Nazca: Doodles in the Desert
Doodles in the Desert
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| The Tree and the Lizard (it's tail is on one half of the highway and body on the other) |
We left Cusco late at night to do the overnight bus journey to Nazca through the winding desert hills and various mountains, the journey spanning across fourteen hours in total. The journey can only be described as a precursor to the desert itself (Olivia feels hell is a better analogy), the air-con wasn't working and it was roasting! This was further not helped by the people in front who reclined their seats pinning us to our seats... Despite this we actually slept fairly well and arrived in Nazca around 10am where thankfully our accommodation was ready for us when we arrived. Despite the building work outside the inside was really nice. We are only in Nazca for two nights as all that is really here is a few ruins, a few museums and thousands of lines and pictures in the desert (ok, hundreds but I'm allowing artistic licence to draw you in...)
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| Hands, but looks more like a bird |
The Nazca lines are advertised and placed everywhere, they are on our bed sheets, our room key's ring, the main square and on thousands of posters around town. We decided that rather than take a flight we would simply attend the viewing platform so that Olivia didn't vomit in my lap. Our first day (the day we arrived) simply consisted of finding a supermarket and taking a look around the main square, we jokingly took the below picture of the much smaller representations of the lines, deciding they were rather small.
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| Olivia running from the spider |
This however almost became the reality, in real life the lines are actually rather huge and sprawl across an area of 450 square kilometers (170 square miles). The lines consist of stylised animals and plants; simple lines and geometric shapes. The largest of these figures stretches 370 meters (1,200 feet). There are however new figures found everyday, so this figure could in theory increase. The figures themselves are made by the red oxidized iron rocks being cleared away to reveal the white clay dirt underneath. The clay then hardens and along with the dry area with little wind and rain stops the 10cm deep lines form eroding. The lines are believed to have been created by using simple surveying tools. These tools were found around the edges of some of the glyphs and were carbon dated to find their age (between 500 BC and 500 AD). Some archaeologists (Jim Woodmann) also believe that a rudimentary hot air balloon could have been used, this is however refuted due to lack of evidence.
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| The tree, as seen from the ground |
Although admittedly not taking the flight to see them where you get higher and complete views, we found the lines a little underwhelming. I understand that they work well in context of being an ancient civilization that made them and not modern day people, but we just found them a little bit underwhelming. I think I would admit they are impressive as a construct of their time and certainly very intriguing and interesting (we'll get on to that in a moment) but ultimately just didn't really seem all that great, one of those things that is worth a visit if you are going past Nazca, but not really a must see type thing (despite their ancient-ness).
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| The Tree from the tower |
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| Olivia and Marie Reich's tower |
Pedro Cieza de Leon
He was the first man to document the Nazca lines in 1553 and he believed that they were trail markers. It is obvious that he did not fly over them in a plane, he saw them from the nearby foothills.
Toribio Mejia Xesspe
He noticed them in 1927 when walking through the foothills and then presented his findings at an conference in Lima in 1939. Which seems an inordinately long time really.
Paul Kosak & Marie Reich
A historian from Long Island studied them in 1940-41 and he is credited as the first scholar to study them. Marie Reich joined him in his studies (she is a German Mathematician and Archaeologist who we have to thank for her conservation works on the lines as well the big tower that we climbed). They proposed that the glyphs were made to denote where various celestial bodies were on the horizon on significant dates. I.e. the lines converging on the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere. This is a bit like a giant prehistoric space observatory, similar to how Stonehenge works with the summer solstice (I think).
Marie Reich
This fantastic German woman also had her own theory that all of the figures represent various star shapes. Some research went into this, but it is still debated. She also purports that they represent the dark shapes of space rather than the stars themselves.
Erich von Daniken
This is a nice quick one, he believes in the ancient astronaut theory (that aliens starting the world and helped humanity on it's way). He relates this to the Nazca lines by purporting that it was aliens who made it. This sounds a little mad, but makes an interesting read that isn't really as mad as it sounds (still not convinced though). Anyway, this theory was somewhat debunked by Joe Nickel who reproduced the figures with tools from it's day and no aerial support.
Art
Some people (quite a few) believe that it was related to ritualistic exercises that relate to their art and textile work. Some of the reason that they believe in the dating of it is due to similarities to pots from the same era.
Water
Another common theory is that the water is related to nearby aqueducts and water collectors. Although this seems odd considering their fragility.
Religion and society
The final reason some people think the lines were made was due to appeasing the sky gods. They also believe this due to relationships between the glyphs and some temples in Cahauchi. Among these believers are two Italian scholars who believe that the glyphs are linked to agricultural calendars and used to strengthen the ties of society.
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| You can just make out the lizard's hands beyond the sign |
This said I do not believe that it is right to simply abandon this list. Although they all have their merits and weaknesses in their arguments it is simply impossible to state who is correct. In fact even at the tower no one ventured an opinion of why the glyphs were there, who made them or what their purpose was, so we came up with our own theories.
