people they recreated spirals and lines.

It is likely that the Nazcans used simple surveying techniques to draw the vast shapes. Two wooden stakes can be placed in a straight line, and used as a guide for the placement of a third stake to create the next stage of the line, and so on, for as far as you want your straight line to go. Remnants of wooden stakes have been discovered around the designs.

It is believed that to create the larger more complex designs, the image was drawn as a small version first, and a grid drawn over this image to divide it up. Then a larger grid would be staked out and each element of the image in the small grid would be replicated in the larger version.

While the Nazcan lines might not be a message from the Gods, an astral calender or an alien airport, they are indeed a fantastic feat of engineering and an illustration of human perseverance.

We will probably never be one hundred percent sure of the identity of the people who created and worshipped at this wonder of the world, and we will never be able to say for sure what it was intended for. They are a marvelous, strange and fascinating creation

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