Secrets of the Nazca Desert. Mysterious Nazca plateau Peruvian Nazca drawings on the map

Nazca drawings are located on Nazca Plateau- one of the most mysterious places on Earth. It is located 450 km south of the capital Peru, between cities Nazca and Palpa. Here the whole territory is 500 sq. km. covered with lines and drawings of unknown origin. They are nothing special if you look at them standing next to each other.

Map of Nazca drawings

In 1553 Cieza de Leon first reported the Nazca drawings. From his words: “In all these valleys and in those that have already been passed, the beautiful, great road of the Incas goes along its entire length, and in some places among the sands signs are seen to guess the path that has been laid.”

Obezyan, Nazca drawing

The drawings were seen in 1939 when an airplane flew over the plateau. American archaeologist Paul Kosok. A huge contribution to the study of mysterious lines belongs to the German doctor of archeology Maria Reich. Her work began in 1941. However, she was able to photograph the drawings from the air only in 1947, using the services of military aviation.

In 1994, the Nazca geoglyphs were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Tree and handsNazca drawing

Nazca Plateau occupies 60 kilometers and approximately 500 square meters of its territory is covered with a tie of strange lines that form into bizarre figures. The main mystery of Nazca is geometric figures in the form of triangles and more than thirty huge drawings of animals, birds, fish, insects and unusual people. All images on the surface of Nazca are dug in sandy soil, the depth of the lines varies from 10 to 30 centimeters, and the width of the stripes can reach as much as 100 meters. The lines of the drawings stretch for kilometers, while not changing at all under the influence of the relief - the lines rise to the hills and descend from them, while remaining almost perfectly smooth and continuous. Who and why created these drawings - unknown tribes or aliens from outer space - there is still no answer to this question. To date, there are many hypotheses, but none of them can be a clue.

Dog, Nazca drawing

Whale, Nazca drawing

hummingbird has a length of 50 meters, spider — 46, condor extends from beak to tail feathers for almost 120 meters, and heron has a length of up to 188 meters. Nearly all the drawings are made on this huge scale in the same manner, with the outline outlined by one continuous line. Ideally straight lines and stripes go beyond the horizon, crossing dry riverbeds, climbing hills and at the same time not deviating from their direction (although modern geodetic methods do not allow drawing a straight line up to 8 kilometers long on rough terrain so that the deviation does not exceed 0, 1 degree). The true shape of the images can only be observed from a bird's eye view. Such a natural elevation does not exist nearby, but there are semi-mountain humps. But the higher you rise above the plateau, the smaller these drawings become and turn into incomprehensible scratches.

hummingbird,Nazca drawing

Spider, Nazca drawing

Condor, Nazca drawing

Heron, Nazca drawing

What scientists managed to establish more or less accurately is the age of the images. Based on the ceramic fragments found here and the analysis of organic remains, they found that between 350 BC. and 600 AD there was a civilization here. However, this theory cannot be accurate either, since the objects of civilization could have been brought here much later than the appearance of images. One theory says that these are the works of the Nazca Indians who inhabited the regions of Peru before the formation of the Inca Empire. The Nazca did not leave behind anything but burial places, so it is not known whether they had a written language and whether they “painted” the desert.

"Astronaut", Nazca drawing

The Nazca lines pose many questions to historians - who created them, when, why and how. Indeed, many geoglyphs cannot be seen from the ground, so it remains to be assumed that with the help of such patterns, the ancient inhabitants of the valley communicated with the deity. In addition to the ritual, the astronomical significance of these lines is not excluded.

The Nazca Desert is located in the south of Peru, 450 kilometers from Lima. This is the region of residence of the pre-Inca civilization of Nazca (I-VI centuries AD).

The Nazca people waged wars and were engaged in trade, but the main activity for them was fishing and farming. In addition, the Nazca were excellent artists and architects - we can judge this from the found ceramics of this culture and the ruins of ancient cities. There is a lot of evidence of the high level of development of this civilization, the main of which, of course, are the Nazca Lines - huge geoglyphs in the desert, visible only from a bird's eye view.

What to watch

Nazca lines

Giant desert drawings depicting animals and objects - the Nazca Lines - were discovered in 1926. Researchers suggest that the geoglyphs were created in the years 300-800 by the Nazca civilization. They were called “the largest calendar in the world”, “the most gigantic book on astronomy” - their exact purpose remains unknown.

The area of ​​the territory where the Nazca Lines are located, occupies 500 km2 and is located in the desert, where it rains for only half an hour a year. It is this fact that allowed geoglyphs to survive to this day.

