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, with only about 2.5 cm of rainfall a year - less than in the Gobi Desert.
Discovery of drawings of the Nazca desert
The mysterious Nazca lines and drawings were accidentally discovered during a flight by a Peruvian pilot in 1927. The first to try to uncover the mystery of the Nazca desert was the American archaeologist Paul Kozok, who arrived in Nazca in 1939. He found that the gigantic drawings were made by removing a 20-centimeter layer of brown, sunburned stones and soil, under which a much lighter soil was hidden.
A 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. The idea came to him when he saw that on the day of the summer solstice, the sun went down just past the end of one of the straight lines that make up the huge bird drawing.
Kozok's research was continued by his assistant, the German mathematician Maria Reiche. We can say that this indefatigable woman devoted her whole life to the Nazca desert and confirming the hypothesis of her teacher Paul Kozok. For more than 40 years, Reiche compiled a catalog of lines and drawings, made measurements and even carried out aerial photography 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.
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1968 - an unexpected blow to the hypothesis of Kozok and Reich was struck by the American astronomer Gerald Hawkins, who analyzed the Nazca lines using a computer and concluded that 80% of geometric figures 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 Key to Stonehenge", in which he argued that the famous building of the ancients in England was a kind of observatory, his opinion was decisive for many.
But, as Maria Reiche rightly believed, when calculating in his study, Hawkins did not take into account the terrain at all, this led him to an erroneous conclusion. Today, many of the researchers do not exclude that some of the lines are in one way or another connected with the astronomical observations of the ancient inhabitants of Nazca, although skeptics say that out of almost 1000 straight lines, some probably just by chance may indicate the heavenly bodies on certain days.
A giant groundwater distribution map?
Relatively not so long ago, a message appeared in the foreign press that the secret of Nazca drawings was finally revealed. The author of the new hypothesis was David Johnson, a former high school teacher from New York State. Interestingly, Johnson was not at all interested in the mysterious Nazca drawings, but was looking for water in this desert using such an exotic method as dowsing. Johnson was especially attracted by the ancient irrigation canals, some of which still had water.
Local residents told him that the main sources of water for the canals were two small rivers, but Johnson immediately noticed that the canals run parallel to the rivers and could not take water from them. He soon 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 along the faults under the ground flowed down into the valleys.
At first, Johnson did not connect this idea with the Nazca lines in any way, but he began to notice that as soon as he discovers aquifers, there are always traces of ancient desert inhabitants and their geometric patterns nearby. One day in July 1996, he climbed one of the hills, looked at two broad lines stretching towards the horizon, abutting the dark crevices of the nearby mountains, which he believed were formed by geological faults, and then it dawned on him. As Johnson said, he sat down on the top of the hill and said to himself: "My God, I know what the Nazca lines represent, they trace underground water 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.
While some scholars have long assumed that the Nazca drawings were in one way or another associated with water, the main jewel of these arid places, many of them were skeptical of Johnson's idea. But Heline Silverman, an archaeologist at the University of Illinois, at a 1999 Nazca conference, nevertheless asked her colleagues 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 streams, maybe the Nazca people did the same thing, only 'plotted' them on the earth's surface,” Mabi said. He has already found evidence that the alternate water sources in the rifts that Johnson found actually exist. And in all cases, Mabi established "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 causing rain. He discovered a ritual capable of explaining the Nazca lines. Archaeological finds around some of the wide lines ("Daniken's landing strips") confirm their connection to water. Seashells (a symbol of water in the Andes) and pottery drinking vessels were 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 researcher, Entosh Aveni, believes he has already discovered the hidden logic in the mosaic of Nazca lines. He removed the images of all animals, spirals and geometric shapes from the map and left only straight lines on it. It turned out that all the lines converged in 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" fell 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 the hills ("ray centers"), where they performed rituals associated with water.
Other researchers are also trying to solve the mystery of the Nazca desert. It has been established that the ancient Nazcans decapitated their enemies by mummifying their heads, and had very curious religious ideas about nature and the world around them. On the ceramics of Nazca, images of animals have been found that are almost identical to the giant drawings in the desert.
Markus Reindel decided to follow the unbeaten 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 found the upper part of the wall there at a depth of 30 cm. Excavations have confirmed that these are the walls of the ancient city, which was located in the immediate vicinity of the legendary drawings.
After the first expedition, the archaeologist drew a detailed plan of the city and recovered some of its history. 1900 years ago, on the flat part of the valley, in the interfluve of the Rio Grande, Rio Palpa and Rio Viskas rivers, there was a strange structure - the settlers erected a wall 400 m long and 100 m wide. The meter-high walls of brick blocks were raised to a height of 12 meters, 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 participate directly in the production of food. Reindel believes that they had a kind of nobility - the highest social class. An indirect confirmation of this assumption is a complex system of irrigation canals, the construction of which required competent planning and management of works.
And for the creation of drawings in the desert, orders, plans and leadership were also needed from the rulers vested with power, whatever they were called - kings, chieftains, high priests, or whatever. The outskirts of Palpa on Reindel's plans are covered with lines, triangles and spirals, reaching almost to the settlement itself.
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 carved on rocks (petroglyphs) date back to the 4th century BC. e. Later, they were repeated in an enlarged form on the flat surfaces of mountain slopes. Drawings ranging in size from 10 to 20 m were clearly visible from a distance.
“This is where the tradition of ground painting was supposed to develop,” Reindel suggested. “As they grew, they became more and more sweeping and abstract and no longer occupied the rocky slopes, but the 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 Nazca drawings, one more hypothesis can be cited After many years of observations in the basins of nearby rivers, American David Johnson made an unexpected conclusion: "The Nazca Lines are a clear text carved into the ground to indicate to the inhabitants of the region where the sources are water".
Markus Reindel still has no reason to refute or confirm this and other hypotheses. He is pinning all his hopes on subsequent seasons of excavation and intends to reach individual structures that lie far from the settlement - right on the extensions of the Kask lines or immediately below them. Archaeologists have not yet found such buildings. Excavations inside the walled area will also continue: Reindel wants to find a temple of the "Nazca 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 together. After all, many of the scientists may be right. Some Nazca lines can serve as an astronomical calendar marking the periods of the greatest drought or rainfall, others serve as ceremonial paths for rituals associated with rain induction, and still others project underground aquifers onto the surface. All the lines together have created a real puzzle for scientists …
The explanation of the giant images of animals, birds and insects, in our opinion, can be even simpler. Can you see a spider or hummingbird from a high hill? Unlikely. The ancient inhabitants of Nazca understood this, too, they were only interested in rain clouds that swept over them at a great height. For the heavenly deities who control the rains, these giant images were intended so that they would see them and take pity on the animals, giving them, and at the same time, people, life-giving moisture to drink. Isn't this the solution to the mysterious signs of Nazca?
N. Nepomniachtchi