Take a flight 400 kilometres due south from the Peruvian capital of Lima, and you will find yourself over the Pampas de Jumana, an 80 kilometre stretch of coastal desert sandwiched between the Andes foothills and the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the driest regions on earth, receiving less than 4mm of rain a year – a rugged wasteland of cracked soil, sunbaked stone, and low stunted brush. But this parched landscape hides something truly magical. Look down out your aircraft window, and strange shapes will begin to emerge, carved across the hills and plains below: criss-crossing lines that run perfectly straight for kilometres; giant triangles, squares, spirals and other geometric shapes; and – most extraordinary of all – the figures of birds, whales, spiders, fish, and even humans stretching hundreds of metres across. These are the Nazca Lines, the largest geoglyphs in the world and the masterworks of an ancient civilization that flourished and died out hundreds of years before Europeans arrived in the New World. Since their discovery nearly 100 years ago, the Nazca Lines have fascinated and baffled archaeologists the world over. Who were the Nazca people? How did they create such massive yet intricate artworks – and why? Were they an ancient calendar? Symbols of fertility? Or were these figures – most only fully visible from the air – meant for a more… celestial audience? Let’s find out as we explore the mystery of one of South America’s greatest ancient wonders.

The Nazca Lines were first mentioned in writing in the mid-16th century by Spanish conquistadores Pedro Cieza de León and Luis Monzón. However, as they could not see the full extent of the lines from ground level, they mistook them for roads or irrigation channels. This remained the accepted wisdom until the 20th century, when the development of aviation finally allowed the lines to be seen in their full glory. Though the lines were first described in 1927 by Peruvian archaeologist Torbio Xesspe, who stumbled upon them while hiking through the Nazca foothills, the first person to study them in detail was Paul Kosok, an American historian from Long Island University. Like most scholars before him, Kosok initially believed that the lines were part of an ancient irrigation system. But while flying over the region in 1940, he discovered a group of lines forming the shape of an enormous bird. This discovery was followed by many more, with Kosok uncovering a previously unknown menagerie of giant plant and animal drawings etched across the landscape – from monkeys, spiders, and birds to whales, flowers, and humanoid figures. On one flight he even observed that a group of straight lines converged at the position of the sun during the winter solstice, suggesting they had some sort of astronomical purpose. Kosok immediately became obsessed with the Nazca Lines, and was soon joined in his his research by American archaeologist Richard Schaedel and German archaeologist and mathematician Maria Reiche. Together they set out to discover who created the lines, how exactly this impressive feat was accomplished, and – most importantly – what purpose these giant figures served.

The Nazca Lines are now known to have been created in two distinct phases: the Paracas phase, lasting from 400 to 200 B.C.E, and the Nazca phase, lasting from 200 B.C.E to 500 C.E. The Paracas and Nazca cultures were two closely related pre-Inca peoples who lived in the areas of the Ica and Rio Grande de Nazca valleys between 800 B.C.E. and 800 C.E. In addition to the famous geoglyphs, the Nazca were also constructed extensive networks of Puquios – underground which are still in use today. Yet despite these achievements in large-scale construction, the Nazca were not an urban people, their only large architectural endeavour being Cahuachi, a ceremonial complex of mounds and temples used only for religious purposes. Instead, the Nazca lived in smaller, scattered villages, living off staple south American crops such as corn, squash, beans, and peanuts as well as fish and other seafood from the Pacific Ocean.

The most common artefacts to survive from the Nazca and earlier Paracas are intricately patterned textiles and sophisticated multi-coloured pottery. However, archaeologically these cultures are perhaps best known for their distinctive burial practices. Like many Andean cultures, the Nazca and Paracas buried their dead sitting upright in “mummy bundles”, which were exposed to the dry air to naturally dry out and mummify. Unusually, however, many Nazca and Paracas graves feature “partial burials”, in which limbs, skulls, and other body parts from multiple people are bundled together. Many normally bundled bodies have also been discovered with their skulls replaced with “head jars” – ceramic pots painted with the likeness of a human face. Indeed, so-called “trophy heads” played a huge role in Nazca religious culture. These are severed heads with holes drilled through their foreheads, allowing them to be suspended with ropes. Hundreds of these skulls have been found in Nazca settlements, while depictions of decapitation abound in Nazca pottery and even appear in the Nazca Lines, with one of figures depicting a half-human, half-orca beast holding a trophy head with more heads inside its body. But while they were initially believed to be trophies cut from the bodies of enemies in battle, later research has suggested that the heads were in fact largely collected from within the Nazca community. However, some amount of ritual headhunting is still believed to have been practiced.