These drawings were first described in 1548, but for many years no one paid serious attention to them. Perhaps this was due to the fact that they can only be properly examined from a height, and they began to fly airplanes over the desert much later. In the early 1940s, during the construction of the Pan-American Highway, an American professor invited to study coastal hydrology regularly flew over the valleys in small planes. It was he who drew attention to the strange lines that form into huge drawings. The sight that unfolded shocked and astounded him. Professor Kosok and other scientists have devoted many years to the study of these lines. They managed to discover the relationship between the location of the lines with the sun on the days of the summer and winter solstices, as well as indications of the moon, planets and bright constellations. It seemed that the Nazca civilization set up a gigantic observatory here.

The technique for creating geoglyphs was very simple: the upper darkened layer was cut off from the soil and folded here, along the formed light strip, creating a darker ridge framing the lines. Over time, the color of the lines darkened and became less contrasting, but we can still see the drawings left by the Nazca civilization.

How to watch
In Nazca, there are several companies that make sightseeing flights in small planes over the desert. Such, because due to the number of people who want to see the Lines of Places, it may not be at the last moment at the right date.

An alternative way to see the lines is to go up to the observation deck on the Panamericana Highway (El Mirador). The cost of lifting is 2 soles (20 rubles), but you can only see 2 drawings.

Palpa Lines

Unlike the Nazca drawings, the Palp Lines consist more of human and geometric designs. According to archaeological research, the Palpa Lines date back to an earlier period than the Nazca Lines. Flying over the Palp Lines, you can see the image of the Pelican, the image of a woman, a man and a boy, whom archaeologists have nicknamed "The Family". One of the Palp Lines is an image of a Hummingbird - similar to one of the geoglyphs of the Nazca Lines. Another Line is read by archaeologists as an image of a Dog near the Square. Near the city of Palpa you can see the famous image of the Sundial and Tumi - a ritual knife.

Ruins of Cahuachi

The most important and powerful city of the Nazca civilization was Cahuachi - a city in the Nazca Valley, 24 km from the modern city of Nazca. Excavations are still underway here. To date, the city remains:

• The Central Pyramid is 28 meters high and 100 meters wide, consisting of 7 steps. Religious ceremonies were held here.
• Stepped Temple 5 meters high and 25 meters wide
• 40 buildings made of adobe (unfired brick)

There was a necropolis near the city, where scientists found untouched graves with various items that were customary to put in graves (dishes, fabrics, jewelry, etc.). All finds can be seen in the Antonini Archaeological Museum (Museo Arqueológico Antonini) in Nazca.

Necropolis of Chauchilla (El cementerio de Chauchilla)

The Chauchilla necropolis is located 30 km from the city of Nazca. This is the only place in Peru where you can see the mummies of an ancient civilization directly in the graves where they were found. This cemetery was used from the 3rd to 9th centuries AD, but the main burials date back to 600-700 years. The mummies were well preserved due to the arid desert climate, as well as the embalming technology used by the Nazca: the bodies of the dead people were wrapped in cotton cloth, painted with paints and impregnated with resins. It was the resins that helped to avoid the decomposing action of bacteria.
The necropolis was discovered in 1920, but officially recognized as an archaeological monument and taken under protection only in 1997. Prior to that, he suffered for many years from marauders who stole a significant part of the treasures of Nazca.

2 hour guided tour - 30 Sols

Entrance ticket to the Necropolis - 5 soles

San Fernando Nature Reserve (Bahía de San Fernando)

About 80 km from Nazca there is a nature reserve very similar to Paracas. Here you can also see penguins, sea lions, dolphins, various birds. And besides, the Andean fox, guanaco and condors are found in San Fernando.

It is difficult to get here and there are almost no tourists here.In San Fernando you can spend time alone with nature and the Pacific Ocean!

Cantayoc aqueducts

The Nazca were a very advanced civilization. In the desert, where the river only fills with water for 40 days a year, the Nazca farmers needed a system that would allow them to have water throughout the year. They solved this problem by creating a magnificent system of aqueducts. One of them - Cantayoc Aqueducts are less than 5 km from the city of Nazca and are a chain of spiral wells.

When to go

Nazca is located in the desert, where it is almost always dry and sunny. December to March is the hottest time in this region, the average daily temperature is around 27C. June to September are the coldest months of the year when the daytime temperature is only 18C.

How to get to Nazca

Nazca is located 450 kilometers south of Lima. You can get here on your own by car along the Panamericana Highway, or by one of the many buses that go in this direction. The bus trip will take 7 hours.

