Part I: introduction
Geoglyphs are found almost all along the western coast of South America. In this chapter, we will take a closer look at the geoglyphs in the Nazca region, and information about other regions can be found in the appendix.
On the next map, areas are marked in blue where the lines are clearly readable in Google Earth and have a similar structure; red rectangle - "tourist place", where the density of lines is maximum and most of the drawings are concentrated; the purple area is the area of distribution of the lines, considered in most studies, when they say "Nazca-Palpa geoglyphs" they mean this area. The purple icon in the upper left corner is the famous geoglyph "Paracas Candelabrum":
Fig. 6. Red rectangle area
Figure: 7. Purple area.
The geoglyphs themselves are a rather simple thing - the stones covered with a dark desert tan (manganese and iron oxides) were removed to the side, thereby exposing the light layer of the subsoil, consisting of a mixture of sand, clay and gypsum:
Figure: 8
Promotional video:
But often geoglyphs have a more complex structure - deepening, an ordered border, stone structures, or simply heaps of stones at the ends of the lines, which is why in some works they are called earth structures.
Where the geoglyphs go to the mountains, a lighter layer of rubble was exposed:
Figure: nine
In this chapter, we will mainly focus on the majority of geoglyphs, which includes lines and geometric shapes.
According to their form, they are usually divided as follows:
Lines and stripes with a width of 15 cm to 10 or more meters, which can stretch for many kilometers (1-3 km are quite common, some sources mention 18 or more km). Most of the drawings are drawn with thin lines. The stripes sometimes smoothly widen along their entire length:
Figure: ten
Truncated and elongated triangles (the most common form of geometric shapes on a plateau after lines) of various sizes (from 3 m to more than 1 km) - they are usually called trapezoids:
Figure: eleven
Large areas of rectangular and irregular shape:
Figure: 12
Often the lines and platforms are deepened, according to M. Reiche, up to 30 cm or more, the depressions at the lines often have an arched profile:
Figure: 13
This is clearly seen on almost covered trapezoids:
Figure: fourteen
Figure: 15. The same picture taken by a member of the LAI expedition.
Figure: 16. Place of shooting.
Lines almost always have well-defined boundaries - basically it is something like a border, very precisely maintained along the entire length of the line. But also the boundaries can be heaps of stones (for large trapezoids and rectangles, as in Fig. 15) or heaps of stones with varying degrees of ordering:
Figure: 17
Let us note the peculiarity due to which the Nazca geoglyphs gained wide popularity - straightforwardness. In 1973, J. Hawkins wrote that several kilometers of straight lines were drawn at the limit of photogrammetric capabilities. I don’t know how things are now, but you must admit that it’s not bad for the Indians. It should be added that often the lines follow the relief, as if not noticing it.
Figure: 18
Examples that have become classic:
Figure: nineteen
Figure: 20
Further. There are centers (usually located on hills) where different types of lines converge (or diverge, as you like).
Figure: 21
Figure: 22. View from the plane.
The centers are well readable on the map.
Figure: 23. Map of centers by Maria Reiche (small dots).
American researcher Anthony Aveni in his book "Between lines" mentions 62 centers in the Nazca-Palpa region.
Often, the lines are connected to each other and combined in various combinations. It is also noticeable that the work went in several stages, often lines and figures cover each other:
Figure: 24
It is worth noting the location of the trapezoids. The bases usually face river valleys, with a narrow section almost always higher than the base. Although where the elevation difference is small (on flat hilltops or in the desert) this does not work:
Figure: 25
A few words must be said about the age and number of lines. Official science is considered to be that the lines were created in the period between 400 BC. e. and 600 AD The reason for this is the myriad of pottery fragments from different phases of the Nazca culture, which are found in dumps and heaps of stones on the lines, as well as radiocarbon analysis of the remains of wooden posts, considered marking. Thermoluminescent dating is also used and shows similar results. We will touch on this topic below.
As for the number of lines - Maria Reiche registered about 9,000 of them, currently the figure from 13,000 to 30,000 is mentioned (and this is only on the purple part of the map in Fig. 5, no one counted similar lines in Ica and Pisco, although there they are, obviously much less).
Figure: five.
