Lines from the past

Preeti Verma Lal

If ever you are flying off Lima, the capital of Peru, towards the Nazca Desert, grab the window seat. And look down. Soon, magic will start unfolding. A large painted canvas will appear on the brown landscape. Colossal geometric lines. A gigantic pelican. A humming bird. A tree. Llamas. Jaguars. Monkeys. Humans. Large motifs that seem scratched on earth with a deft artist. These are the Nazca Lines, a Unesco World Heritage Site, where a condor is 440 ft, the spider 150 ft, the hummingbird 310 ft. Imagine peeping out of the aircraft window for a canvas so colossal and an ancient art so riveting.   

Housed between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Papas de Jumana (400 km south of Lima), the Nazca Lines are believed to have been created between 500 BC and 500 AD. Composed of more than 10,000 lines, some as wide as 30 metres and 9-km-long, the Nazca Lines has nearly 300 different figures including hundreds of geoglyphs (geometric lines), zoomorphic designs of animals and birds, and a few phytomorphic motifs such as trees and flowers.  

Though the Lines were first mentioned in 1553 by Pedro Cieza de Leon, history remained oblivious until Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe spotted these in 1927 during a hiking trail. However, US explorer/historian Paul Kosok is credited as the first scholar to seriously study the Nazca Lines. 

In swathes of a dry desert, the lines were probably made by brushing away the top layer of reddish, iron oxide covered pebbles to expose the white sand underneath. Surprisingly, the lines have stood the vagaries of time and nature for more than 2,000 years. In another clime, it should have vanished in a few years, but in Nazca these are preserved because it is such a windless, dry and isolated location.

Since its discovery, the Nazca Lines have intrigued scientists and scholars. Swiss writer Erich von Daniken thought the lines were markers for ancient aliens to land their ships. Kosok, who first visited Nazca in the 1940s, suggested that the lines were astronomically significant and that the plain acted as a giant observatory. Harking back to the tradition of wayside shrines lined by straight pathways, Tony Morrison, the English explorer, attributes religious significance to the lines and symbols of Nazca. The Nazca plain is one of the driest places on Earth and it is no surprise that researchers David Johnson and Steve Mabee advanced a theory that the geoglyphs were related to water — the shapes may be a giant map of the underground water sources traced on the land. 

If you have read Nancy Drew’s A Clue in the Crossword Cipher, you’d remember Nazca Lines as a plot element in the mystery that leads to a wonderful treasure. In Peru, Nazca Lines are not a plot element to the treasure. These are the real treasure.