A small study based on some archaeological publications, photographic material from the LAI expedition to Peru in 2007, fresh satellite maps of Google Earth and the author's analysis of drawings. An attempt has been made to explain the phenomenon of geoglyphs by using hidden knowledge during the existence of the Paracas and Nazca cultures.
The Nazca Plateau today is a lifeless desert, covered with stones darkened by the heat and sun and cut by the beds of long-dried water streams; one of the driest places on earth. It is located 450 km south of Lima, the capital of Peru, 40 km from the Pacific coast, at an altitude of approximately 450 m. It rains here on average once every two years and lasts no more than half an hour.
Figure: 1.
In the twenties, with the beginning of flights from Lima to Arequipa, strange lines began to be noticed on the plateau. Lots of lines. Straight like an arrow, sometimes stretching to the very horizon, wide and narrow, intersecting and overlapping, combining into unthinkable schemes and scattering from the centers, the lines made the desert look like a giant drawing board:
Figure: 2.
Since the middle of the last century, a serious study of the lines and cultures that existed in this region began, but the geoglyphs still kept their secrets; versions began to appear explaining the phenomenon outside the mainstream of academic science, the topic took its rightful place among the unsolved mysteries of ancient civilizations, and now almost everyone knows about the Nazca geoglyphs.
Promotional video:
Representatives of official science, with the help of the media, are trying to convince us that everything has already been solved and deciphered, that these are nothing more than traces of religious ceremonies, well, or, in extreme cases, traces of searches for water sources or the remains of astronomical signs. But it is enough to look at the pictures from an airplane, or better from space, as fair doubts and questions arise - what kind of rituals are these that forced two thousand years ago the Indians, whose society was in the earliest stages of development, who did not have a written language, who lived in small villages and farms, forced to constantly struggle for survival, to outline hundreds of square kilometers of desert with geometric shapes, many kilometers of straight lines and giant design images that can only be seen from a great height? Maria Reiche notes in her book,that, given the enormous volume of work carried out, the creation of lines should have been the central task of the society that inhabited this area at that time …
Although it is worth noting that in more specialized works archaeologists do not adhere to such categorical conclusions about the complete solution of the lines, mentioning religious ceremonies only as the most likely version requiring further research.
And I propose to touch again this amazing riddle, but only maybe a little more closely, as if from another dimension; to do similar to what P. Kosok did in 1939, when he first specially hired a plane to fly over the desert.
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So, here's a bit of information you need to know.
1548 The first mention of the lines by the Spanish chronicler Pedro Ciesa de Leon in the Chronicle of Peru as "guiding signs for wanderers."
1927 Official opening of the lines by the Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Meia Xespe.
1939 Geoglyph research begins by historian Paul Kosok of Long Island University in New York.
1946 - 1998 Study of geoglyphs by German mathematician and archaeologist Maria Reiche. Arriving for the first time with Paul Kosok as a translator, Maria Reiche continued her research on the lines that became the main work of her life. Largely thanks to this courageous woman, the lines continue to exist and are available for research.
1960 Beginning of intensive study of geoglyphs by various expeditions and researchers.
1968 Release of the book by Erich von Denikin "Chariots of the Gods", which expresses the version of traces of extraterrestrial civilizations. The beginning of the widespread popularity of the Nazca geoglyphs and the tourist boom on the plateau.
1973 Expedition of the English astronomer Gerald Hawkins (author of a monograph about Stonehenge), the results of which showed the inconsistency of the astronomical version proposed by P. Kosak and M. Reiche.
1994 Thanks to the efforts of Maria Reiche, the Nazca geoglyphs are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Since 1997, the Nazca-Palpa project, led by the Peruvian archaeologist Joni Isla and prof. Markus Reindel of the German Archaeological Institute with the support of the Swiss-Liechtenstein Foundation for Foreign Archaeological Research. The main version based on the results of work since 1997 is the already mentioned ritual actions associated with the cult of water and fertility.
Currently, a GIS is being created - a geoinformation system (digital 3-dimensional display of geoglyphs combined with archaeological and geological information) with the participation of the Zurich Institute of Geodesy and Photogrammetry.
A little about the versions. The two most popular ones have already been mentioned (Indian rituals and traces of extraterrestrial civilizations):
Figure: 3.
All the rest (and their number, perhaps, exceeds a hundred) make up the entire spectrum of imaginable and inconceivable actions that can leave such traces on the surface of the earth. And to come up with something new, perhaps, is already impossible. Ideas for new versions will, rather, appear in accordance with the development of science and technology. There are so many lines and variety that, if you try, you can pick up arguments for each version. Therefore, I propose to leave the simplest explanation (in our case, these are ritual actions), that there would be at least some starting point, and just look at the factual material. Moreover, the situation is changing almost before our eyes - numerous photos appear on the network, Google Earth uploads fresh satellite maps with high resolution, new archaeological data appear. I in no way claim to be an exhaustive review of numerous studies, but I would like to share some observations based on what has accumulated.
To begin with, let's clarify the meaning of the term "geoglyphs". According to Wikipedia, “a geoglyph is a geometric or figured pattern applied to the ground, usually over 4 meters long. There are two ways to create geoglyphs - by removing the top layer of soil around the perimeter of the pattern, or, conversely, pouring rubble where the pattern line should pass. Many geoglyphs are so large that they can only be viewed from the air. " It should be added that, in its overwhelming majority, geoglyphs are quite unambiguously interpreted drawings or signs, and from ancient times to this day people have applied and are applying geoglyphs for specific purposes - religious, ideological, technical, entertainment, advertising. Nowadays, thanks to technical progress, the application methods have improved significantly, and, ultimately,both the illuminated runway and the artificial islands in the United Arab Emirates can be considered modern geoglyphs:
Figure: 4.
According to the above, the Nazca lines (the number of giant drawings is only a fraction of a percent of the number of lines and geometric shapes) is not entirely correct to consider as geoglyphs, due to the unknown purpose with which they were drawn. After all, it never occurs to anyone to consider as geoglyphs, say, agricultural activities or the transport system, which from a great height also look like geometric patterns. But it so happened that in official archeology, and in popular literature, the Nazca lines and drawings are called geoglyphs. We will not break traditions either.
Continuation: Part II: lines
Author: GOR ALEXEEV