Over the course of nearly a millennium, the Paracas and Nazca carved more than 1,300 kilometres of lines across an area of over 50 square kilometres. Some of these lines were carved on hillsides, allowing them to be seen from the ground, while others were carved on flat plains or hilltops and can only be fully seen from the air. Archaeologists typically group the Nazca lines into three main categories. The first are the geometric lines, which comprise hundreds of straight, criss-crossing lines that can stretch across the landscape for several kilometres. There are also large geometric figures, including triangles, rectangles, wavy lines, and spirals. The second group are the representational figures, which take the form of animals and plants including monkeys; lizards; spiders; birds like condors, herons, and hummingbirds; dogs; cats; killer whales; flowers; and humanoid figures – the largest of which are up to 370 metres long. There are over 70 such figures known, with more being discovered every year. Finally, the last category of lines are the “tracks”, which are wider than usual and believed to be paths designed to convey large numbers of people to ritual sites.

Just like the who, the how of the Nazca Lines is also fairly straightforward. The figures were created by excavating the dark, iron-oxide coated stones and topsoil from the desert floor, exposing the paler, yellow-grey soil beneath. The width and depth of these excavations varies widely, ranging from 30 to 150 centimetres wide and 10-15 centimetres deep. Once excavation was completed, the little moisture that does blow into the region from the ocean caused the clay-rich subsoil to harden into a sort of mortar or cement, making the lines especially durable. The lack of rainfall and wind also greatly slowed soil erosion, allowing the lines to survive almost perfectly intact for more than 1500 years. The real question, however, is how the Nazca managed to draw such enormous figures with such accuracy without being able to see the entire design at once from ground level. Unfortunately, as is always the case with archaeological mysteries of this kind, the secret of the Nazca lines have attracted an old familiar explanation. Say it with me now: aliens. In his infamous 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?, Swedish writer Erich von Daniken argued that the ancient peoples of Peru could never have created the giant figures on their own, and that the Nazca lines were instead made as landing pads for alien beings whom the Paracas and Nazca worshipped as gods. Quite apart from being racist and colonialist like all “ancient aliens” theories, von Daniken’s claims regarding the Nazca’s abilities are also very easily debunked. In 1982, American skeptic and paranormal investigator Joe Nickell used simple tools and techniques readily available to the Nazca – specifically scale drawings, wooden stakes, and ropes – to draw a 130 metre long replica of the condor geoglyph in a field in Kentucky. As Nickell explains:

“That is, on the small drawing we would measure along the center line from one end (the bird’s beak) to a point on the line directly opposite the point to be plotted (say a wing tip). Then we would measure the distance from the center line to the desired point. A given number of units on the small drawing would require the same number of units—larger units—on the large drawing.”

Indeed, the remains of wooden stakes have been unearthed at many of the sites and carbon dated to the Nazca period, lending further credence to Nickell’s theories. Furthermore, the fact that many of the lines can only be seen from the air makes perfect sense if they were intended to be seen by the Nazca people’s pantheon of Gods. So, repeat after me: It. Is. Never. Aliens.

