Giant drawings of the Nazca desert gained widespread popularity after amazing illustrations accompanied by explanations from Eric Von Denikin. In one of the films about the Nazca desert, an airplane flying over the ancient lands showed geometric lines and contour drawings of monkeys and other animals.
Experts divide mysterious ground drawings into two types: the first is lines, zigzags, geometric shapes; the second type is represented by figures of animals, birds, fish, trees, flowers.
The drawings were first noticed by pilots who jokingly called them landing strips. In 1939, historian Paul Kosoka was brought in to study the figures. Maria Reiche conducted research with him and continued studying ground-based images for the next 40 years.
bird drawing – Hummingbird
The generally accepted teaching attributes geoglyphs to the activities of the Nazca Indian culture, which lived here 300-900 BC. e. However, the drawings reveal only a modest part of a huge phenomenon, as similar images lie in the Andean desert along the entire Pacific coast.
In the 40s, it became known about similar lines and drawings near the Rimac and Chilpon rivers, and in the 70s, drawings were discovered in the Arequipa province of Peru. That is, our phenomenon cannot relate to just the Nazca culture.
Researchers who studied the amazing phenomenon estimate that it would take about 100,000 people to make these drawings. Moreover, the “artists” would have to work 12 hours a day!
It is quite possible that this is how it all happened, but then I wonder, who in this case was engaged in farming and other essential matters, if such a large number of people were engaged in creating drawings? Where did the footprints go? After all, absolutely nothing remains of the Cyclopean works, although in these dehydrated places the prints have been preserved for centuries!
Moreover, we have no evidence or mention of these drawings in history. It’s strange, but the local population also supposedly knows nothing about their own history, or doesn’t want to talk about it. Maybe these drawings were sent to us by well-wishers from distant star worlds?
Aliens were in Peru.
Among the construction of the figures, one can note a peculiar structure, which is generally similar to some kind of decoration or computer graphics right on the surface of the earth. Interesting feature inherent in the drawing of a monkey - there are five fingers on the left hand, four on the right. The same thing was noticed in another drawing, which indicates that the images were deliberately depicted. Why such strange things?
There is one impressive legend that tells how spaceship A woman named Oryana flew to Earth with the mission of becoming the foremother of life on the planet. According to an ancient legend, Oryana had four fingers connected by membranes - you must agree, this is a suspicious coincidence with the image of an owl man.
If we assume the intervention of some extraterrestrial intelligence, then maybe the drawings carry some information? Most likely yes, since there is a certain harmony in them, and on the mountainside lies a human figure (by the way, the only figure representing the image of a person).
No one knows exactly what the Nazca Desert lines mean.
The only indisputable fact is that they are located in South America, on the Nazca Plateau in southern Peru. They have been added to the list of objects World Heritage UNESCO in 1994. However, this is where the undisputed facts end, leaving scientists confronted with numerous unsolved mysteries.
Scattered throughout the plateau, giant geoglyphs represent geometric and natural objects. They are carved on the ground about 135 cm wide and 40-50 cm deep in soil.
It is almost impossible to recognize the real image from ground level, big picture can only be seen from a bird's eye view. That is why the Nazca Lines were discovered only in 1939, when airplane flights became possible.
Despite many theories, it is difficult for us to understand the drawings of the Nazca desert, and in general it may not be time yet, and our minds are not yet sufficiently developed. But since these “letters” exist, they must reach their “addressee”. In addition, other legends of these lands are no less interesting. 
Reptiles are gods who came from the sky.
In Peru's fourth largest city, there is an amazing statue of a reptilian man. The artwork is intended to show the deity Morrop, and was created taking into account ancient descriptions of the reptilian god.
Reptiles - ancient gods from heaven?
About 2,000 years ago, an area of northern Peru was inhabited by the Moche people, a civilization rich in culture and mythology that continues to baffle us to this day. The fact is that the statue shows the god Morrop, a man - an iguana.
In ancient tales, the iguana man is presented as a character with important For . Acting as an intermediary between the world of the living and the dead, the deity was equally feared and revered.
Considering everything we know about the reptile, doesn't it seem strange that people decided to associate it with the underground? kingdom of the dead? Was this association made by chance, on a whim, or is it a subtle indicator of the real nature of God?
Yes, South America is replete with legends and descriptions of controversial mythical characters, which nevertheless fit well into modern theories about aliens, hybrids and their relationships with the people of Earth.
From Viracocha to Quetzalcoatl, to the Feathered Serpent, this continent seems to have had a large share centuries of extraterrestrial interactions. And this is best reflected in the local attitude towards.
