Tuesday 14 February 2012

Nazca Lines



Nazca Lines are the most outstanding group of geoglyphs in the world, they are located in the Nazca Desert, between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana in Peru. Etched in the surface of the desert pampa sand about 300 hundred figures made of straight lines, geometric shapes and pictures of animals and birds - and their patterns are only clearly visible from the air.

There are 3 mysterious aspects to Nazca Plateau:
First, the straight lines, many kilometers long, crisscross sectors of the pampas in all directions.
Second, many of the lines form geometric figures: angles, triangles, bunches, spirals, rectangles, wavy lines, etc.
Third, many lines form animal patterns.

Nazca Lines Map Extract:



It is believed that the geoglyphs were built by a people called the Nasca- but why and how they created these wonders of the world has defied explanation. Since the Nazca lines cannot be recognized as coherent figures except from the air, it is presumed the Nazca people could never have seen their work from this vantage point, there has been much speculation on the builders' abilities and motivations.


Could these geoglyphs be effigies of ancient animal gods or patterns of constellations? Are they roads, star pointers, maybe even a gigantic map? If the people who lived here 2,000 years ago had only a simple technology, how did they manage to construct such precise figures? Did they have a plan? If so, who ordained it? It all seems so otherworldly. To comprehend the Nasca lines, created by the removal of desert rock to reveal the pale pink sand beneath, visitors have proposed every imaginable explanation - from runways for spaceships to tracks for Olympic athletes, from op art to pop art, to astronomical observatories.


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