7 Responses to The Nazca Lines

1. Mary @ womensjourneys says:

   June 4, 2010 at 10:58 pm

   I was wondering…how big are they, really? What surprised you the most when you saw them? Thx for sharing…I have seen pics before, but haven’t seen some of these “characters” previously. Love the monkey.

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   • admin says:

     June 5, 2010 at 12:46 pm

     It’s quite hard to tell how large the figures are from the air but the info leaflet we received says they range from 40metres up to around 300 – so some of them are pretty big!

     Probably the most surprising is how obviously man made and purposeful they are, despite no agreed explanation for their creation as well as how well preserved they are due to the almost non existent rainfall in the area.

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2. Sofia says:

   June 11, 2010 at 2:27 pm

   wow those look amazing – would love to go to Peru one day soon!

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3. rose says:

   June 15, 2010 at 1:30 pm

   Love the pics! Am so envious, but its keeping me occupied at work, more please!!! Love you loads

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4. james says:

   June 16, 2010 at 7:08 pm

   What are the theories….how did they manage to create images on such a scale without borrowing your plane… and hey, don’t forget your night caps when the air is chilly

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5. Shaun says:

   June 18, 2010 at 1:55 am

   I’ve been fascinated by these things since I was a boy reading a magazine called “the unXplained” so seeing them for real was a check off the bucket list.

   There are a lot of figures (a hundred?) – various birds, the space man, the monkey – some drawn with perfect geometry, others seemingly more loose. They vary in size from tens of meters to 900meters for the largest. There’s also hundreds of geometric patterns made up of straight lines, triangles, curves, trapezoids. They’re created by removing the top level of earth that’s been exposed to the sun for aeons thus revealing the darker sands beneath. They’re preserved so well because the area receives so little rain – 20 minutes or so per year!

   The recognisable creatures draw much of the attention but in some ways the sheer number of lines, shapes and patterns is even more interesting. In 2006 Japanese geologists investigating the Nazca plataeu found another 100 patterns and shapes including some kind of horned creature. No one knows why they were created. They can only be seen in full from hundreds of feet in the air and so remained all but invisible until commercial flights between Lima and Arequipa became frequent in the 1930s and someone spotted them. There’s no vantage point in the desolate area to view them from the ground.

   Most of the theories put forth to explain their creation have been discounted. From the more absurd alien spacecraft runways to a gigantic astronomical calendar of some sort. I read that some 20% could be linked to some kind of astronomical alignment – or about what you might expect if you drew a bunch of random lines in the desert. That theory still fails to explain the multiple animal figures.

   To me it seems the most likely explanation is some kind of religious or cult like motivation, perhaps a ritual to bring rain to the desolate lands around the plataeu. Since the lines and figures can only be viewed from the air it seems possible that they are intended as some kind of tribute to the gods of the Nazcans or some prior culture. Much more has been done in the name of imagined deities.

   Or maybe they were created with the help of the same alien visitors that helped create the pyramids. We will probably never know.

   Today they seem to serve as a pretty lucrative tourist attraction for the locals in an area capable of producing very little food and receiving almost no water.

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6. Jade says:

   June 21, 2010 at 8:17 am

   these are so cool! and kind of strange too! I have to say, the monkey was my favorite, too!

   Reply