As many of our readers will agree, South America is an open and very receptive place to the issue of foreign visitors. Is this a direct consequence of their lifestyle or is it based on the fact that their ancestors were in contact with aliens?
The iguana sculpture itself is part of a larger ensemble, intended as a tribute to the rich culture ancient civilization. The city of Chiclayo is also home to a sculpture of an anthropomorphic crab, a creature that guarded the entrance to the sea and its inhabitants (like the Sphinx guarding the pyramids of the Giza plateau).
So, taking everything into account known facts and putting them together we wonder: could a collection of strange drawings and sculptures be an illustration? rich history region carrying a message about ancient aliens? What do you think of it?
Geoglyphs on the Nazca Plateau, like the famous lost city of the Incas Machu Picchu, are one of the most mysterious attractions of Peru. Giant geometric figures depicting triangles, spirals, lines, constellations, as well as a monkey, a spider, flowers, an astronaut and a hummingbird with a wingspan of more than two hundred meters were created between the 1st and 5th centuries AD. There is still no consensus on the origin of patterns made with deep furrows and the purpose of their creation, despite many years of research.
The Nazca Lines were first noticed in 1939 by American archaeologist Paul Kosok, who was flying over the plateau. He saw that the lines recorded the phases of the moon and indicated certain constellations. It was impossible to detect such parallels from the ground; The figures can only be distinguished to this day only from the air. Subsequently, Maria Reiche was engaged in their research, and many drawings were discovered with her help. According to Reiche, geoglyphs in the desert are the largest calendar of the starry sky under open air in the world. In total, about thirty drawings can be found on the Nazca plateau, 788 different geometric shapes, including trapezoids, triangles and spirals, and thousands of lines and stripes. In 1994, the geoglyphs were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
To travel to the Nazca plateau, choose light, light-colored clothing and closed shoes with hard soles. Best time to view geoglyphs in the desert - from December to March, when you can count on clear sunny weather. The temperature during this period does not fall below +27°C. Even when setting out early in the morning or at dusk, do not forget about sunscreen and a hat.
In addition to the geoglyphs, there are several other interesting sights on the Nazca Plateau. In particular, you can visit the ruins of Cahuachi - the most important and powerful city of ancient civilization, where excavations are still ongoing. 5 kilometers east of Nazca are the Cantayoc aqueducts, and 30 kilometers south is the necropolis of Chauchilla (El cementerio de Chauchilla), most of the burials date back to the 5th-6th centuries. The mummies were found in the first half of the last century, however archaeological site The necropolis was recognized only in 1997.
How to get there
The Nazca Plateau is located 380 kilometers southeast of Lima. The path runs along the picturesque Pacific coast, along Highway 1S. The most convenient way to get from the capital to the city of Nazca is with a transfer to Ica; The average bus journey takes seven and a half hours. Tickets must be purchased in advance, at least one day in advance. Be careful: there are different buses from Lima transport companies(Oltursa, Cruz del Sur, TEPSA) depart from different terminals; for example, TEPSA flights depart from the terminal of the same name, located on Avenida Javier Prado. However, starting points are not always located in the city center. One-way fares range from 65 PEN (~$20.8) to 140 PEN (~$44.8) per person. Buses depart several times a day, including late in the evening and at night.
The best way to see the geoglyphs on the Nazca Plateau is to take one of the small Cessna plane tours offered by local agencies. In good weather, most designs and lines can be seen from the air; guides navigate the desert's most famous sites, including those featuring monkeys, spiders, hummingbirds and other animals.
The routes start from the cities of Nazca and Lima. Excursions should be booked in advance: the number of seats on planes is limited (usually no more than five passengers), and it is unlikely to be possible to organize such a trip on the spot. Their cost from the city of Nazca, for example, starts at $150 per person; The price includes transfer from the hotel to the airfield, flights and the services of a local guide. These tours operate daily, mostly in the morning, but departure times and travel duration depend on the number of flights scheduled for the day and weather conditions. On average, the excursion takes a little over half an hour.
Organized excursions from Lima will cost more; their prices start at $350 per person. This price includes transfer to the Nazca airfield, watching a short film about the desert lines, flight, as well as lunch in a traditional restaurant and a visit to the observation deck on the way back.
Helicopter excursions over the Nazca plateau are organized by several specialized travel companies. The cost of such a trip starts from $350 per person; flights operate daily. The duration of the excursion is 40 minutes, including the flight time - 25 minutes. The minimum number of passengers is two people.
Another option for viewing the Nazca Lines is the observation deck on the Panamericana Highway (El Mirador). The cost of visiting is 2 PEN (~$0.6) per person. In this case, due to the great distance of the drawings, it will be possible to see only two of them.
