The Nazca lines are large drawings made in the dry soil of the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. People created them between 500 BC and 500 AD by digging or scraping the ground to remove pebbles, exposing dirt of a different color. There are two main time periods for the 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 believe more may still exist.

Most lines are straight, but some show animals and plants. All the lines together are more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) long and cover an area of about 50 square kilometers (19 square miles). The lines are usually 10 to 15 centimeters (4–6 inches) deep. They were made by removing the top layer of reddish-brown pebbles to reveal a yellow-grey layer beneath. The width of the lines varies, but more than half are slightly wider than 33 centimeters (13 inches). In some areas, they are as narrow as 30 centimeters (12 inches), and in others, they reach 1.8 meters (6 feet) wide.

Some lines form shapes that are best seen from the air at about 500 meters (1,600 feet), though they can also be seen from nearby hills or high places. These shapes are often made with one continuous line. The largest shapes are about 370 meters (400 yards) long. The dry, stable climate of the desert has helped preserve the lines naturally. However, rare weather changes may temporarily affect them. By 2012, the lines were reported to be damaged by people living on the land.

The figures vary in complexity. Hundreds are simple lines and geometric shapes, while 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 designs were made, but most believe they have religious meaning. The Nazca lines were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994.

Location

The high, dry area extends over 80 km (50 mi) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana, about 400 km (250 mi) south of Lima. The main PE-1S Panamericana Sur highway runs alongside it. The largest group of designs is found in a rectangle measuring 10 by 4 km (6 by 2 mi), located south of the small village of San Miguel de la Pascana. In this area, some of the most famous geoglyphs can be seen.

Recorded history

The first published mention of the Nazca Lines was made by Spanish conquering explorer 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 could be seen 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 talked about them at a conference in Lima in 1939.

American historian Paul Kosok is known 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 shaped like a bird. Another observation helped him see how lines met at the horizon during the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.

Kosok began studying how the lines might have been made and their purpose. He worked with Richard P. Schaedel, an American archaeologist, and Maria Reiche, a German mathematician and archaeologist from Lima, to learn more. They suggested the figures were designed as astronomical markers to show where the sun and other celestial bodies rose on important dates. Many experts have tried to understand the purpose of the lines.

It has been easier to determine how the lines were made than why they were made. Scholars think the Nazca people used simple tools and surveying equipment to create the lines. Archaeological surveys found wooden stakes at the ends of some lines, which supports this idea. One stake was dated using carbon dating, which helped scientists estimate the age of the design complex.

In the early twenty-first century, Joe Nickell, an American investigator, recreated the figures using the same tools and technology the Nazca people might have used. This proved that the lines could have been made by humans, not by ancient astronauts as Erich von Däniken suggested in 1969. Nickell showed that a small team could recreate large figures quickly without needing help from the air. Scientific American called his work "remarkable in its exactness" compared to the original lines.

Most of the lines are made by digging shallow trenches in the ground, between 10 and 15 cm (4 and 6 inches) deep. These trenches remove reddish-brown pebbles covered in iron oxide from the surface of the Nazca Desert. When the pebbles are removed, the light-colored clay beneath becomes visible, creating clear lines. This clay contains lime, which hardens with morning mist to protect the lines from wind and erosion.

The Nazca people used this technique to create hundreds of large, simple figures of animals and humans. The entire project covers nearly 450 km (170 miles), and the largest figures can be up to 370 m (1,200 ft) long. Some figures have been measured: the hummingbird is 93 m (305 ft) long, the condor is 134 m (440 ft), the monkey is 93 by 58 m (305 by 190 ft), and the spider is 47 m (154 ft). The dry, windless, and stable climate of the Nazca region has helped preserve the lines.

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 Nazca culture or earlier. The other, undated, is an animal. The team has studied the area since 2006 and found about 100 new geoglyphs by 2012. In March 2012, the university announced plans to open a research center at the site in September 2012 for a 15-year study.

A June 2019 article in Smithsonian magazine described work by a Japanese team that identified or re-identified some bird images. They noted that birds are the most frequently shown animals in the geoglyphs. The team believes some bird images previously thought to be native species may actually resemble birds from non-desert areas. They suggested the choice of exotic birds may be connected 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 nearby areas. One was found using machine learning-based methods.

In 2020, a line shaped like a cat was discovered on a hill. The figure is on a steep slope prone to erosion, which explains why it was not found earlier. Drones are helping archaeologists find more sites for study.

By 2022, 358 Nazca geoglyphs were known. Drones are now being used to help researchers find many more.

In 2024, a team from Yamagata University’s Nazca Institute, working with IBM Research, used artificial intelligence (AI) to find 303 previously unknown geoglyphs near the Nazca Lines in Peru. These include images of parrots, cats, monkeys, killer whales, and even severed heads.

The field survey happened between September 2022 and February 2023. It was done on foot with permission from the Peruvian Ministry of Culture and took 1,440 labor hours. The team confirmed 303 new geoglyphs and sorted 1,309 potential candidates into three groups. A total of 1,200 labor hours were used to review AI-generated images of possible geoglyphs.

