ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST ARCHAEOLOGICAL MYSTERIES
Spread over an area of 500 square kilometers in the dry, rock-strewn Pampa Colorada (Red Plain), the Nazca Lines are one of the world's greatest archaeological mysteries! The lines consist of over 800 straight lines, 300 geometric figures (geoglyphs), and 70 drawings of animals and plants (biomorphs) and are almost invisible on the ground. Seen from above, they form a striking network of stylized figures and channels, many of which radiate from a central axis. The figures are in most cases carved in single continuous lines, while the encompassing geoglyphs form perfect triangles, rectangles, or straight lines stretching for miles across the desert. The lines are created by the simple process of removing the dark, sun-soaked stones from the surface of the desert and piling them on either side of the lines, thus revealing the lighter, dusty, gypsum-laden soil beneath. The most intricate drawings represent animals, including a 180m-long lizard, a monkey with an extravagantly curved tail, and a condor with a sweep of wings. There's also a hummingbird, a spider, and an intriguing man with an owl's head on the hillside, popularly called an astronaut for his goldfish-shaped head, although some believe it's a priest with a mystical owl's head. Endless questions remain. Who built the lines and why? And how did they know what they were doing when the lines can only be properly estimated from the air?... there are various theories one is that they were made by the Paracas and Nasca cultures between 900 BC and 600 AD with some additions by settlers from the Wari Mountains in the 7th century, the lines are said to be an astronomical calendar. This calendar was developed agriculturally, and all were delineated using complex mathematics and a long rope. The next hypothesis suggests that the lines were pathways connecting huaks (places of ceremonial significance). Slightly more surreal is the suggestion that the Nazca people knew how to construct hot air balloons and that they observed the lines from the air. A more down-to-earth theory, given the value of water in the sun-hot desert, is that the Laine participated in the worship of the mountains and the cult of fertility and water!