ICA “NAZCA LINES”
The mystery of the lines and geoglyphs of Nazca
Pampas of San Jose, 25 km/16 miles from Nazca (15 minutes), kilometer marker 149
of the Pan-American Highway South. One of the unsolved mysteries on our earth
hides in the “Pampa of Nazca”. Huge soil drawings (geoglyphs), lines stretching
for miles and numerous expanses in form of triangles and trapeziums show a
former culture. The desert plateau is covered with numerous geoglyphs, which are
illustrations of animals, plants and geometric figures, especially spirals in
different forms.
The more than 1000 lines are not fewer impressive. The
longest line is over 9 kilometers long. The lines jump over dry water furrows
without a difference in their orientation, climb up hills and at the other side
they go straight in the same direction.
The order seems to be chaos but still the lines obviously
form an arranged network with junctions, named line centers. The huge expanses
without any stone are the third strangeness. From an airplane they look like
enormous runaways. Many expanses have the form of triangles, others appear like
rectangles or trapeziums.
The creation of this object is easy and could be explained with the kind of soil.
The surface of the Pampa is made of brown rubble with some ore in it. Some
centimeters lower you can find light-colored sediments of an old ocean soil (with
clay, sand and gypsum). If you take away the dark rubble from the top you see
clearly the light-colored subsoil. In this way a trace is created. Increased by
the shade of restriction stones you can still see this trace from 100 meters
above and over a period of more than 1500 years.
The drawings were created during the cultural period of the Nazca-time, which
began approx. 200 BC and ended approx. 800 AC. The meaning and importance is
only partly decoded. Some of the lines were probably created as astronomical
observation lines. The drawings could portray symbols of the starry sky, for
example the monkey as the Great Bear, the spider as the symbol for the Orion and
the drawing of the dog could be the constellation of the Great Major. Other
lines and drawings like spirals, demons, animals with four and five fingers and
so on probably had ritual meaning.
-Nazca
Lines by plane
-Paracas
- Reserva
-Nazca
Lines by bus