Location
The Nazca Plateau is located in the province of the same name in the Ica region, which lies almost in the center of the Pacific coast.
Peru. The mystery of the Nazca desert has been solved?
The world-famous Nazca desert with its mysterious patterns, lines and geometric shapes is located in the south of Peru, 400 km from Lima and 50 km from the Pacific coast. This is one of the driest places on our planet, receiving only about 2.5 cm of precipitation per year - less than the Gobi Desert.
Discovery of Nazca Desert Drawings
The mysterious Nazca lines and designs were accidentally discovered during a flight by a Peruvian pilot in 1927. The first to try to uncover the secret of the Nazca Desert was the American archaeologist Paul Kozok, who arrived in Nazca in 1939. They found that giant drawings were carried out by removing a 20-centimeter layer of brown, sun-burnt stones and soil, under which a much lighter soil was hidden.
A giant astronomical calendar?
All the drawings could be divided into three groups: in one - geometric shapes, in the other - lines, zigzags and spirals, in the third - giant images of birds, insects and animals. Paul Kozok hypothesized that the Nazca drawings were a giant astronomical calendar. This idea came to him when he saw that on the day of the summer solstice the sun set directly behind the end of one of the straight lines included in huge drawing birds.
Kozok's research was continued by his assistant, the German mathematician Maria Reiche. We can say that this tireless woman devoted her entire life to the Nazca desert and confirming the hypothesis of her teacher Paul Kozok. For more than 40 years, Reiche cataloged lines and designs, took measurements, and even conducted aerial photography with the help of the Peruvian Air Force. The researcher died in 1992, until the end of her life she believed that the Nazca Lines were a giant astronomical calendar.
1968 - an unexpected blow to the Kozok and Reiche hypothesis was dealt by the American astronomer Gerald Hawkins, who analyzed the Nazca lines using a computer and concluded that 80% of geometric figures have nothing to do with the movement of celestial bodies - since J. Hawkins became widely known After the publication of his book “The Solution of Stonehenge” in 1965, in which he argued that the famous building of the ancients in England was a kind of observatory, his opinion turned out to be decisive for many.
But, as Maria Reiche rightly believed, when making calculations in his research, Hawkins did not take the terrain into account at all, and this led him to an erroneous conclusion. Today, many of the researchers do not rule out that some of the lines are in one way or another connected with astronomical observations of the ancient inhabitants of Nazca, although skeptics say that out of almost 1000 straight lines, some can certainly simply by chance point to celestial bodies on certain days.
A giant map of groundwater distribution?
Relatively not so long ago, a message appeared in the foreign press that the secret of the Nazca drawings had finally been revealed. The author of the new hypothesis was David Johnson, a former high school teacher from New York State. It is interesting that Johnson was absolutely not interested in the mysterious drawings of Nazca, but searched for water in this desert using such an exotic method as dowsing. Johnson was especially drawn to the ancient irrigation canals, some of which still flowed.
Local residents told him that the main sources of water for the canals were two small rivers, but Johnson immediately noticed that the canals ran parallel to the rivers and they could not take water from them. He soon came to the conclusion that the sources of water were geological faults. Water flowing from the Andes accumulated in areas of cracks in the bedrock and flowed down into the valleys along faults underground.
At first, Johnson did not connect this idea with the Nazca lines, but he began to notice that as soon as he discovered aquifers, there were always traces of ancient desert inhabitants and their geometric designs. One day in July 1996, he climbed one of the hills, looked at two broad lines stretching towards the horizon, abutting the dark crevices of the nearby mountains, which he believed to be formed by geological faults, and then it dawned on him. As Johnson said, he sat on the top of a hill and said to himself: “My God, I know what the Nazca lines mean, they trace underground water sources on the surface!” In other words, the lines and geometric shapes on the surface of the desert are a giant map of the distribution of groundwater.
Although some scientists had long assumed that the Nazca paintings were somehow related to water, the main treasure of these arid places, many of them were skeptical of Johnson's idea. But Helaine Silverman, an archaeologist at the University of Illinois, asked her colleagues at a 1999 conference on Nazca to “keep their eyes open” while Johnson’s hypothesis was being tested.
Johnson's hypothesis has been tested for several years by Steve Mabee, a hydrogeologist at the University of Massachusetts. “We make maps of our water flows, maybe the Nazca people did the same thing, only they “drew” them on the earth’s surface,” says Mabi. He has already found evidence that alternative water sources in the faults Johnson found actually exist. And in all cases, Mabey established the “marking” of these faults with lines on the surface.
Are the Nazca Lines related to sacred rituals?
