The Nazca lines are large designs drawn on the ground in the Nazca Desert of southern Peru. They were created between 500 BC and 500 AD by people who dug or scraped the desert floor, removing small rocks to expose dirt of a different color. There are two main time periods for the Nazca lines: the Paracas phase, from 400 to 200 BC, and the Nazca phase, from 200 BC to 500 AD. In the 21st century, archaeologists used drones to discover hundreds of new figures, and they believe more may still be found.
Most of the lines are straight, but some show pictures of animals and plants. Together, the lines are more than 1,300 km (800 miles) long and cover an area of about 50 km (19 square miles). The lines are usually 10 to 15 cm (4–6 inches) deep. They were made by removing the top layer of reddish-brown pebbles to reveal yellow-gray soil underneath. The width of the lines varies, but more than half are about 33 cm (13 inches) wide. Some lines are as narrow as 30 cm (12 inches), while others are as wide as 1.8 m (6 feet).
Some of the designs can only be seen clearly from the air, about 500 meters (1,600 feet) above the ground, but they are also visible from nearby hills or high places. These shapes are often made with one continuous line. The longest designs are about 370 meters (400 yards) long. The dry, windless climate of the desert has helped preserve the lines naturally. However, rare weather changes can sometimes alter the designs slightly. As of 2012, the lines were reported to be slowly damaged because of people living on the land without permission.
The figures vary in detail. Hundreds are simple lines or geometric shapes, and more than 70 show animals, such as a hummingbird, spider, fish, condor, heron, monkey, lizard, dog, cat, and human. Other designs include trees and flowers. Scholars have different ideas about why the lines were made, but most believe they have religious importance. In 1994, the Nazca lines were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Location
The high, dry plateau extends over 80 kilometers (50 miles) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Lima. The main road, PE-1S Panamericana Sur, runs alongside it. The greatest number of designs is found within a rectangle that is 10 kilometers long and 4 kilometers wide (6 miles by 2 miles), located south of the small village of San Miguel de la Pascana. In this area, the most notable geoglyphs can be seen.
Recorded history
The first published mention of the Nazca Lines was made by Spanish conquistador Pedro Cieza de León in his 1553 book. He described them as trail markers. In 1569, Luis Monzón reported seeing ancient ruins in Peru, including the remains of "roads."
Although the lines were partially visible from nearby hills, the first people to report them in the twentieth century were Peruvian military and civilian pilots. In 1927, Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejía Xesspe saw them while hiking through the foothills. He discussed them at a conference in Lima in 1939.
American historian Paul Kosok is credited as the first scholar to study the lines in depth. While in Peru in 1940–41 to study ancient irrigation systems, he flew over the lines and noticed one was shaped like a bird. Another observation helped him see how lines aligned with the horizon at the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.
Kosok began studying how the lines might have been created and their purpose. He was joined by archaeologist Richard P. Schaedel from the United States and Maria Reiche, a German mathematician and archaeologist from Lima, to determine the purpose of the Nazca Lines. They proposed that the figures were designed as astronomical markers on the horizon to show where the sun and other celestial bodies rose on significant dates. Archaeologists, historians, and mathematicians have all tried to determine the purpose of the lines.
Determining how the lines were made has been easier than determining why they were made. Scholars have theorized that the Nazca people could have used simple tools and surveying equipment to construct the lines. Archaeological surveys found wooden stakes in the ground at the end of some lines, which supports this theory. One such stake was carbon-dated and used to establish the age of the design complex.
Joe Nickell, an American investigator of the paranormal, religious artifacts, and folk mysteries, recreated the figures in the early twenty-first century using the same tools and technology available to the Nazca people. This work refuted the 1969 hypothesis of Erich von Däniken, who suggested "ancient astronauts" built the lines. Nickell showed that a small team could recreate even the largest figures in days without aerial help. Scientific American described his work as "remarkable in its exactness" when compared to the existing lines.