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| Us at the top of the tower |
Intelligent Dog
Fido had been trying to communicate with his owners for years to no avail. A similar theory to this was the Guinea Pigs drawing pictures to plead not to be eaten (there are various birds drawn, but no guinea pigs, maybe they were making alternative menu suggestions) little did they know their dimensions were a little off.
Trying to work out the Fibonacci sequence
Let's just say there is a surprising amount of coils there, and they didn't have calculators so who knows?
Wakanda proving it's existence
Wakanda is a fictional high tech nation in Africa from the Marvel movies, they had space ships and stuff, maybe they made lots of lines in Peru to lure potential threats away?
Artists
We had a few theories on this one. Number one, an artist received a new spade and decided that the Nazca desert was a good place to test it out. Other options were an early characaturist honing his skill in macro. Another idea was that among the ancient tribe was a Matisse wannabe. Our final thought was that perhaps Neil Buchannan of Art Attack fame made one of his giant pictures, but the cameras weren't rolling so they gave up.
The birds
The birds were simply playing a prank on the people there. Ultimately the glyphs are easiest viewed from far above, there are lots of bird pictures (perhaps a signature) besides... Hitchcock made a film called the birds, perhaps he's on to something, don't trust the feathery traitors...
Aliens!
Although as it turns out Erich von Daniken beat us to it...
God doodling
Maybe the Nazca desert was the scratch pad or drawing board for various animals on earth, in that they look like the animals but not quite. Maybe that was the early designs? Alternatively maybe he got bored?
Celestial Pictionary
I mean you can almost picture it can't you
God: I mean you can't honestly think that looks like a flamingo can you? Idiot...
Jesus: Dad! I tried, besides, you've only let me go on holiday to Israel and it's not like that ended well, how am I supposed to know what a flamingo looks like?
God: You had that gap year in the west country? Glastonbury and all that?
Jesus: They don't have flamingos there!
God: Well I made so many of the critters that I can't remember where I put them all!
Holy Spirit: I hate trinity game night...
Cash Cow
Despite there not being a cow glyph Olivia took a look at them and decided that they could have been made this morning. Short of carbon dating there is nothing that shows they are ancient and the lines are only shallow. So maybe it was all done for the money!
Crop circles
This is the idea that it's simply crop circles without the crops. To be fair this main idea is drunk Peruvians in the desert tittering away as they draw massive shapes in the sand, although considering the levels of intoxication in our imagined Peruvians I am incredibly surprised that there isn't a massive penis drawn in the sand... (it would happen in England, proof here)
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| A picture of some of the other lines |
So those are our ideas, let us know which you think, maybe even let us know your own. Anyway so to sum up, no one know who, why or when exactly? But they are big pictures in the desert, despite the fact that they weren't quite what we expected (though I'm not sure what we expected) it is somewhat sad to think that something so historical might not be around in 20 years time. There are numerous tales of the lines being damaged or destroyed (the Pan American highway was built through one of them, which compelled Maria Reich to work hard at their preservation). But aside from careless driving or green peace rallies, both of which have caused damage to the lines in the past (check out Wikipedia's page on the Nazca lines to see more causes of damage). The main threat is climate change. Climate change can cause adverse weather conditions, including heavy rainfall which would destroy the lines. It seems pertinent that we saw these around the time where the world is talking about half a degree in climate change and the devastating effects this could have. We have talked a lot about climate change during our travels. One particularly sad moment was in Singapore when we had gone to the Gardens by the Bay and everyone looked around the pretty flowers and man made waterfall, but seemed to just storm through the exhibition that highlighted how the cloud forests of South America were in danger from the world rising a few degrees.
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| Olivia atop the tower |
We talked a little about this on the way back from the lines of how the world is different from when our parents could have traveled (visit China may have just been a fantasy) but also thinking about how climate change could effect what our future children could see, many of the places that we have seen may be gone (Fiji and Kaikoura sprang to mind immediately) but other places as well such as the Great Barrier Reef as well. Take a look here to see a brief infographic about how just half a degree can change the world.
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| Sunset in Nazca |
On our way back from town we stopped off to have a local delicacy with our lunch, we had a typical lunchtime deal which in our case consisted of soup and a chicken and spaghetti dinner but it came with a local Peruvian drink called Chicha Morada. This drink is a deep purple in colour and is made from purple corn. Oddly though it didn't taste like sweetcorn but a bit more like Christmas, almost a black curranty mulled wine. It is made of the corn kernels boiled with pineapple, cinnamon and cloves. Surprisingly nice, but yet to find out what colour it comes out as.
What now?
See some more of our posts
- Overview
- European Ecstasy
- Adventures in Asia
- Pacific Paradise
- Southern South American Splendour
- Central Celestial Scenes
- Incan Delights
Check out some more of our pictures here
Really do look at this article about the half a degree change.
Really do look at this article about the half a degree change.
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