Johann Reinhard, an anthropologist, was the first to put forward the theory that the Nazca lines are associated with sacred rituals that are dedicated to causing rain. He discovered a ritual that could explain the Nazca Lines. Archaeological finds near some of the broad lines (" landing strips Daniken") confirm their connection with water. Sea shells (a symbol of water in the Andes) and pottery drinking vessels were found. Reinhard also sees sacred symbols in images of animals, so the spider and monkey in these places were considered associated with fertility, and therefore with water.
Another of the researchers, Entosh Aveni, believes that he has already discovered the hidden logic in the mosaic of the Nazca Lines. He removed all the images of animals, spirals and geometric shapes from the map and left only straight lines on it. It turned out that all the lines converged into sun-like patterns, which he called “ray centers.” Together with a colleague, he was able to identify 62 ray centers and about 800 straight lines. In fact, each of the “ray centers” was located on the top of some hill. According to Aveni and some experts, the lines may have served as paths and led people to the tops of the hills ("ray centers"), where they performed rituals related to water.
Other researchers are also trying to solve the mystery of the Nazca Desert. It has been established that the ancient Nazcans beheaded their enemies by mummifying their heads, and had very interesting religious ideas about nature and the world around them. Images of animals almost identical to the giant paintings in the desert were found on Nazca ceramics.
Markus Reindel decided to take the unbeaten path and chose a different starting point: “If we want to decipher the Nazca geoglyphs, we need to find the people who created them.”
Archaeological expeditions
Reindel conducted a surface survey of the mountain slopes in the vicinity of the town of Palpa, 40 km from Nazca, and at a depth of 30 cm he found the upper part of the wall there. Excavations have confirmed that these are walls ancient city, which was located in close proximity to the legendary drawings.
After the first expedition, the archaeologist drew a detailed plan of the city and reconstructed some of its history. 1900 years ago, on the flat part of the valley, in the interfluve of the Rio Grande, Rio Palpa and Rio Whiscas rivers, there was a strange structure - settlers erected a wall 400 m long and 100 m wide. Meter-high walls made of brick blocks rose to a height of 12 m, symbolizing power and wealth. The basis of the wealth of the “Nazca people” was agriculture, which flourished thanks to an extensive irrigation system.
The surplus of agricultural products created the conditions for such social stratification a society in which some segments of the population did not participate directly in food production. Reindel believes that they had a kind of nobility - the highest social stratum. An indirect confirmation of this assumption can be the complex system of irrigation canals, the construction of which required competent planning and management of the work.
And to create drawings in the desert, orders, plans and guidance were also needed from the rulers in power, whether they were called kings, chiefs, high priests or something else. The surroundings of Palpa on Reindel's plans are covered with lines, triangles and spirals, reaching almost to the settlement itself.
German archaeologist searches for primordial meaning mysterious drawings Nazca in the Rio Grande Valley. The former inhabitants of these places “populated” the surrounding rocks with thousands of images of various animals and humanoid creatures. Small images carved on rocks (petroglyphs) date back to the 4th century BC. e. Later they were repeated in enlarged form on the flat surfaces of mountain slopes. Drawings ranging in size from 10 to 20 m were clearly visible from afar.
“It is from here that the tradition of land paintings must have developed,” Reindel suggested. “As they grew larger, they became more sweeping and abstract and no longer occupied rocky slopes, but vast surfaces of the desert plateau.”
The scientist’s reasoning is very logical, but the question arises: why are these giant schematic drawings Are they in places where no one can see them? In addition to the previous “cosmic” interpretations of the Nazca drawings, one more hypothesis can be cited. After many years of observations in the basins of the nearest rivers, the American David Johnson made an unexpected conclusion: “The Nazca Lines are a clear text carved into the terrain to indicate to the inhabitants of the region where the accessible sources are located.” water".
Markus Reindel has no reason yet to refute or confirm this and other hypotheses. He pins his hopes on subsequent seasons of excavation and intends to reach individual buildings that lie away from the settlement - directly on the extensions of the Casca lines or directly below them. Archaeologists have not yet discovered such buildings. Excavations inside the walled area will also continue: Reindel wants to find the temple of the “Nasca people.” The next stage will be the search for the creators of the Nazca Lines, and the ultimate goal is to unravel the mysterious signs.
In our opinion, all these hypotheses should be considered as a whole. After all, many of the scientists may probably be right. Some Nazca lines may serve as an astronomical calendar, marking periods of greatest drought or rain, others may serve as ceremonial paths for rituals associated with bringing rain, and others may project underground aquifers to the surface. All the lines together created a real puzzle for scientists...