But we must take into account that we see only what left us with the time and cares of Maria Reiche (now the Nazca plateau is a reserve), who mentioned in her book that before her eyes, areas with interesting lines and spirals are being set up for cotton crops. Obviously, most of them were buried by erosion, sands and human activity, and the lines themselves sometimes cover each other in several layers, and their true number may differ by at least an order of magnitude. It makes sense to talk not about the number, but about the density of lines. And here it is worth noting the following.
Given that the climate, as archaeologists point out, during this period was more humid (and Google Earth shows that the ruins and remnants of irrigation structures go deep into the desert), the maximum density of geoglyphs is observed near river valleys and settlements (Map 7). But you can find separate lines in the mountains and far in the desert:
Figure: 26.
At an altitude of 2000 m 50 km west of Nazca: Fig. 27.
Figure: 27
Trapezoid from a group of lines in the desert 25 km from Ica:
Fig. 28
And further. When compiling GIS for some areas of Palpa and Nazca, it was concluded that, in general, all the lines were built in places accessible to humans and what is happening on the lines (but not the lines themselves) can be seen from distant observation points. I don’t know about the second, but the first seems to be true for the overwhelming majority of the lines (there are inconvenient places, but I haven’t met impassable ones), especially since Google Earth allows you to rotate the image this way and that (purple area of the map in Fig. 5):
Figure: 29
Figure: thirty
The list of obvious features could be continued, but perhaps it's time to move on to the details.
The first thing I would like to start with is a significant amount of work done, to put it mildly, not very high quality:
Figure: 31
Most of the images were taken within the purple area of the map Fig. 5, which most of all was exposed to the invasion of tourists and various kinds of experimenters; according to Reiche, there were even military exercises here. I tried as much as possible to avoid clearly modern tracks, especially since it is not difficult - they are lighter, go over ancient lines and do not have traces of erosion.
A few more illustrative examples:
Figure: 32
Figure: 33
Figure: 34
The ancients had strange rituals - would it be worthwhile to engage in such a volume of work on marking and clearing, so that then halfway or even at the final part of it would be abandoned? It is interesting that sometimes on completely finished trapezoids there are often heaps of stones, as it were, abandoned or forgotten by the builders:
Figure: 35
According to archaeologists, work on the construction and reconstruction of the lines was carried out constantly. I will add that this is more likely to concern only some of the line groups located near Palpa and in the Ingenio valley. There, all kinds of activity did not stop, possibly during the time of the Incas, judging by the numerous stone structures around the bases of the trapezoids:
Figure: 36
Some of these places are sometimes, as it were, marked by anthropomorphic and rather primitive images-geoglyphs resembling ordinary rock paintings (historians attribute them to the style of the Paracas culture, 400-100 BC, the predecessor of the Nazca culture). It is clearly seen that there are a lot of tramples (including modern tourists):
Figure: 37
Figure: 38
I must say that such places are mainly preferred by archaeologists.
Here we come to one extremely interesting detail.
You will notice that I constantly mention heaps and structures of stone - they were used to make borders, arbitrarily left on the lines. But there is another type of similar elements, as if included in the design of a significant number of trapezoids. Notice two elements at the narrow end and one at the wide:
Figure: 39
The detail is important, so more examples:
Figure: 40
In this Google image, several trapezoids have similar elements:
Figure: 41
These elements are not the latest additions - they are present on some unfinished trapezoids, they are also found in all the indicated regions on the map. Here are examples from opposite ends - the first from the Pisco area, and two from the mountainous section east of Nazca. It is interesting that on the latter these elements are also present inside the trapezoid (Fig. 42).
Figure: 42
Archaeologists have recently become interested in these elements, and here are descriptions of these structures on one of the trapezoids in the Palpa region:
Stone platforms with walls of stones, fastened with mud, sometimes double (the outer wall was made of flat sides of the stone, giving a splendor), filled with rocks, among which fragments of ceramics and food residues come across; there was a raised floor made of compacted clay and stone inserts. It is assumed that wooden beams were placed on top of these structures and used as platforms.