Speculation regarding purpose

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Paul Kosok and Maria Reiche suggested that the lines were connected to astronomy and cosmology, similar to how other ancient cultures used monuments. These lines were intended to function like an observatory, pointing to places on the horizon where the sun and other celestial bodies rose or set during the solstices. Many prehistoric 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 in 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 for the lines.

Maria Reiche believed that some or all of the figures represented constellations. By 1998, Phyllis B. Pitluga, who was a student of Reiche and a senior astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, concluded that the animal figures were not constellations but "counter constellations," which are the dark areas within the Milky Way. She claimed 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 three stars in Orion's Belt. Aveni later criticized her analysis, noting that she did not consider the other 12 lines of the figure and did not pay much attention to the archaeological data collected by Clarkson and Silverman. Her work did not fully consider other information about the coastal cultures, except for using some representations of constellations from the highlands. As historian Jacquetta Hawkes might ask: was she getting the pampa she desired?

Some scholars believe that shamanistic rituals in the Nazca culture may have influenced the creation of these geoglyphs in southern Peru.

Henri Stierlin, a Swiss art historian who specializes in Egypt and the Middle East, published a book in 1983 linking the Nazca Lines to the production of ancient textiles found wrapping mummies of the Paracas culture. He suggested that the people may have used the lines and trapezes as large, primitive looms to make the long strings and wide pieces of textiles typical of the area. According to his theory, the figurative patterns, which are smaller and less common, were used only for ritual purposes. This theory is not widely accepted, but some scholars have noted similarities between the patterns on the textiles and the Nazca Lines. They believe these similarities come from the shared culture.

The first systematic field study of the geoglyphs was conducted 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 with ceramics from the cultures. As archaeologists, they believe that the figurative motifs on the geoglyphs can be dated to 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 central to Nazca religion and economy, from ancient times to the present. He theorized that the lines and figures were part of religious practices involving the worship of deities connected to the availability of water, which directly affected the success and productivity of crops. He believed the lines were sacred paths leading to places where these deities could be worshiped, and the figures were symbols representing animals and objects meant to ask the deities for help in providing water. The exact meanings of many of the individual geoglyphs are still unknown.

Based on 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 suggest that the geometric lines could indicate water flow or irrigation systems, or be part of rituals to "summon" water, while spiders, birds, and plants may be symbols of fertility. It has also been theorized that the lines could function as an astronomical calendar. Alberto Rossel Castro (1977) proposed a multi-functional interpretation of the geoglyphs. He grouped them into three categories: the first appeared to be tracks connected to irrigation and field division, the second were lines that acted as 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 shows a spatial, functional, and religious relationship between these geoglyphs and the temples of Cahuachi. Using remote sensing techniques, such as satellite and drone-based methods, they found "five groups of geoglyphs, each with a specific motif and shape, and associated with a distinct function." They identified a ceremonial group, characterized by meandering motifs, and another related to a calendar, as proved by the presence of radial centers aligned with the directions of the winter solstice and equinox sunset. Like earlier scholars, the two Italians believe that the geoglyphs were venues for events linked to the agricultural calendar. These also helped to strengthen social unity among various groups of pilgrims who shared 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 (linear or areal) or figurative (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 geoglyphs "can be regarded as planned public architecture." They also found 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 described 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 think.

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 might be washed away. The region usually gets very little rain, but changes in global weather patterns have increased the risk of heavy rain. 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 harm to the Nazca Lines." He added that the nearby Southern Pan-American Highway was damaged, and "the damage to the roads shows how delicate these figures are."

In 2012, people who lived on the land without permission damaged a Nazca-era cemetery and allowed their pigs to roam on parts of the area.

In 2013, machines used in a limestone quarry destroyed a small part of a line and caused harm to another.

In December 2014, Greenpeace activists set up a banner inside one of the geoglyphs, damaging the site. Greenpeace apologized after the event, and one activist was fined for their role in the damage. This incident also brought attention to damage caused by off-road vehicles from the Dakar Rally in 2012 and 2013, which can be seen in satellite images.

In January 2018, a truck driver was arrested but later released because there was no proof of intent other than a mistake. The driver left large tire marks across an area about 46 m by 107 m (150 by 350 feet), damaging three geoglyphs.

In 2025, the Ministry of Culture reduced the size of the Nazca Lines reserve by 42%, from about 5,600 square kilometers to roughly 3,200 square kilometers, based on new archaeological studies. This decision was criticized because of concerns about informal mining in the area. The ministry later reversed its decision.

Palpa glyphs

The Paracas culture is believed by some historians to be an early 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 these geoglyphs show differences in their designs and locations, such as being drawn on hillsides. Luis Jaime Castillo Butters, a Peruvian archaeologist who helped find them, says many of the new geoglyphs appear to show warriors. The Paracas culture is also connected to a famous geoglyph called the Paracas Candelabra.

Chinchas glyphs

Further north from the Nazca, in the Palpas region and along the Peruvian coast, other glyphs from the Chincha culture have also been found.