Beneath the Nazca refers to the plain, located on a hill. This terrain has, as a rule, a flat or wavy, slightly dissected relief. From other flat spaces Nazcaseparated by clear cuts. This natural formation is located in Peru, in its southern part, 450 km southeast of Lima, the capital of the country. However, this territory is remarkable not for its unusual location, it is distinguished by its Nazca drawings.spread over an area of ​​80 kilometers. These images, or as they are also called the Nazca lines, made in a bizarre form: from the outlines of animals, spiders and birds, to geometric shapes. Drawings in the Nazca desertare one of the most important mysteries for the modern research community. Dozens of figures struggle daily in so far aimless attempts to answer at least some questions regarding the mysterious images.

Nazca is a geoglyphic territory.

The territory of the plateau is vast and stretches for many kilometers. This valley was considered lifeless for a long time, however, the researchers were wrong, but more on that later. Nazca coordinates where the geoglyphs are located: 14° 45' south latitude and 75° 05' west longitude. The shape of the Nazca plate is elongated. From north to south, the length reaches approximately fifty kilometers, from west to east from 5 to 7 kilometers. The Nazca area is practically uninhabited by people and has an extremely dry climate.

Winter on the vast Nazca Square lasts from June to September. This is because the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere do not coincide with those in the Northern Hemisphere. At the same time, the temperature in Nazca never drops below 16 degrees Celsius. In summer, the temperature is stable and stays around 25 degrees Celsius. Rain, despite the proximity of the ocean, is a rarity for Nazca. Winds are also practically non-existent. There are no rivers, streams or lakes surrounded by Nazca, and there cannot be with such conditions. The presence of water in these lands is signaled only by numerous channels of the long-long dried-up Nazca rivers and no less numerous dried-up canals.

No less important component of this region than the Nazca Valley is the city with the corresponding name. It was founded by the Spaniards in 1591. In 1996, the city was completely destroyed by a powerful earthquake. But, fortunately, there were few casualties, since the aftershocks began at noon and the people were prepared. In total, 17 people died during the Nazca earthquake. And about 100 thousand people were left without a roof over their heads. To date, the city of Nazca has been completely rebuilt. High-rise buildings were built on its territory, and the center of Nazca is now adorned with a beautiful square.

However, this area is notable not for a city or a plain, but for mysterious geoglyphs, lines and drawings, which are believed to have been made by skillful human hands. However, the last statement is very, very controversial. There is a popular theory regarding the Nazca, according to which the lines on the plateau were not drawn by man, but by an alien mind or some other unknown forces.

Amazing drawings in the Nazca desert.

In total, experts discovered 13 thousand various lines and stripes on the territory of the plateau. In science, these drawings have their own name - geoglyphs (geometric figures of a bizarre shape, made in the earth's soil and having a length of at least four meters). In our case, the drawings in the Nazca desert are shallow and long grooves of various widths dug in the soil, which is a mixture of sand and clay. Shallow by the standards of Nazca is from 15 to 30 cm. But the length of individual lines reaches several kilometers: the longest reach 10 kilometers in length. The width of the drawings in the Nazca desert is also striking: In some cases, it ranges from 150 to 200 meters.

In addition to lines, all kinds of figures were found on the territory of the plateau, well known to every person from geometry - triangles and quadrangles. Some drawings in the Nazca desert are trapezoids, as they only have two sides that are parallel. There are about seven hundred such creations of unknown origin on the plateau. There are also figures resembling animals: monkeys, birds, killer whales, llamas and other inhabitants of flora and fauna. Single drawings in the Nazca desert depict fish, spiders, lizards and sharks. There are few of them in total no more than forty.

The figures amaze the imagination with their enormous size, but people are not able to understand their true purpose. Obviously, the clue may lie in the bowels of the plain, which means that in order to understand who and why created the drawings in the Nazca desert, it is necessary to start excavations. The problem is that archaeological excavations are prohibited here, since the plain has the status of a sacred zone. So the mystery of the drawings in the Nazca desert remains unsolved. And something suggests that it will remain so for a very, very long time, until the scientific community comes to its senses.

Mysterious lines of Nazca.

However, no matter how sacred this land is, human curiosity has never stopped at anything and is not going to stop. The first person suffering from the “vice” of curiosity ended up in these forbidden lands in 1927. He was an archaeologist from Peru, Mejia Toribio Hespe. He studied the Nazca lines from the foothills surrounding the plateau.

In the 1930s, a mysterious piece of land where Nazca lines, anthropologists studied from a bird's eye view, flying around on an airplane. They, in fact, confirmed the fact of the presence of lines in Nazca. Archaeologists got the opportunity to closely study such unique creations only in 1946. But this was not a targeted state or research program with appropriate funding, but separate expeditions of enthusiastic scientists.

It turned out that the Nazca lines and shallow trenches were made by our distant ancestors or alien entities by removing the surface of the clay soil layer rich in iron oxide. Gravel has been almost completely removed from the Nazca line section, and light-colored soil is under it. As a result, the Nazca lines became so catchy and at the same time durable.

