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Nazca Lines: Ancient Ceremonial Mysteries

The Nazca lines in Peru have puzzled people since their discovery in the 1920s as the giant drawings of animals and figures could not be seen from the ground level. Various theories have been proposed over what the purpose of the lines were such as an astronomical calendar, roads, or alien landing strips. It now seems the lines may have been part of a long tradition of ceremonial activities connected to the important resource of water and religious beliefs in the dry region.

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Camilo Becerra
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48 views1 page

Nazca Lines: Ancient Ceremonial Mysteries

The Nazca lines in Peru have puzzled people since their discovery in the 1920s as the giant drawings of animals and figures could not be seen from the ground level. Various theories have been proposed over what the purpose of the lines were such as an astronomical calendar, roads, or alien landing strips. It now seems the lines may have been part of a long tradition of ceremonial activities connected to the important resource of water and religious beliefs in the dry region.

Uploaded by

Camilo Becerra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

The mysterious desert drawings known as the Nazca lines have puzzled people

since they first become widely known in the late 1920s. Before air travel in Peru began,
it was impossible to get a clear view of the giant drawings of the spider, monkey and
hummingbird. Yet the Nazca people who made these patterns 2,000 years ago couldn’t
have seen them from above.

One of the first formal studies of the lines was by Maria Reiche. She spent half a
century working for their conservation and was convinced that the lines must have
been part of an astronomical calendar. Other people thought they might have been
ancient Inca roads or irrigation systems. The weirdest idea was that they could have
been landing strips for alien spacecraft!

The region of Peru is one of the driest places on Earth and yet successful
societies, including the Nazca, lived here. Water must have had and incredible
significance to these societies, so perhaps the lines were related to this. We know that
the Nazca River, which comes down from the nearby mountains, runs underground for
about fifteen kilometres before suddenly emerging on the surface. This must have
seemed an astonishing, even sacred, phenomenon to ancient societies. It has also
become clear that there are many huge drawings in the area, not just the ones the flat
desert plain. Many are much older than the Nazca figures themselves, so the same
group of people can’t have created them. It now seems that the Nazca lines may have
been part of a long tradition of ceremonial activities connected to water and religious
beliefs.

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