Finally, we come to the third and perhaps most important question about the Nazca Lines: why they were made. Unfortunately, this is the question for which we have the fewest answers, with the ultimate function of the Nazca Lines still a matter of archaeological debate. The first scholarly analysis of the lines’ function was conducted by the aforementioned Maria Reiche, who devoted over 40 years to studying the lines and became known to the locals as the “Angel of the Plains” and the “Lady of the Lines.” In her 1949 book The Secret of the Pampas, Reiche, like Paul Kosok before her, posited that the Nazca lines served as a giant astronomical calendar, with many of the figures representing constellations in the sky. Starting in the 1960s, however, these views began to be challenged by archaeologists like Johan Reinhard, who in his 1985 book The Nasca Lines: a New Perspective on their Origin and Meanings, argued that:

“It seems likely that most of the lines did not point at anything on the geographical or celestial horizon, but rather led to places where rituals were performed to obtain water and fertility of crops.”

This interpretation is supported by a 2019 study conducted by researchers from three Japanese research institutes, which reveals that few of the birds depicted in the Nazca Lines are native to Pampas de Jumana. Among the species identified by the team are hermit hummingbirds, pelicans, Guanay cormorants, pelicans, and parrots. As Masaki Eda of the Hokkaido University Museum explains:

“If exotic/non-local birds were not significant for the Nasca people, there [would be] no reason to draw their geoglyph. So, their existence should be closely related to the purpose of etching geoglyphs. But the reason is difficult to answer.”

According to Johan Reinhard’s theories, the fact that all these birds are native to wetter, more forested areas of Peru indicates that the Nazca used them as symbols of water and fertility. But if the Nazca did indeed use the lines to pray for water, they were to be bitterly disappointed, for in around 500 C.E. a massive drought swept across the Andean plateau, leading to the collapse of the Nazca civilization. Sadly, recent discoveries suggest that the Nazca themselves played a major role in their own demise. Archaeological excavations in the Pampas de Jumana. have uncovered the remains of Huarango trees, indicating that the area was once covered in lush forests. These forests, however, were systematically cut down by the Nazca to clear land for crops such as corn. This, in turn left the soil vulnerable to erosion, leading to a gradual process of desertification. As David Beresford-Jones of Cambridge University explains:

“[The Huarango tree] is the ecological ‘keystone’ species in this desert zone, enhancing soil fertility and moisture, ameliorating desert extremes in the microclimate beneath its canopy and underpinning the floodplain with one of the deepest root systems of any tree known… In time, gradual woodland clearance crossed an ecological threshold – sharply defined in such desert environments – exposing the landscape to the region’s extraordinary desert winds and the effects of El Niño floods.”

Thus, in one of history’s great ironies, the bare hills and plains that made the Nazca Lines visible to the gods were responsible for the very droughts and loss of crop productivity the gods were being called upon to reverse. A similar fate befell many other ancient civilizations – including the people of Rapa Nui or Easter Island, who cut down so many trees in order to move and erect their Moai stone heads that it triggered an ecological disaster.

Today, however, it is the Lines themselves which are under threat. Despite the geoglyphs being declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994, encroaching human activity threatens to erase these extraordinary constructions which have withstood the elements for a millennium and a half. The Pan American Highway, which connects the Americas from Canada to Argentina, cuts through several of the geoglyphs, while in recent years large groups of squatters settling in the area have inflicted damage to the lines and Nazca period cemeteries through the construction of houses and pig corrals. Illegal miners have also destroyed several sites while excavating limestone. In 2013, illegal limestone miners destroyed a site in the department of Buenos Aires, while the following year the environmental activist group Greenpeace erected a large banner reading “Time For Change! The Future is Renewable” beside the Hummingbird figure to protest a UN climate summit in Lima. The stunt damaged the site and outraged the Peruvian government, who forced Greenpeace to issue a formal apology.

This rapid destruction is especially alarming given that more and more previously unknown Nazca figures are being discovered every year. In 2020 a new 37-metre-long geoglyph of a cat was discovered on a hillside, while the year before a team from Yamagata University in Japan used satellite imagery and IBM’s Watson supercomputer to locate 142 new geoglyphs that were too eroded to spot with the naked eye. Only time will tell how many more lie out there on the Pampas de Jumana, just waiting to be discovered – or whether careless human action will erase these ancient wonders before we even get the chance to find them.

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