Figure: 43
The diagram shows the pits between the platforms, where the remains of wooden (willow) pillars, presumably massive, were found. Radiocarbon analysis of one of the pillars showed an age of 340-425 AD. BC, a piece of a stick from a stone platform (another trapezoid) - 420-540 AD. e. Pits with the remains of pillars were also found on the borders of the trapezoids.
Here is a description of the ring structure found near the trapezoid and, according to archaeologists, similar to those found at the base of the trapezoid:
In terms of the construction method, it is similar to the platforms described above, with the difference that the inner part of the wall was also given splendor. It had the shape of the letter D, with a gap made on the flat side. A flat stone is visible, erected after reconstruction, but it is noted that there was a second, and both were used as props for the stairs to the platform.
Figure: 44
In most cases, these elements did not have such a complex structure and were simply heaps or ring structures of stones, and a single element at the base of the trapezoid could not be read at all.
Figure: 45
I dwelled on this point in a little more detail, because it is quite obvious that the platforms were built together with trapezoids. They can be seen very often in Google Earth, and ring structures are very well distinguishable. And it is unlikely that the Indians were specifically looking for trapezoids to build platforms on them. Sometimes even the trapezoid is barely guessed, and these elements are clearly visible (for example, in the desert 20 km from Ica):
Figure: 46
Large rectangular areas have a slightly different set of elements - two large piles of stones, one at each edge. Perhaps one of them is featured in the National Geographic documentary “The Nazca Lines. Decrypted :
Figure: 47
Well, a sure point in favor of rituals.
Let's go further.
Based on our orthodox version, it is logical to assume that some kind of markup must exist. Something similar really exists and is very often used - a thin central line running through the center of the trapezoid and sometimes going far beyond. In some works of archaeologists, it is sometimes called the centerline of the trapezoid. Usually it is tied to the platforms described above (it starts or passes side by side through the platform at the base, and always exits exactly in the middle between the platforms at the narrow end), the trapezoid may not be symmetrical about it (and the platforms, respectively):
Figure: 48
This is true for all selected areas on the map. Indicative in this respect is the trapezoid from Ica Fig. 28, the centerline of which seems to shoot a line from heaps of stones.
Examples of different types of trapezoids and stripes markings, as well as various types of work on them in the purple area (we called them mattresses and punched tapes):
Figure: 49
Figure: 50
Figure: 51
Figure: 52
Marking up in some of the examples shown is no longer a simple delineation of major axes and contours. There are elements of a kind of scanning of the entire area of the future geoglyph.
This is especially noticeable in the markings for large rectangular areas from the "tourist spot" by the Ingenio River:
Under the platform:
Fig. 53
And here, next to the existing site, another one was marked:
Figure: 54
A similar markup for future sites on the layout of M. Reiche is well read:
Figure: 55
Let's take a note of the "scanning markup" and move on.
Interestingly, the sweepers and those who did the clearing work didn’t seem to be able to coordinate sufficiently at times:
Figure: 56
Figure: 57
And an example of two large trapezoids. I wonder if it was meant to be like that, or if someone got it wrong:
Figure: 58
Considering all of the above, it was difficult not to try to get a closer look at the actions of the markers.
And here we have a few more extremely entertaining details.
To begin with, I will say that it is very significant to compare the behavior of modern transport and ancient markers using a thin line. Tracks of cars and motorcycles walk unevenly along one direction, and it is difficult to find straight sections of more than a couple of hundred meters. At the same time, the ancient line is always practically straight, often inexorably moving for many kilometers (checked in Google with a ruler), at times disappearing, as if taking off from the ground, and reappearing in the same direction; can occasionally make a slight bend, change direction abruptly or not very much; and in the end either rests on the center of intersections, or smoothly disappears, dissolving in a trapezoid, intersecting a line or with a change in relief.
Often, markers seem to lean on heaps of stones located next to the lines, and less often on the lines themselves:
Figure: 59
Or an example like this:
Figure: 60
I have already spoken about straightforwardness, but I will note the following.
Some lines and trapezoids, even distorted by the relief, become straight from a certain point of view from the air, which has already been noted in some studies. For example. A slightly walking line in the satellite image looks almost straight from the point of view, which is a little to the side (still from the documentary "Nazca Lines. Deciphered"): Fig. 61. I am not an expert in the field of geodesy, but, in my opinion, to draw a line on rough terrain along which an inclined plane crosses the relief is a rather difficult task.
