NAZCA LINES

The Nazca Lines are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. The Nazca Desert is a high plateau about sixty miles long and five miles wide on the coast of Peru, some 250 miles south of Lima. At some time before 1000 BCE, the Nazca Valley was inhabited by a people who developed advanced farming methods that allowed them to build an irrigation system, improve their crops, and expand the area of land they could farm. Over the next 1,500 years, they also developed outstanding skills in weaving, pottery, and architecture. The Nazca were wiped out after the Spanish conquest, so that piece of history is quite blank. Perhaps the most fascinating of their cultural achievements was the creation of a remarkable ground art -- the exact purpose of which remains a mystery.

Occasional travelers through Nazca had doubtless noticed the strange and obviously artificial lines in the desert floor, but the lines were unimpressive and meaningless at ground level. As planes began to pass over the Nazca region, air travelers saw that some of the lines formed parts of gigantic figures whose shape could only be appreciated from the air. Aerial photographs of the region proved to be highly dramatic.Therein lies the mystery. Why would anyone bother to make figures that could only be appreciated from the air in an era when there were no airplanes? It is well established that these drawings are at least fifteen hundred years old.

Archaeologists have developed several explanations for this: one is that the figures, probably of religious significance, were not meant to be seen as a while by human eyes; a second is that the Nazca people built balloons that allowed them to view the figures when they flew over the sites. This suggestion, while not impossible, lacks supporting evidence.

There are drawings of birds, spiders, fishes, even a monkey, and a few unidentifiable creatures. There are also rectangular shapes and a large number of straight lines that run apparently from nowhere to nowhere.

The geometric ones could indicate the flow of water or be connected to rituals to summon water. The spiders, birds, and plants could be fertility symbols. Other possible explanations include: irrigation schemes or giant astronomical calendars.

Due to the dry, windless, and stable climate of the plateau and its isolation, for the most part the lines have been preserved. Extremely rare changes in weather may temporarily alter the general designs.

The lines may be as narrow as six inches or as wide as several hundred yards. Some run for many miles. The Nazca people created some of them by removing dark surface stones and placing them in the desired patterns. For others, they removed the desert’s "thin brown surface coating" by walking or sweeping across it, exposing the creamy pink soil underneath." Because of the area’s dry, stable climate, these light-colored Nazca lines have remained nearly unchanged for many centuries.

There are many theories but noone knows the exact reason how and why these figures were made.It still is a MYSTERY