Most of the lines are formed by shallow trenches, 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6 inches) deep. These trenches were made by removing reddish-brown, iron oxide-coated pebbles from the surface of the Nazca Desert. When this gravel is removed, the light-colored clay exposed in the trench contrasts sharply with the surrounding land, making the lines visible. This sub-layer contains high amounts of lime. With moisture from morning mist, it hardens to form a protective layer that shields the lines from wind and erosion.
The Nazca used this technique to "draw" hundreds of large, simple, curvilinear animal and human figures. The entire earthwork project is huge and complex: the area covering the lines is nearly 450 km (170 miles), and the largest figures can span nearly 370 m (1,200 feet). Some figures have been measured: the hummingbird is 93 m (305 feet) long, the condor is 134 m (440 feet), the monkey is 93 by 58 m (305 by 190 feet), and the spider is 47 m (154 feet). The very dry, windless, and constant climate of the Nazca region has preserved the lines well.
In early 2011, a Japanese team from Yamagata University announced the discovery of two new small figures. One resembles a human head and is dated to the early period of Nazca culture or earlier. The other, undated, is an animal. The team has conducted fieldwork there since 2006 and found about 100 new geoglyphs by 2012. In March 2012, the university announced plans to open a new research center at the site in September 2012 for a long-term study of the area over the next 15 years.
A June 2019 article in Smithsonian magazine described recent work by a multi-disciplinary team of Japanese researchers who identified or re-identified some of the birds depicted. They noted that birds are the most frequently shown animals in the Nazca geoglyphs. The team believes some bird images previously thought to be indigenous species more closely resemble exotic birds found in non-desert habitats. They speculated that "the reason exotic birds were depicted in the geoglyphs instead of indigenous birds is closely related to the purpose of the etching process."
In 2019, Yamagata University and IBM Japan announced the discovery of 143 new geoglyphs on the Nazca Pampa and surrounding areas. One was found using machine learning-based methods.
Lines forming the shape of a cat were discovered on a hill in 2020. The figure is on a steep slope prone to erosion, explaining why it had not been found earlier. Drones are revealing sites for further research.
By 2022, the number of known Nazca geoglyphs was 358. Drones are now being used to help anthropologists study the area and are expected to uncover many more.
In 2024, a team from Yamagata University’s Nazca Institute, in collaboration with IBM Research, used artificial intelligence (AI) to discover 303 previously unknown geoglyphs near the Nazca Lines in Peru. These include parrots, cats, monkeys, killer whales, and even severed heads.
The field survey took place between September 2022 and February 2023 and was conducted on foot for ground truthing under the permission of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture. It required 1,440 labor hours and confirmed 303 new figurative geoglyphs. A total of 1,309 candidates with high potential were sorted into three ranks. 1,200 labor hours were spent screening AI-generated geoglyph candidate photos.
Speculation regarding purpose
样的
</think>
Paul Kosok and Maria Reiche proposed that the lines were related to astronomy and cosmology, similar to how other ancient cultures used monuments. The lines were intended to function as an observatory, pointing to the places on the horizon where the sun and other celestial bodies rose or set during the solstices. Many prehistoric indigenous cultures in the Americas and other parts of the world built earthworks that combined astronomical observations with their religious beliefs. This was also true for the late Mississippian culture at Cahokia and other sites in the United States. Another example is Stonehenge in England. Newgrange in Ireland has tombs that are aligned to allow light to enter during the winter solstice.
Gerald Hawkins and Anthony Aveni, experts in archaeoastronomy, concluded in 1990 that there was not enough evidence to support an astronomical explanation.
