In 1939, an American scientist studying irrigation systems in Peru was flying a light plane along the arid coastline near the village of Nazca when he made a startling realization.  The lines carved into the earth over a fifty mile distance were not the remains of ancient waterways, as he had assumed, but enormous artworks.  When seen from the air, the lines formed precise geometric shapes that numbered in the hundreds, as well as seventy figures, which included a monkey, whale, a hummingbird, a shark, spiders and plants.  But why would the ancient Nazca people, who thrived in Peru from 200 BC to 500 AD, have created illustrations that could only be seen from far above the earth?

It’s a puzzle that has kept archaeologists – and science fiction writers – speculating ever since.  The most notorious suggestion came in 1968 from pop-scientist Erich von Däniken, who declared in his odd-ball bestseller Chariots of the Gods that the lines were space ship landing pads made by extraterrestrial beings, using their superior technology.  At the time, scientists declared the idea absurd and proved that the lines could have been created using simple tools and surveying equipment available to the Indians.  But the motive is still unexplained.

Do the lines indicate points on the horizon where celestial bodies rise and fall?
Are the figures artistic reflections of constellations, or part of the Nazca astrological system?

Today, the enormous artworks are off-limits to foot traffic in order to protect the engravings in the delicate soil, but hundreds of travelers a day get a chance to speculate about the ancient gallery for themselves, on a 45-minute aircraft flight.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 1:59 pm and is filed under Peru. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.