The light soil of the local lands surrounding the drawings on the Nazca plateau boasts a high lime content. When exposed to air, it hardens almost instantly and forms a durable protective layer that is excellent at preventing erosion. For this reason, the mysterious Nazca lines have been preserved in their original form for thousands of years, at least that is the opinion of researchers. The durability of the Nazca lines was also facilitated by the absence of winds, as such, precipitation and stable air temperature. If the climate were different, then these drawings would have disappeared from the face of the earth long before they were discovered.

However, they exist, and their presence has puzzled more than one generation of researchers, archaeologists, and just scientists from all over the world. Official science, which has long formed its attitude to the Nazca lines, claims that all these geoglyphs, lines and drawings were created during the Nazca civilization. This ancient empire existed, as expected, from 300 BC to 800 AD. A significant part of scientists agrees that most of the drawings were created during this period of 1100 years. It is believed that the Nazca civilization had a very developed culture, the golden age of which falls on 100-200 AD.

The Nazca plateau and its mystical civilization.

The Nazca civilization sank into oblivion, presumably at the end of the 8th century. The reason for this allegedly became the floods that the Nazca plateau faced towards the end of the first millennium. The waters flooded and destroyed the agricultural lands of the ancient people. Some people died of starvation, the rest were forced to leave the unfavorable land. A few centuries later, the Nazca plateau was settled by the Incas. However, it was already a completely different, and even a different culture, the customs of which certainly did not include drawing giant lines on the ground.

Well, let's say the ancient people Nazca plateau really created mysterious creations on this earth, but why were they created, and most importantly, how could the natives make trenches several kilometers long on rough terrain. Even using modern techniques and devices, it is extremely difficult to draw an ideal straight line on the ground with a length of, say, 5-8 kilometers.

In accordance with the theory of scientists, all this was done by them once or twice. For some centuries, the Nazca plateau has turned from a lifeless valley into the most bizarre and richest territory in geoglyphs on the whole Earth. The first settlers crossed ravines and hills, but at the same time their geometric lines, Nazca geoglyphs, remained perfectly correct, and the edges were strictly parallel, which seems incredible. In addition to stripes and trenches in the Nazca plateau, unknown craftsmen also created figures of various animals. From the air, they are seen, albeit bizarrely, but easily recognizable. Again, how the first people in these lands managed to depict, say, hummingbirds with such accuracy is categorically unclear.

The mentioned hummingbird, by the way, like many Nazca, reaches fifty meters in length. Another drawing bird, the condor, is 120 meters long. And the spider, similar to its relatives living in the Amazon jungle, boasts 46 meters in length. It is noteworthy that all these masterpieces of the Nazca plateau can only be seen by rising high into the air or climbing some mountain, which, unfortunately, is not nearby. From the ground and small hills, these drawings are indistinguishable and are a simple set of lines and trenches. Of course, you can make out individual silhouettes and strokes, however, the full picture is visible only from the air.

It is obvious that the civilization that inhabited the Nazca plateau did not have any aircraft. Neither balloons, nor airplanes, let alone rockets, existed in prehistoric times. So how could they recreate their drawings with such accuracy, without being able to evaluate the work done and find flaws in order to correct them?! This remains as much a mystery as the functionality of the Nazca images. Why were they created? Is it really just for the sake of aesthetic beauty, or maybe for some religious purposes? A question, a question, and another unanswered question.

It is generally difficult for a modern person to understand the logic of distant ancestors. We do not understand people who lived a hundred years ago, where are we to understand the motives of those who lived thousands, two thousand years ago. Is it possible that all the lines and images of the Nazca plateau do not have any practical component at all? The ancient people created them to show that they are capable of this. But why was it necessary to spend so much time and energy on self-assertion?! Wouldn't it be easier to unleash another war, in ancient times it seemed to be a much more common practice?!

Nazca drawings and related theories.

Scientists who are confident that a person is behind the creation of mysterious drawings on the territory of the plateau are no less than those who believe that Nazca drawings were created by an alien race. In their opinion, all the images and lines on the plateau are nothing more than runways. The version involving Peru, the Nazca plateau, of course, has the right to life, it remains unclear why the alien spacecraft did not have a vertical take-off, or why create runways in the bizarre form of terrestrial animals? If you really wanted to stand out in this way, why not make a couple of drawings of Nazca in the form of fauna living in your world? However, it is better not to focus on this, because theories and conjectures regarding the motives of alien creators seem even more illusory than the motivation of the first people.