Another similar example. On the left is a picture from an airplane, on the right from a satellite. In the center is a fragment of an old photograph by Paul Kosok (taken from the lower right corner of the original photograph from the book by M. Reiche). We see that the whole combination of lines and trapezoids is drawn from a point close to the point from which the central image was taken.
Figure: 62
Let's go further.
And the next photo is best viewed in good resolution:
Figure: 63
First, let's pay attention to the undeveloped area in the center. Methods of manual work are very clearly presented - there are both large piles and small ones, a gravel dump at the borders, an irregular border, not very organized work - they collected it here and there and left. In short, everything that we saw in the section on manual work.
Now let's look at the line crossing the left side of the photo from top to bottom. A radically different style of work. The ancient aces-builders seem to have decided to imitate the work of a chisel fixed at a certain height. With a jump across the stream. Straight and regular borders, leveled bottom; did not even forget to reproduce the subtleties of cutting off the trace of the upper part of the line. There is a possibility that it is water or wind erosion. But there are enough examples of all types of environmental influences in the photographs - they are not like either one or the other. And on the surrounding lines it would be noticeable. Here, it is more likely to intentionally interrupt the line by about 25 meters. If we add a concave line profile, as in old photographs or from the LAI photo:
and tons of rock that needs to be shoveled (line width of about 4 m), then the picture will be complete. Also indicative are four perpendicular thin parallel lines clearly drawn on top. If you look closely, you can see that the depth of the lines also changes on the unevenness of the relief; looks like a trace drawn along a ruler with a metal fork over a piece of plasticine.
For myself, I dubbed such lines t-lines (lines made using technologies, i.e. taking into account the use of special methods of marking, performance and control of work). Similar features have already been noted by some researchers. There is a photo of similar lines on the website (24) and the similar behavior of some lines (interruption of lines and interaction with the relief) is noted in the article (1).
A similar example, where you can also compare the level of work (two "rough" lines are marked with arrows:
Figure: 65
Which is remarkable. The unfinished rough line (the one in the center) has a thin marking line. But markings for t-lines have never been encountered. As well as unfinished t-lines.
Here are some more examples:
Figure: 66
Figure: 67
According to the "ritual" version, they had to walk along the lines. In one documentary, Discovery showed the internal dense structure of lines, presumably arising from intensive walking along them (the magnetic anomalies recorded on the lines are explained by the compaction of the rock):
Figure: 68
And to be so trampled, they had to walk a lot. Not just a lot, but a lot. It is only interesting how the ancients defined the routes in Fig. 67 to trample lines roughly evenly? And how did you jump 25 meters?
It is a pity that photos with sufficient resolution only cover the “tourist” part of our map. So from other areas we will be content with maps from Google Earth.
Rough work at the bottom of the image and t-lines at the top:
Figure: 69
And these t-lines in a similar way stretch for about 4 km:
Figure: 70
T-lines were able to make turns:
Figure: 71
And such a detail. If we return to the t-line, which we discussed the very first, and look at its beginning, we will see a small extension, reminiscent of a trapezoid, which further develops into a t-line and, very smoothly changing its width and sharply changing direction four times, crosses itself, and dissolves into a large rectangle (an unfinished site, obviously of a later origin):
Figure: 72
Figure: 73
Sometimes there was some kind of malfunction in the work of the markers (curves with stones at the end of the stripes):
Figure: 74
There are also large trapezoids similar to the work of markers. For example. A well-made trapezoid with border-borders, as it were, grows by pushing the borders out of the mark's dent line:
Figure: 75
Another interesting example. A fairly large trapezoid (in the picture, about two-thirds of its entire length), made as if by moving the cutting edges of the "cutter" apart, and in the narrow part one of the edges stops touching the surface:
Figure: 76
Such oddities are enough. Most of the discussed area of our map seems to be the work of those same markers, well mixed with rough, unskilled work. Archaeologist Heilen Silverman once likened the plateau to a lined chalkboard at the end of a busy school day. Very well noticed. But I would add something about the joint classes of the preschool group and graduate students.