Maria Reiche claimed that some or all of the figures represented constellations. By 1998, Phyllis B. Pitluga, a student of Reiche and a senior astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, had concluded that the animal figures were not constellations, but "counter constellations," which are the dark areas within the Milky Way. She believed that the giant spider figure was an anamorphic diagram of the constellation Orion, and that three of the straight lines leading to the figure were used to track the changing positions of the stars in Orion's Belt. Aveni later criticized her analysis, noting that she did not consider the other 12 lines of the figure, and commented on her overall conclusions. For example:
I really had trouble finding good evidence to back up what she contended. Pitluga never laid out the criteria for selecting the lines she chose to measure, nor did she pay much attention to the archaeological data Clarkson and Silverman had unearthed. Her case did little justice to other information about the coastal cultures, save applying, with subtle contortions, Urton's representations of constellations from the highlands. As historian Jacquetta Hawkes might ask: was she getting the pampa she desired?
Some scholars suggest that shamanistic rituals within the Nazca culture may have influenced the creation of these geoglyphs throughout southern Peru.
Henri Stierlin, a Swiss art historian specializing in Egypt and the Middle East, published a book in 1983 that linked the Nazca Lines to the production of ancient textiles found wrapping mummies of the Paracas culture. He argued that the people may have used the lines and trapezes as giant, primitive looms to make the long strings and wide pieces of textiles typical of the area. According to his theory, the figurative patterns (smaller and less common) were meant only for ritual purposes. This theory is not widely accepted, although scholars have noted similarities in patterns between the textiles and the Nazca Lines. They interpret these similarities as arising from the common culture.
The first systematic field study of the geoglyphs was made by Markus Reindel and Johny Cuadrado Isla. Since 1996, they have documented and excavated more than 650 sites. They compared the iconography of the lines to ceramics from the cultures. As archaeologists, they believe that the figurative motifs of the geoglyphs can be dated to having been made between 600 and 200 BC.
In 1985, archaeologist Johan Reinhard published archaeological, ethnographic, and historical data showing that the worship of mountains and other water sources was important in Nazca religion and economy from ancient to recent times. He theorized that the lines and figures were part of religious practices involving the worship of deities associated with water, which directly related to the success and productivity of crops. He interpreted the lines as sacred paths leading to places where these deities could be worshiped. The figures were symbols representing animals and objects meant to invoke the aid of the deities in supplying water. The precise meanings of many of the individual geoglyphs remain unknown.
Based on the results of geophysical investigations and the observation of geological faults, David Johnson argued that some geoglyphs followed the paths of aquifers from which aqueducts (or puquios) collected water.
Theories have suggested that the geometric lines could indicate water flow or irrigation schemes, or be part of rituals to "summon" water. Spiders, birds, and plants may be fertility symbols. It has also been theorized that the lines could act as an astronomical calendar. Alberto Rossel Castro (1977) proposed a multi-functional interpretation of the geoglyphs. He classified them into three groups: the first appeared to be tracks connected to irrigation and field division, the second are lines that are axes connected with mounds and cairns, and the third was linked to astronomical interpretations.
Nicola Masini and Giuseppe Orefici have conducted research in Pampa de Atarco, about 10 km (6 mi) south of Pampa de Nasca, which they believe reveals a spatial, functional, and religious relationship between these geoglyphs and the temples of Cahuachi. In particular, using remote sensing techniques (from satellite to drone-based remote sensing), they investigated and found "five groups of geoglyphs, each of them characterized by a specific motif and shape, and associated with a distinct function." They identified a ceremonial one, characterized by meandering motifs. Another is related to calendrical purpose, as proved by the presence of radial centers aligned along the directions of winter solstice and equinox sunset. As have earlier scholars, the two Italians believe that the geoglyphs were the venues of events linked to the agriculture calendar. These also served to strengthen social cohesion among various groups of pilgrims, sharing common ancestors and religious beliefs.