It is better to pay attention to this: Nazca drawings in the form of animals, birds and insects were created much earlier than simple triangles and other geometric shapes. This is not a confirmed fact, the theory is still in development, however, even now most scientists agree that this is so, the complex drawings of Nazca were created before simple images and trenches. Be that as it may, a simple conclusion suggests itself: did the unknown masters first make more complex forms, obviously created in several stages, and only then other people began to practice drawing straight lines and trapezoids. Or maybe for the long centuries it took to create the drawings for which the desert is famous Nazca on the map, did the masters of the ancient civilization lose their technology or simply forgot how to create complex images? All these are regular questions, the answers to which we, most likely, will receive very, very soon, if at all someday.

At the same time, there are isolated figures in the scientific community who believe that all the Nazca drawings were made in the same period. But what scholars agree on is the idea that individual members of the ancient Nazca people had knowledge of astronomy.

For example, Maria Reiche (1903-1998), a German mathematician and archaeologist who has been studying mysterious lines for almost 50 years, once claimed that the Nazca drawing in the form of a huge spider is very similar to the star cluster in the constellation Orion. Three straight lines lead to the figure, they supposedly served to track the change in the declinations of the three brightest stars in Orion's Belt: Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.

There is another very entertaining theory involving the Nazca figures. Archaeologist Johan Reinhard, who is an American by birth, believes that the lines and figures of animals were part of religious rites, or at least were built for some religious purposes. The figures of animals, insects and birds were supposedly associated with the worship of the gods. With the help of Nazca drawings, people asked the celestials for water to irrigate their lands. It is not entirely clear how exactly this ceremony took place, but it doesn’t matter if it even took place at all? It is obvious that the ancient people were novices of the pagan faith and, as in any such religion, the cult of the gods occupies a central place not only in religion, but also in the daily life of people. It is likely that the Nazca civilization really carried out some rituals to worship their deities, but it is almost impossible to prove this.

Today, the attention of researchers from all over the world is focused not on the Nazca drawings and not even on the mysteries surrounding them. While people are guessing and guessing, a serious environmental threat looms over the plateau. Deforestation, pollution of the surrounding atmosphere do not change for the better the balanced and almost unchanged climate of the plain. The Nazca Plate is facing problems: it rains more and more often, landslides and other misfortunes occur, one way or another affecting the integrity of the images. This is a very serious threat, and if nothing is done in the next 5-10 years, or maybe less, the Nazca drawings will be lost forever, and then there can be no doubt that the answers to the questions posed by the research community will never be received. We will certainly never know who and why created this, without exaggeration, a wonderful and unique phenomenon.

Peru. Mystery of the Nazca desert solved?

The world-famous Nazca desert with its mysterious drawings, lines and geometric shapes is located in the south of Peru, 400 km from Lima and 50 km from the Pacific coast. This is one of the driest places on our planet, it receives only about 2.5 cm of precipitation per year - less than in the Gobi desert.

Discovery of the Nazca Desert Drawings

The mysterious Nazca lines and drawings were accidentally discovered during a flight by a Peruvian pilot in 1927. The first to try to solve the mystery of the Nazca desert was the American archaeologist Paul Kozok, who arrived in Nazca in 1939. They found that the giant drawings were made by removing a 20-centimeter layer of brown, sun-burnt stones and soil, under which a much lighter ground was hidden.

Giant astronomical calendar?

All drawings could be divided into three groups: in one - geometric shapes, in the other - lines, zigzags and spirals, in the third - giant images of birds, insects and animals. Paul Kozok hypothesized that the Nazca drawings were a giant astronomical calendar. This idea came to him when he saw that on the day of the summer solstice the sun had set just behind the end of one of the straight lines that make up the huge drawing of the bird.

Kozok's research was continued by his assistant, the German mathematician Maria Reiche. We can say that this tireless woman devoted her whole life to the Nazca desert and the confirmation of the hypothesis of her teacher Paul Kozok. For more than 40 years, Reiche cataloged lines and drawings, took measurements, and even took aerial photographs with the help of the Peruvian Air Force. The researcher died in 1992, until the end of her life she believed that the Nazca lines were a giant astronomical calendar.

1968 - an unexpected blow to the Kozok and Reiche hypothesis was dealt by the American astronomer Gerald Hawkins, who analyzed the Nazca lines using a computer and concluded that 80% of geometric shapes have nothing to do with the movement of celestial bodies - since J. Hawkins became widely known after the publication in 1965 of his book "The Solution to Stonehenge", in which he argued that the famous building of the ancients in England was a kind of observatory, his opinion turned out to be decisive for many.

But, as Maria Reiche rightly believed, when calculating in his study, Hawkins absolutely did not take into account the terrain, which led him to an erroneous conclusion. Today, many of the researchers do not exclude that some of the lines are somehow connected with the astronomical observations of the ancient inhabitants of Nazca, although skeptics say that out of almost 1000 straight lines, some probably just accidentally point to heavenly bodies on certain days.