There are attempts to make lines by hand in our time available to the ancient Nazcans by means:
Figure: 77
The ancients did something similar, and, perhaps, in exactly these ways:
Figure: 78
But in my opinion, the t-lines resemble something else. They rather look like a spatula mark, with which they imitated Nazca drawings in one of the documentaries:
Figure: 79
And here is a comparison of the t-lines and the trace of the stack on plasticine:
Figure: 80
And the last thing. A note about markers. There is a recently opened religious center of the ancient Nazcans - Cahuachi. It is believed to be directly related to the construction of the lines. And if we compare, at the same scale, this same Cahuachi with a section of the desert lined a kilometer away, the question arises - if the Nazcan surveyors themselves painted the desert, then they invited guest workers from backward mountain tribes to mark Cahuachi?
Figure: 81
It is impossible to draw a clear line between unskilled work and t-lines and draw any conclusions using only photographs of the "tourist" area and Google earth maps. It is necessary to look and study on the spot. And since the chapter is devoted to material that claims to be factual, I will refrain from commenting on such sophisticated rituals; and therefore we end the discussion of t-lines and pass on to the concluding part of the chapter.
Combinations of lines
Many researchers noted that the lines form certain groups and combinations. For example, prof. M. Reindel called them functional units. A bit of clarification. Combinations do not mean a simple superimposition of lines on top of each other, but a kind of unification into one whole through common boundaries or obvious interaction with each other. And in order to try to understand the logic of creating combinations, I propose to begin with systematizing the set of elements that the builders used. And, as we can see, there is not much variety here:
Figure: 82
There are four elements in total. Trapezoids, rectangles, lines and spirals. There are also drawings, but a whole chapter is devoted to them; here we will consider them a kind of spirals.
Let's start at the end.
Spirals. This is a fairly common element, there are about a hundred of them and they are almost always included in line combinations. There are very different - perfect and not quite, square and intricate, but always double:
Figure: 83
The next element is lines. These are mainly our familiar t-lines.
Rectangles - they were also mentioned. There are only two things to note. First. There are relatively few of them and they always try to be oriented perpendicular to the trapezoids and gravitate towards their narrow part, sometimes, as it were, crossing them out (map). Second. In the valley of the Nazca River, there are a significant number of large broken rectangles, as if superimposed on the beds of dried up rivers. In the sketches, they are indicated mainly in yellow:
Figure: 84
The border of such a site is clearly visible in Fig. 69 (bottom).
Figure: 69
And the last element is a trapezoid. Along with lines, the most common element on the plateau. A few details:
Figure: 85
1 - Location relative to stone structures and types of boundaries. As already noted, very often stone structures are poorly readable, or not at all. There is also some functionality of trapezoids. I would not like to militarize the description, but an analogy with small arms comes to mind. The trapezoid, as it were, has a muzzle (narrow) and a breech, each of which interacts in a fairly standard way with other lines.
For myself, I divided all combinations of lines into two types - collapsed and expanded. The trapezoid is the main element in all combinations. Collapsed (group 2 in the diagram) is when the line exits the narrow end of the trapezoid at an angle of about 90 degrees (or less). This combination is usually compact, with a thin line often returning to the base of the trapezoid, sometimes with a spiral or pattern.
Flattened (group 3) - the outgoing line hardly changes direction. The simplest unfolded is a trapezoid with a thin line, as if shooting from a narrow part and stretching for a considerable distance.