Using a deep neural network trained on ImageNet and fine-tuned on so-called "relief-type" geoglyphs, a 2024 paper classified geoglyphs by walking route (either trail or road) and whether they were geometric (namely linear or areal) or figurative (whether line-type or relief-type). The authors hypothesize that, "since the main motifs of the line-type geoglyphs are wild animals, it is probable that ceremonial activities related to these animals were performed during pilgrimages" and that the line-type "can be regarded as planned public architecture." They also find that the relief-type geoglyphs, typically half the length of the line-type, could be recognized from walking trails: "The main motifs of the relief-type geoglyphs were humans, livestock, and human sacrifice, all of which depict scenes with humans or things modified by humans. Repeatedly observing relief-type geoglyphs from the trails probably facilitated sharing information about human activities related to these scenes."
Swiss pseudoscientific writer Erich von Däniken was fascinated by Nazca and was also a strong believer in extraterrestrial visitations. Von Däniken published a best-selling book titled Chariots of the Gods? in 1968. In this book, he describes his theory that the lines were used as landing sites for UFOs. Däniken claimed that the Nazca lines site reflected visits by astronauts from other worlds, who became the creators of ancient civilizations. According to Von Däniken, Sanskrit literature describes a story in which an aircraft landed on Earth, and the local people watched in amazement as "human-like beings with golden, shimmering skins" walked, mined for metals, and then flew away in their ship. These ancient astronauts supposedly soon returned where they built landing tracks and then eventually left forever. The amazed Native Americans then considered Nazca a place of pilgrimage and generations of their people built more figures and runways as an invitation for gods to come.
Preservation and environmental concerns
Conservationists who work to protect the Nazca Lines are worried about dangers like pollution and erosion in the area. The Lines are shallow, only 10 to 30 cm (4 to 12 in) deep, and could be washed away. The Nazca region rarely receives rain, but global weather changes have increased rainfall in recent years. Heavy rain can damage the Lines because they are not strong enough to withstand it.
— Viktoria Nikitzki of the Maria Reiche Centre
In mid-February 2007, after flooding and mudslides in the area, Mario Olaechea Aquije, an archaeological resident from Peru's National Institute of Culture, and a team of experts examined the region. He said, "[T]he mudslides and heavy rains did not seem to cause major damage to the Nazca Lines." He also noted that the nearby Southern Pan-American Highway was damaged, and "the road damage shows how fragile these figures are."
In 2012, people who lived on the land without permission damaged a Nazca-era cemetery and let their pigs roam on parts of the area. In 2013, machinery from a limestone quarry was reported to have destroyed a small part of a line and caused harm to another.
In December 2014, Greenpeace activists placed a banner inside one of the geoglyphs, damaging the site. Greenpeace apologized after the incident, but one activist was convicted and fined for the damage. This event also brought attention to other damage to geoglyphs outside the World Heritage area, which was caused by off-road vehicles from the Dakar Rally in 2012 and 2013. These damages are visible in satellite images.
In January 2018, a truck driver was arrested but later released because there was no proof of intentional harm. The driver left large tire marks on an area about 46 m by 107 m (150 by 350 feet), damaging three geoglyphs.
In 2025, the Ministry of Culture reduced the land area of the Nazca Lines reserve by 42%, from about 5,600 square kilometers to roughly 3,200 square kilometers, because of new archaeological studies. This decision was criticized due to concerns about informal mining in the area. The ministry later reversed its decision.
Palpa glyphs
The Paracas culture is thought by some historians to have been an earlier group that may have influenced the creation of the Nazca Lines. In 2018, archaeologists used drones to discover 25 large ground drawings in the Palpa province. These geoglyphs are being linked to the Paracas culture. Many of them are older than the Nazca Lines by about 1,000 years. Some of the geoglyphs show big differences in their subjects and where they are located, such as being found on hillsides. The person who helped find them, Peruvian archaeologist Luis Jaime Castillo Butters, says some of the newly discovered geoglyphs appear to show warriors. The Paracas culture is also believed to have created the famous geoglyph known as the Paracas Candelabra.
Chinchas glyphs
Further north near the Nazca and Palpas regions and along the Peruvian coast, other glyphs from the Chincha culture have also been found.