A giant map of groundwater distribution?

Relatively not so long ago, a message appeared in the foreign press that the secret of the Nazca drawings was finally revealed. The author of the new hypothesis was David Johnson, a former high school teacher from the state of New York. Interestingly, Johnson was absolutely not interested in the mysterious Nazca drawings, but was looking for water in this desert using such an exotic method as dowsing. Johnson was particularly drawn to the ancient irrigation canals, some of which were still running water.

Local residents told him that the main sources of water for the canals were two small streams, but Johnson immediately noticed that the canals run parallel to the rivers and could not take water from them. Soon he came to the conclusion that the sources of water were geological faults. The water flowing down from the Andes accumulated in the zones of cracks in the bedrock and flowed down into the valleys along the faults underground.

At first, Johnson did not connect this idea of ​​his with the Nazca lines, but began to notice that as soon as he discovered aquifers, there were bound to be traces of ancient desert inhabitants and their geometric patterns nearby. One day in July 1996, he climbed one of the hills, looked at the two broad lines stretching to the horizon, resting against the dark crevices of the nearest mountains, which he considered to be formed by geological faults, and then it dawned on him. As Johnson said, he sat on a hilltop and said to himself: “My God, I know what the Nazca lines mean, they trace groundwater sources on the surface!” In other words, the lines and geometric shapes on the surface of the desert are a giant map of the distribution of groundwater.

Although some of the scientists have long assumed that the drawings of Nazca are in one way or another connected with water, the main treasure of these arid places, many of them were skeptical of Johnson's idea. But Heline Silverman, an archaeologist at the University of Illinois, told her colleagues at a 1999 Nazca conference to "keep their eyes open" while Johnson's hypothesis was tested.

Johnson's hypothesis has been tested for several years by Steve Maby, a hydrogeologist at the University of Massachusetts. “We make maps of our water flows, maybe the Nazca people did the same thing, only they “drawn” them on the earth's surface,” Maby said. He has already found evidence that the alternative water sources in the faults that Johnson found actually exist. And in all cases, Maby established the "marking" of these faults with lines on the surface.

Are the Nazca lines related to sacred rituals?

Johann Reinhard, an anthropologist, was the first to put forward the version that the Nazca lines are associated with sacred rituals that are dedicated to making rain. He discovered a ritual capable of explaining the Nazca lines. Archaeological finds at some of the broad lines ("Daniken's landing strips") confirm their association with water. Sea shells (a symbol of water in the Andes) and pottery drinking vessels have been found. Reinhard also sees sacred symbols in the images of animals, so the spider and the monkey in these places were considered associated with fertility, and therefore with water.

Another of the researchers, Entosh Aveni, believes that he has already discovered the hidden logic in the mosaic of Nazca lines. He removed the images of all animals, spirals and geometric figures from the map and left only straight lines on it. It turned out that all the lines converged into sun-like patterns, which he called "ray centers." Together with a colleague, he was able to identify 62 ray centers and about 800 straight lines. In fact, each of the "ray centers" was on the top of a hill. According to Aveni and some experts, the lines could serve as paths and lead people to the tops of hills ("ray centers"), where they performed rituals related to water.

Other researchers are also trying to solve the mystery of the Nazca desert. It has been established that the ancient Naskans decapitated their enemies by mummifying their heads, and had very curious religious ideas about nature and the world around them. On Nazca pottery, images of animals were found almost identical to giant drawings in the desert.

Markus Reindel decided to go down the beaten path and chose a different starting point: "If we want to decipher the Nazca geoglyphs, we need to find the people who created them."

Archaeological expeditions

Reindel conducted a surface survey of the mountain slopes in the vicinity of the town of Palpa, 40 km from Nazca, and at a depth of 30 cm found the upper part of the wall there. Excavations have confirmed that these are the walls of an ancient city, which was located in close proximity to the legendary drawings.

After the first expedition, the archaeologist drew a detailed plan of the city and restored some of its history. 1900 years ago, on the flat part of the valley, between the rivers Rio Grande, Rio Palpa and Rio Vicascas, there was a strange structure - the settlers erected a wall 400 m long and 100 m wide. Meter walls of brick blocks rose to a height of 12 m, symbolizing power and wealth. The basis of the wealth of the "people of Nazca" was agriculture, which flourished thanks to an extensive irrigation system.

The surplus of agricultural products created the conditions for such a social stratification of society, in which some segments of the population did not take part directly in the production of food. Reindel believes that they had a kind of nobility - the highest social stratum. An indirect confirmation of this assumption can be a complex system of irrigation canals, the construction of which required competent planning and work management.

