Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and long-time researcher of the Lines, theorized that they were made by the Paracas and Nazca cultures between
900 BC and AD 600, with some additions by the Wari settlers from the highlands in the 7th century. She also
claimed that the Lines were an astronomical calendar developed for agricultural purposes, and that they were
mapped out through the use of sophisticated mathematics (and a long rope). However, the handful of alignments
Reiche discovered between the sun, stars and Lines were not enough to convince scholars.
Later, English documentary maker Tony Morrison hypothesized that the Lines were walkways linking
huacas
(sites of ceremonial significance). A slightly more surreal suggestion from explorer Jim Woodman was that the
Nazca people knew how to construct hot-air balloons and that they did, in fact, observe the Lines from the air. Or,
if you believe author George Von Breunig, the Lines formed a giant running track.
A more down-to-earth theory, given the value of water in the sun-baked desert, was suggested by anthropolo-
gist Johann Reinhard, who believed that the Lines were involved in mountain worship and a fertility/water cult.
Recent work by the
Swiss-Liechtenstein Foundation
(SLSA;
www.slsa.ch
)
agrees that they were dedicated to the
worship of water, and it is thus ironic that their theory about the demise of the Nazca culture suggests that it was
due not to drought but to destructive rainfall caused by a phenomenon such as El Niño!
About the only thing that is certain is that when the Nazca set about turning their sprawling desert homeland in-
to an elaborate art canvas, they also began a debate that will keep archaeologists busy for many decades, if not
centuries to come.
Nazca & Around
056 / ELEV 590M
It's hard to say the word 'Nazca' without following it immediately with the word 'Lines,'
a reference not just to the ancient geometric lines that crisscross the Nazca desert, but to
the enigmatic animal geoglyphs that accompany them. Like all great unexplained myster-
ies, these great etchings on the pampa, thought to have been made by a pre-Inca civiliza-
tion between 450-600 AD, attract a variable fan base of archaeologists, scientists, history
buffs, New Age mystics, curious tourists, and Peru pilgrims on their way to (or back from)
Machu Picchu. Question marks still hang over how they were made and by whom, and the
answers are often as much wild speculation as pure science (aliens? prehistoric balloon-
ists?). Documented for the first time by North American scientist Paul Kosok in 1939 and
declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 1994, the lines today are the south coast's
biggest tourist attraction meaning the small otherwise insignificant desert town of Nazca
(population 57,500) can be a bit of a circus.
