The Nazca desert and the mystery of its drawings

2024 Author: Harold Hamphrey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:06

What kind of wonders does ancient history keep in itself! How many mysteries have not yet been solved, and how many of them will never be solved! However, as people step into the future, people understand the past more deeply and replace conjectures and myths with real history. So, it is believed that archaeologists have already finally solved the riddle that the Nazca desert concealed. The outskirts of Peru became famous back in 1947, when the first scientific publications about incomprehensible lines and mysterious drawings appeared. Later, the idea arose that these were alien runways. Many inhabitants of the planet accepted this idea with interest. And so the myth was born.

The Mystery of Geoglyphs

Scientists and amateurs have for decades tried to explain the origin of geometric patterns in the desert, covering an area of almost 500 square kilometers. Although at first glance the history of their occurrence in Southern Peru is quite clear. For several centuries, the Nazca desert served as a canvas for the ancient Indians, on which for some reason they applied mysterious signs. Dark stones lie on the surface, and if they are removed, light sedimentary rocks are exposed. Such a sharp contrast of colors was used by the Peruvians to createdrawings-geoglyphs: the background for the images was the dark color of the soil. They decorated the desert areas with straight lines, trapezoids, spirals and huge animal figures.

The Nazca Desert. Figure coordinates

These signs are so huge that they can only be seen from an airplane. However, today everyone can admire the mysterious symbols without leaving home, just run any program on the computer that displays satellite images of the Earth. Desert coordinates - 14°41'18.31'S 75°07'23.01'W.

In 1994, unusual drawings were included in the list of monuments that make up the World Cultural Heritage. And then the whole world found out where the Nazca desert is. People wondered who the mysterious gallery was intended for. Gods in heaven reading human souls? Or maybe aliens once built a spaceport in this ancient country, so the markings remained? Or is this the first astronomy textbook where the course of the planet Venus represents the wing of some bird? Or maybe these are family signs with which the clans marked the territories inhabited by them? It has even been suggested that in this way the Indians designated the course of underground streams, supposedly this is a secret map of water sources. In general, there were a great many hypotheses, the best minds competed in interpreting the meaning of the inscribed, but no one was in a hurry to select the facts. Almost all assumptions were built speculatively - rarely anyone dared to go to an utter distance. So the Nazca desert (photo below) remained one of the mostmysterious places on the planet, and its ancient inhabitants - one of the most interesting cultures of pre-Columbian America.

The path to a clue

From 1997 to 2006, scientists from a wide range of disciplines carried out extensive research in the Peruvian desert. The facts that they collected completely debunked all the explanations of the esotericists. No space secrets left! It turned out to be quite the earthly Nazca desert. Her drawings also speak of the earthly, even too earthly. But first things first.

Expedition to Peru

In 1997, an expedition organized by the German Archaeological Institute began to study the geoglyphs and culture of the Nazca inhabitants in the vicinity of the village of Palpa. The place was chosen based on the fact that it is located in close proximity to the villages where the ancient Indians lived. "To understand the meaning of the drawings, you need to peer into the people who created them," scientists said.

Landscape exploration

The project studied the climatic features of the area. This brought clarity to the origin of the symbols. Previously, in the place where the Nazca desert now stretches, there was a flat steppe area. It was formed from a basin separating the Andes and the Cordillera Coast (another mountain range). During the Pleistocene, it was filled with sedimentary rocks and pebbles. So there was an ideal "canvas" for applying all kinds of drawings.

A couple of millennia ago, palm trees grew here, llamas grazed, and people lived like in a Garden of Eden. Wheretoday the Nazca desert stretches, before there were even heavy rains and floods. But around 1800 BC. e. the climate became much drier. The drought burned the grassy steppe, so people had to settle in the river valleys - natural oases. But the desert continued to advance and crept close to the mountain ranges. Its eastern edge moved 20 kilometers towards the Andes, and the Indians were forced to withdraw into mountain valleys located at an altitude of 400-800 meters above sea level. And when the climate became even drier (about 600 AD), the Nazca culture disappeared altogether. Only mysterious signs inscribed on the ground remained from her. Thanks to the extremely dry climate, they have been preserved for thousands of years.

The Nazca Desert. Drawings

Having studied the living environment of the creators of the mysterious geoglyphs, the researchers were able to interpret them. The earliest lines appeared about 3800 years ago, when the first settlements appeared in the area of the city of Palpa. Southern Peruvians created their "picture gallery" in the open air, among the rocks. They cut and scratched various patterns, chimeras and people, mythological creatures and animals on brown-red stones. The "revolution in art" took place in the Peruvian desert sometime around 200 BC. e. Artists, who used to cover only rocks with paintings, undertook to decorate the largest canvas given to them by nature itself - a plateau stretching before their eyes. Here the masters had a place to turn around. But instead of figurative compositions, artificers now preferred lines and geometric shapes.

Geoglyphs –part of the ritual

So why were these signs created? Certainly not for us to admire them today. Scientists believe that the drawings were part of the "sanctuary", these are the so-called ceremonial figures, which have a purely mystical meaning. Geophysicists examined the soil along the lines (their depth is almost 30 centimeters) and found that it is highly compacted. 70 geoglyphs depicting some creatures and animals are significantly trampled down, as if crowds of people have been walking here for centuries. In fact, various festivities associated with the cult of water and fertility were held here. The drier the plateau became, the more often the priests performed magical ceremonies in order to call for rain. Of the ten trapeziums and lines, nine are turned towards the mountains, where the saving rainfall came from. Magic helped for a long time, and the moisture-bearing clouds returned. However, in 600 AD, the gods were completely angry with the people who settled in this land.

Debunking a myth

The largest drawings in the Nazca desert appeared at a time when the rains had almost stopped. Most likely, people thus asked the stern Indian god to heed their suffering, they hoped that at least he would notice such signals. But God remained deaf and blind to prayers. It didn't rain. In the end, the Indians left their native land and went to look for a flourishing country. And after a couple of centuries, when the climate became milder, the Nazca desert regained its inhabitants. People settled here who did not know anything about the previous owners of these lands. Only distant lines on the groundreminded that once here a man tried to speak with the gods. However, the meaning of the drawings has already been forgotten. Now only scientists are beginning to understand the reason for the appearance of these letters - huge signs, ready, it seems, to survive eternity.