And to create drawings in the desert, orders, plans and guidance were also needed from rulers invested with power, no matter how they were called - kings, leaders, high priests or something else. The surroundings of Palpa on Reindel's plans are covered with lines, triangles and spirals, reaching almost to the very settlement.

A German archaeologist searches for the original meaning of the mysterious Nazca drawings in the Rio Grande Valley. The former inhabitants of these places "inhabited" the surrounding rocks with thousands of images of various animals and humanoid creatures. Small images (petroglyphs) carved on the rocks date back to the 4th century BC. e. Later they were repeated in an enlarged form on the flat surfaces of the mountain slopes. Drawings ranging in size from 10 to 20 m were clearly visible from afar.

“It was from here that the tradition of land drawings should have developed,” suggested Reindel. “As they grew larger, they became more and more sweeping and abstract and occupied no longer rocky slopes, but vast surfaces of the desert plateau.”

The scientist's reasoning is very logical, but the question arises: why are these giant schematic drawings in places where no one can see them? In addition to the previous "cosmic" interpretations of the Nazca drawings, one more hypothesis can be given. After many years of observation in the basins of the nearest rivers, the American David Johnson made an unexpected conclusion: "The Nazca lines are a clear text carved on the ground to indicate to the inhabitants of the region where the available sources are water".

Markus Reindel has no reason to refute or confirm this and other hypotheses. He pins all his hopes on subsequent seasons of excavation and intends to get to individual buildings that lie far from the settlement - directly on the extensions of the Kask lines or directly below them. Archaeologists have not yet discovered such buildings. Excavations inside the walled area will also continue: Reindel wants to find the temple of the "Nasca people". The next step will be the search for the creators of the Nazca lines, and the ultimate goal is to unravel the mysterious signs.

In our opinion, all these hypotheses should be considered as a whole. Indeed, many of the scientists may be right. Some Nazca lines can serve as an astronomical calendar marking periods of greatest drought or rain, others can serve as ceremonial paths for rituals associated with calling rain, and still others can project underground aquifers to the surface. All together the lines and created a real puzzle for scientists…

The explanation of giant images of animals, birds and insects, in our opinion, can be even simpler. Can you see a spider or a hummingbird from a high hill? Unlikely. This was understood by the ancient inhabitants of Nazca, they were only interested in the rain clouds that swept over them at great heights. These giant images were intended for the heavenly deities who control the rains, so that they would see them and take pity on the little animals, giving them, and at the same time people, life-giving moisture to drink. Isn't this the key to the mysterious signs of Nazca?

A gigantic work done with extraordinary ease Yu

Lines and stripes stretch in a straight line like rays, regardless of the terrain and ground, and leave a simply stunning impression.
AT there are triangles arranged in a chain along the tops of the mountains.
Back in 1947, Paul Kosok published an article "The Mysterious Markings of Nazca" ("Mysterious Nazca Prints"), in which he placed a number of photographs taken from the air of ground figures. In the preface, he stated that he was trying to "challenge" the scientific community. However, the article has not received a proper response so far. It is no coincidence that the author called the stripes and triangles the word "markings" - prints, traces, marks. What is it: a figurative comparison or an intuitive guess? Most likely, this is an attempt to draw attention to something that surpasses the level of modern human capabilities in terms of performance technique. A gigantic work, but done with extraordinary ease!
Yes, all this could be done manually, if we consider each figure separately. But according to my estimates, based on the measurements of the J. Hawkins expedition, the total amount of manual work to create the entire Nazca desert complex is more than 100,000 man-years, even if the Indians worked 12 hours a day. But the desert is located between two valleys that could feed only a few thousand people. Such costs in labour-intensive irrigated agriculture must be explained by a powerful incentive, but it is difficult to distinguish it in the chaos of lines, especially among the endless decorative zigzags and whip-shaped figures. How many people could be engaged not in getting their daily bread, but in cleaning stones on the plateau, not even seeing the results of their labor? And how long did it take them? 100 people - 1000 years, 1000 people - 100 years or 50 people - 2000 years? Any set of numbers conflicts with objective reality.

