animals and plants, including a monkey,
spider, hummingbird and even, it is thought,
a spaceman. Countless straight lines form
squares, triangles, trapezoids and all manner
of strange angles. They seem to run in random
directions and to random lengths – one even
stretches for nine miles along the desert floor.
Over 3,000 years ago the area was
inhabited by a race called the Nazca, who
had developed proficient techniques in
pottery, weaving and architecture. They
created highly effective irrigation systems
and successfully grew crops in a harsh
environment. It is widely believed that these
people were responsible for drawing the
lines, although the actual date of the lines’
creation is impossible to determine. A
nearby city called Cahauchi, just south of the
lines, was recently discovered as being the
probable home of the Nazcan line drawers.
Experts were able to deduce that the majority
of Nazcan people fled the city after a series of
natural disasters, with the few native people
who remained being exiled or killed by
Spanish conquistadors.
But why would a race want to draw
pictures that could only be appreciated from
the sky? Perhaps the most celebrated theory
was the one advanced by Dr Maria Reiche.
She tried to prove that the lines correlated to
important stars rising in the heavens, and the
symbols of animals were actually native
representations of star constellations. But her
views were not universally supported due to
the very fact that the lines cannot be dated.
As the Earth’s relationship with the universe
turns, any line in any direction will
correspond to some astronomical feature at
some date. After a lifetime of study and
fascination, Reiche died and was buried in
the Nazca valley in 1998.
During the 1960s, writers such as Louis
Pauwels, Jacques Bergier, and Erich von
Daniken famously promoted ideas that the
lines were runways or landing strip for alien
visitors. Other theories suggest they are an
astronomical calendar; that they were used
for religious ceremonies; or that they
indicated underground sources of water. One
expert believes that, before the invention of
weaving tools, the lines had men standing
along them holding thread, in a version of a
giant human loom. But exactly why the
images were designed to be viewed from the
air has never really been addressed. One
quite astonishing theory is that the Nazca
people were the original human aviators,
and had developed the first rudimentary hot
air balloon.
Our understanding of the Nazcan culture
has developed with archaeological discoveries,
but today the fate of the lines is in
serious jeopardy. In recent years, political
and advertising agencies have graffitied
slogans on the patterns, whilst a recent surge
in gold and copper mining in the area is
defacing the designs with industrial
activities and heavy traffic movements. The
expanding local population needs a higher
level of basic amenities, which has meant
utility providers are now running cables and
pipes over the site. Combined with the
effects of natural weathering, this means that
the most enigmatic and mysterious visual
display of an ancient race is under threat of
being lost from Man’s history forever.