A couple more important details before moving on to the examples. In rolled combinations, there are no stone structures on the trapezoid, and the base (wide part) sometimes has a number of lines:
Figure: 86
It can be seen that the last row in the last example was laid out by caring restorers. Snapshot of the last example from the ground:
Figure: 87
In those deployed on the contrary, stone structures are very often present, and the base has an additional trapezoid or trapezoids of a much smaller size, joining (in series or parallel) to the place of a single platform (possibly taking it outside the main one):
Figure: 88
Figure: 89
For the first time, a folded combination of lines was described by Maria Reiche. She called it a "whip":
Figure: 90
From the narrow end of the trapezoid at an acute angle in the direction of the base there is a line, which, as if scanning the surrounding space in a zigzag (in this case, the relief features), coils into a spiral in the immediate vicinity of the base. Here's the collapsed combination. We substitute different variations of these elements and we get a very common combination in the Nazca-Palpa area. An example with another version of the zigzag:
Figure: 91
More examples:
Figure: 92
Examples of larger and more complex folded combinations in characteristic interaction with a rectangular pad:
Figure: 93
On the map, multi-colored asterisks show well-read folded combinations in the Palpa-Nazca region:
Figure: 94
A very interesting example of a group of folded combinations is shown in the book by M. Reiche:
Figure: 95
To a huge folded combination, to a narrow part of the trapezoid, a micro-combination is attached, as it were, having all the attributes of an ordinary folded one. In a more detailed photo, marked: white arrows - zigzag breaks, black - the mini-combination itself (the large spiral near the base of the trapezoid is not shown in M. Reiche):
Figure: 96
Examples of collapsed combinations with pictures:
Figure: 97
Here you can mark the order in which the combinations are created. The question is not completely clear, but many examples show that the scanning lines seem to see the mother trapezoid and take it into account with their trajectory. On a combination with a monkey, a sawtooth zigzag seems to fit between the existing lines; much more difficult from the artist's point of view would be to draw it first. And the dynamics of the process - first a trapezoid with a vegetable garden of all sorts of details, then a thinning t-line, turning into a spiral or drawing, and then disappearing altogether - in my opinion, is more logical.
I represent the champion among the folded combinations. The length of only the visible continuous and very high quality part is more than 6 km. Drawing from a place near Cahuachi (photo):
Figure: 98
Let's move on to the expanded combinations.
There is no such relatively clear construction algorithm here, except for the fact that these combinations cover a significant area. We can even say that these are rather different ways of interaction between lines and groups of lines with each other. See examples:
Figure: 99
Trapezoid 1, which in turn has a small "firing" trapezoid, rests with its narrow part against a hill, on which, as it were, an "explosion" occurs, or a connection of lines coming from the narrow ends of other trapezoids (2, 3). The remote trapezoids seem to be connected to each other. But there is also a serial connection (4). Moreover, sometimes the connecting centerline can change width and direction. Unskilled work is indicated in purple.
Another example. Interaction of the centerline about 9 km long and 3 trapezoids:
Figure: one hundred
1 - upper trapezoid, 2 - middle, 3 - lower. It can be seen how the axial reacts to trapezoids, changing the direction Fig. 101.
Figure: 101
Next example. For greater clarity, it would be better to view it in detail in Google Earth. But I will try to explain:
Figure: 102
… Trapezoid 1, very roughly made, to which trapezoid 2 “shoots” into the narrow part, connects to the base of trapezoid 3 (Fig. 103), which in turn “shoots” with a well-made line into a small hill. Here's a trapezology.
Figure: 103
In general, such shooting at remote low elevations (sometimes at distant mountain peaks) is quite common. According to archaeologists, about 7% of the lines are aimed at hills. For example, trapezoids and their axes in the desert near Ica:
Figure: 104
And the last example. Joining two large collapsed combinations by a common border using rectangular areas: Fig. 105. One can see how the trapezoid firing in a straight line is deliberately ignored.
Figure: 105
This is, in short, everything I would like to say about combinations.
It is clear that the list of such compounds can be continued and developed for a very long time. At the same time, in my opinion, it would be wrong to think that the plateau is one big mega-combination. But the deliberate and deliberate association of some geoglyphs into groups according to certain criteria and the existence of something like a common strategic plan for the entire plateau is beyond doubt. It is worth noting that all the above-mentioned deployed combinations occupy an area of several square kilometers each, and this cannot be built in a day or two. And if we take into account all these t-lines, the correct boundaries and platforms, kilotons of stones and rocks, and the fact that the work was carried out according to the same schemes throughout the entire area of the mentioned region (map 5 - more than 7 thousand sq. Km), over a long period of time and sometimes in very unfavorable conditions, unpleasant questions arise. It's hard to judgeas far as the Nazca culture society was able to do this, but the fact that this required very specific knowledge, maps, tools, serious organization of work and large human resources is obvious.
Map 5
Continued: Part III drawings
Author: GOR ALEXEEV