Nazca desert drawings were not created by humans

Firstly, due to the characteristics of the soil and climate of the desert, footprints of a person or a horse have been preserved here for centuries. Visiting the Nazca plateau by tourists over a decade has created a threat to the safety of the drawings. Therefore, the desert was declared a nature reserve, and now you can see the figures by renting a small plane. How could such an enormous labor-intensive activity not leave traces on the ground?Indeed, in photographs taken from the air in the forties, traces of human activity are visible in the form of wide uneven patches only along the sides of the Pan-American highway and the dirt road that crosses the desert.
Secondly, there is no evidence or recollection of such a titanic work among the local population, which, without suspecting anything, sometimes opens the figures. On the alleged "sanctuaries" the Indians build pens for livestock, unaware of their existence.
Finally, one more very important question. How can one explain from the standpoint of the manual execution of the figures the fact that when overlapping (often multiple) stripes or areas, the visibility of each contour is preserved? Due to what, if you just clear the surface of the soil from stones? Attempts to explain this fact by the difference in time are untenable. If you carefully follow the course of the stripes in the complex in the image on the left, it turns out that the figures are intertwined and interconnected, and not just superimposed on each other!
Another detail that few people think about. The type of geoglyphs, which cross rock outcrops along their length, does not fit into the picture of manual labor at all, while this transition is invisible in aerial photographs, although the nature of the soil is clearly changing. Here, the surface of the figure is no longer cleared sandy soil, as in the desert, but small gravel from rock with dumps along the edges. But in this case, the visibility from above is identical to the figures made on the surface of the empty space. yni.

The scale of the work as a whole, a huge number of purely geometric figures on the Nazca plateau and the surrounding mountains, as well as on the entire South American continent - all this allows us to conclude that the Peruvian ground figures are indeed marks, or, more precisely, traces of an OTHER MIND unknown to us, left where accidentally, and sometimes deliberately.

INTELLECTUAL POTENTIAL OF NASCA DRAWINGS

It is difficult to understand who and why created these figures without understanding how they are made.
In the creation of any mind, a certain INTELLECTUAL POTENTIAL is accumulated, reflecting both the level of development of the mind itself and the level of technological means that it possesses. What is remarkable about the technique of constructing figures of the Nazca desert?

The similarity of geometric patterns with the path of rays in optical schemes

First of all, let's see what geometric shapes are, which are many times more than drawings..
The lines cleared of stones are 15-20 cm wide, and the stripes or "roads" are over 60 cm wide. These geoglyphs stretch in a straight line for distances of tens of kilometers. "Playgrounds" are triangular, trapezoidal and rectangular figures with stone rollers along the edges. Their width does not exceed 80 m, while the length of the largest rectangle is 780 m, and the length of radiant triangles is over 2 km. Whip-shaped figures look like small triangles with a line coming out of the top, and zigzags have a wide variety of shapes: sinusoidal e, rectangular, triangular, reed-like. "Centers" - places from which the lines extend radially in different directions - are often on the surface of the sites, and sometimes they look like a small pile of stones.
Geometric figures are found not only on the surface of the plateau, but also on its weathered slopes, on neighboring plateaus, on the steep spurs of the mountains surrounding the desert. Sometimes the figures are drawn in a chain along the tops of the mountains. Here are their features:
- straightness: the average deviation in direction does not exceed 9 minutes (or rather, this is the accuracy limit of the photometric survey method), i.e. the figures are plotted more accurately than can be verified using modern aerial photography methods;
- the edges of the triangular areas have the form of rollers, the dimensions of which do not change in proportion to the width, and the accuracy of the edges of the lines, stripes is 5 cm with a length of many kilometers;
- the figures retain an ideal rectilinear orientation on rough terrain;
- multi-layer overlay of figures does not negatively affect the visibility of all contours, which allows you to trace the sequence of their execution (how to explain the visibility of multi-layer figures - one of the key issues in solving technological problems);
- the visibility of the stripes is preserved when the nature of the soil changes;
- there is a limitation of figures in width with an almost unlimited length; this limitation determines the ray-like nature of triangular figures (there is no figure with an angle of divergence of more than 17 degrees);
- there is not a single circle, square, but a lot of sinusoids and spirals - figures formed by adding an oscillatory or rotational movement to a translational one, and this indicates dynamism in the process of creating figures;
- the location and configuration of the ray-shaped figures are similar to the schemes of geometric optics: at some point, the triangle seems to bend and stretch sideways, while maintaining the angle of divergence (this is how the law of light reflection is demonstrated in optics); the "inflection" lines of stripes or trapeziums are always straight, like the boundaries of reflection or refraction of light; there are triangles with a changing angle of divergence, which is also similar to the rays of light when the aperture of the radiation source changes;
- geometric figures made on a complex terrain retain their regular shape in photographs taken from the air from above; on the contrary, when shooting from the side, the figures have a distorted shape;
- there are lines on the plateau, the direction of which is astronomical: some indicate sunrise or sunset on the days of the solstices or days of the equinoxes, others are located strictly in the north-south direction. This indicates that information can be embedded in the location of the figures.
Thus, the geometric figures of Nazca are characterized by a rectilinear orientation, independence from the relief and dynamism of the execution technique. The layouts of lines and areas in general are very similar to the path of rays in optical schemes.