Peru's Nazca Lines include geometric shapes and animal figures. Their makers moved darker surface stones aside to reveal lighter ground beneath, creating visible lines.
The dry environment helped preserve the designs. Proposed purposes include ritual use, while claims that they were extraterrestrial airfields lack reliable archaeological support.
Discovery and investigation
The first published mention of the Nazca Lines was by Spanish conquistador Pedro Cieza de León in his 1553 book, where he described them as trail markers. In 1569, Luis Monzón reported having seen ancient ruins in Peru, including the remains of "roads".
Although the lines were partially visible from nearby hills, the first to report them in the twentieth century were Peruvian military and civilian pilots. In 1927, Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejía Xesspe spotted them while he was hiking through the foothills. He discussed them at a conference in Lima in 1939.
American historian Paul Kosok is credited as the first scholar to study the lines in depth. While in Peru in 1940–41 to study ancient irrigation systems, he flew over the lines and realized that one was in the shape of a bird. Another chance observation helped him see how lines converged on the horizon at the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.
Kosok began to study how the lines might have been created, as well as to try to determine their purpose. He was joined by archaeologist Richard P. Schaedel from the United States, and Maria Reiche, a German mathematician and archaeologist from Lima, to try to determine the purpose of the Nazca Lines. They proposed that the figures were designed as astronomical markers on the horizon to show where the sun and other celestial bodies rose on significant dates. Archaeologists, historians, and mathematicians have all tried to determine the purpose of the lines.
Determining how they were made has been easier than determining why they were made. Scholars have theorized that the Nazca people could have used simple tools and surveying equipment to construct the lines. Archaeological surveys have found wooden stakes in the ground at the end of some lines, which supports this theory. One such stake was carbon-dated and was the basis for establishing the age of the design complex.
In 1982, Joe Nickell, an American investigator of the paranormal, religious artifacts, and folk mysteries, reproduced a large condor figure with a small team using sticks, cord, measurements, and a scaled drawing. The experiment addressed claims that the Nazca designs required aerial assistance or the intervention of "ancient astronauts", as Erich von Däniken had proposed. Nickell described plotting points at right angles to a centre line and connecting them to lay out the design on the ground. His reconstruction demonstrated how careful planning and simple surveying methods could create a large recognizable figure without an observer directing the work from the air.
Most of the lines are formed on the ground by a shallow trench, with a depth between 10 and 15 cm (4 and 6 in). Such trenches were made by removing the reddish-brown, iron oxide-coated pebbles that cover the surface of the Nazca Desert. When this gravel is removed, the light-colored clay earth exposed in the bottom of the trench contrasts sharply in color and tone with the surrounding land surface, producing visible lines. This sub-layer contains high amounts of lime. With moisture from morning mist, it hardens to form a protective layer that shields the lines from winds, thereby preventing erosion.
Cultural hypotheses
Some scholars argue that the role of shamanistic rituals within the Nazca culture could have influenced the creation of these geoglyphs throughout southern Peru.
Henri Stierlin, a Swiss art historian specializing in Egypt and the Middle East, published a book in 1983 linking the Nazca Lines to the production of ancient textiles that archeologists have found wrapping mummies of the Paracas culture. He contended that the people may have used the lines and trapezes as giant, primitive looms to fabricate the extremely long strings and wide pieces of textiles typical of the area. According to his theory, the figurative patterns (smaller and less common) were meant only for ritualistic purposes. This theory is not widely accepted, although scholars have noted similarities in patterns between the textiles and the Nazca Lines. They interpret these similarities as arising from the common culture.