Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 10:57 am Post subject: The Nazca Lines
The Nazca lines are a series of geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert, a high arid plateau that stretches more than 50 miles between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana in Peru.
Although some local geoglyphs resemble Paracas motifs, these are largely believed to have been created by the Nazca culture between 200 BC and AD 700. There are hundreds of individual figures, ranging in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks or orcas, llamas, and lizards.
The lines are shallow designs in the ground where the reddish pebbles that cover the surrounding landscape have been removed, revealing the whitish earth underneath. Hundreds are simple lines or geometric shapes, and more than seventy are natural or human figures.
Scholars differ in interpreting what the lines were for but generally ascribe religious significance to them. Before now it has been suggested the geometric ones could indicate the flow of water or be connected to rituals to summon water. The spiders, birds, and plants could be fertility symbols. Other possible explanations include irrigation schemes, giant astronomical calendars and even landing sites for spaceships.
The area encompassing the lines is nearly 193 square miles, and the largest figures can be nearly 900 feet long.
The lines persist due to the extremely dry, windless, and constant climate of the Nazca region. The Nazca desert is one of the driest on Earth and maintains a temperature around 25°C (77°F) all year round, and the lack of wind has helped keep the lines uncovered to the present day.
The exact reason the figures were built remains a mystery. A leading theory is that the Nazca people's motivations were religious, and that the images were constructed so that gods in the sky could see them.
Kosok and Reiche advanced one of the earliest reasons given for the Nazca Lines: that they were intended to point to the places on the distant horizon where the Sun and other celestial bodies rose or set.
This hypothesis was evaluated by two different experts in archaeoastronomy, Gerald Hawkins and Anthony Aveni, and they both concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support an astronomical explanation.
In 1985, the archaeologist Johan Reinhard published archaeological, ethnographic, and historical data demonstrating that worship of mountains and other water sources played a dominant role in Nazca religion and economy from ancient to recent times.
He presented the theory that the lines and figures can be explained as part of religious practices involving the worship of deities associated with the availability of water and thus the fertility of crops.
The lines were interpreted as being primarily used as sacred paths leading to places where these deities could be worshiped and the figures as symbolically representing animals and objects meant to invoke their aid. However, the precise meanings of many of the individual geoglyphs remain unsolved.
Another theory contends that the lines are the remains of "walking temples," where a large group of worshipers walked along a preset pattern dedicated to a particular holy entity, similar to the practice of labyrinth walking.
Residents of the local villages say the ancient Nazca conducted rituals on these giant drawings to thank the gods and to ensure that water would continue to flow from the Andes. This view correlates with the purposes of North American geoglyphs.
Notwithstanding Gerald Hawkins' and Anthony Aveni's dismissal of an astronomical explanation of the Nazca Lines and geoglyphs, astronomer Robin Edgar has theorized that the Nazca Lines, particularly the biomorph geoglyphs that depict animals, human figures, birds and "flowers" are an ancient response to what he called the "Eye of God" that is manifested in the sky during a total solar eclipse.
According to Edgar, an unusual series of total solar eclipses over southern Peru coincided with the time period during which the Nazca Lines and geoglyphs were created.
Some, such as Jim Woodmann, have proposed that the Nazca lines presuppose some form of manned flight, in order to properly see the figures, and that a hot air balloon was the only possible available technology.
Woodmann actually made a hot air balloon from materials and using techniques that he believed would have been available to people at the time in order to test this hypothesis. The balloon flew, after a fashion, but there is no evidence in support of Nazca-era hot air balloons and Woodman's work has been rebutted.
I read about this not long ago as it happens, and it's quite interesting, bit like stone henge, but the thing about the Nazca is, they vanished and have no living descendants otherwise we'd know what it's all about but still very interesting study _________________ I give you, the Waffle King
You're right actually Waff, the Nazca lines are incredibly interesting and I've been amazed how this thread has failed to grab anybody's curiosity until now.
These images can only truly be understood from the air and many 'experts' have agreed that in order to create such massive works the artist(s) would most certainly have to have seen it from the air.
Same applies to the huge chalk figure of horses and men we have on hillsides in this country.
They aren't straight lines - far from it.
Are you going to tell me the Cerne Abbas Giant in East Sussex is just an ancient work of art put there because somebody felt a little bored one wet Tuesday afternoon?
To make, draw a picture, work out the length of the lines, walk a hundred steps, turn left, walk fifty.......
Simple.
No little green men, no sun and moon worship.
Just a primitive Picasso.
Fire Dragon
I don't think that art for arts sake on this scale was a concept in those days was it.
Er givus an and mate i wanna do a picture.
Awhat
A picture.
Go away you dick head i'm busy.
Bloody picture I got sum untin to get on wiv
I think to get the lines straight they used three poles. You just use them as sights. To extend the line in you just keep bringing the last stake forward and placing it in line at the front using the other two as sights.
I don't go with the little green men theory either but I think there's a hell of a lot more to these things than simply ancient people wanting to do a bit of artwork.
what other purpose than to see from above would they have been created for
they are clearly images not just aimless lines how incredible the scale of them is so immense the planning and foresight that went into them is massive way beyo9nd what we would expect from "primitive" man
and best of all we still can't do things on this scale we blunder through smaller things
totally fascinating _________________ as a babe drinks from its mothers breast so too does man milk mother earth
Why do we assume that their purpose is to be seen from the air?
We build mazes which we experince from inside, from the journey.
Labyrinths are experinced from the journey........I note that these images are made from a continuous line.
Maybe they were intended to be walked?
Hey, nothing wrong with little green men being involved, it must have something to do with erm, lil green men, as around the drawings there are no cliffs or mountains, the pictures are miles from cliffs/mountians/golden glowing hills, so work it out, gotta be something going on!
Either that or the Write Bros have got nothing on the Nasca!
_________________ I give you, the Waffle King
Hey, nothing wrong with little green men being involved, it must have something to do with erm, lil green men, as around the drawings there are no cliffs or mountains, the pictures are miles from cliffs/mountians/golden glowing hills, so work it out, gotta be something going on!
Either that or the Write Bros have got nothing on the Nasca!
Waff
You should get on just fine with Fire Dragon.
I don't have a clue what either of you are talking about half of the time. _________________ Please visit our main site
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