The explanation of giant images of animals, birds and insects, in our opinion, may be even simpler. Can you see a spider or a hummingbird from a high hill? Unlikely. The ancient inhabitants of Nazca also understood this, but they were only interested in the rain clouds that flew above them at a great height. These giant images were intended for the heavenly deities who control the rains, so that they would see them and take pity on the animals, giving them, and at the same time people, life-giving moisture. Is this the answer to the mysterious Nazca signs?
Giant ground drawings of the Peruvian Nazca plateau are deservedly considered one of the most mysterious attractions not only South America, but also the entire planet.
About 500 are covered with mysterious lines folding into bizarre shapes. square meters plateau territory.
The lines form a huge number of geoglyphs - geometric and shaped patterns: over 10,000 stripes, more than 700 geometric shapes (mainly trapezoids, triangles and spirals), about 30 images of birds, animals, insects and flowers.
The Nazca paintings are impressive in their size. For example, the figures of a spider and a hummingbird are about 50 meters long, the figure of a condor extends to 120 meters, the image of a pelican - almost 290 meters. It is amazing that with such a gigantic size, the contours of the figures are continuous and surprisingly accurate. Almost perfectly smooth stripes cross the beds of dry rivers, climb high hills and descend from them, but do not deviate from the required direction. Modern science unable to explain such a phenomenon.
These amazing ancient figures were first discovered by pilots only in the 30s of the last century.
This is explained by the fact that from the ground it is almost impossible to recognize figures stretching tens and hundreds of meters in length.
Despite decades of research, it remains a mystery how, by whom and for what purpose these drawings were made. The estimated “age” of the images is from fifteen to twenty centuries.
Today, about 30 designs, about 13 thousand lines and stripes, about 700 geometric figures (primarily triangles and trapezoids, as well as about a hundred spirals) are known.
Most researchers attribute the authorship of the drawings to representatives of the Nazca civilization, who inhabited the plateau before the appearance of the Incas. The level of development of the Nazca civilization has not been sufficiently studied, so it is impossible to say with certainty that its representatives possessed technologies that allowed them to create such drawings.
There are many versions explaining the purpose of the Nazca geoglyphs. The most common of them is astronomical. Its supporters consider the Nazca Lines to be a kind of astronomical calendar. Popular and ritual version, according to which, giant drawings are intended to communicate with the heavenly Deity.
Multiple repetitions of the same lines and figures, as well as the identified mathematical patterns in their proportions and relative positions, give the right to assume that the Nazca drawings represent a kind of encrypted text. According to the most fantastic hypotheses, the figures on the plateau function as landmarks for the landing of alien ships.
Unfortunately, targeted and regular study of Nazca geoglyphs is not carried out in our time. The centuries-old mysteries of the famous Peruvian drawings are still waiting for their researchers.
Geoglyphs Nazca and Palpa from a copter. Peru 2014 hd
Satellite drawings of Nazca
The Nazca Desert is located in the Ica department in the south of Peru, between the Ingenio and Nazca rivers. This is an area of 500 square kilometers, covered with huge images of people and animals, lines, spirals and geometric shapes, the size of which reaches up to 300m in length. These signs are so huge that they can only be seen from an airplane. However, anyone today can admire the mysterious symbols without leaving home; just run any program on your computer that displays satellite images of the Earth. The coordinates of the desert are 14°41"18.31"S 75°07"23.01"W.
The mystery of the Nazca Desert was discovered in 1927, when a Peruvian pilot flying over a desert valley in southern Peru saw that the ground was lined with long lines and painted with images of animals. Such geometric designs appeared on the Nazca plateau during the Nazca civilization. It belongs to pre-Columbian civilizations, II-IV centuries BC.
Geoglyphs are a big mystery, because no one knows why representatives of the ancient Indian civilization that disappeared without a trace painted huge pictures, visible only from the air. The images seem to have been scratched into the poor, rocky desert soil. At first glance, they are barely distinguishable and represent a chaotic interweaving of lines drawn by someone on the reddish surface of the desert, but from a bird's eye view this chaos takes on meaning.
Despite the fact that geoglyphs were discovered in the last century, the purpose of these amazing drawings is still unknown. Researchers A. Krebe and T. Mejia consider them to be part of an ancient irrigation system. T. Mejía also later suggested that the images were associated with the Incan holy path. Some features, such as mounds of stones at the intersections of lines, indicate that the figures were used for cult purposes.
P. Kozok, who visited the Nazca Valley in 1941, drew attention to special role lines in the rays of the setting sun during the summer solstice and called these lines the largest astronomy textbook on earth. This theory was later developed in her research by the German researcher M. Reiche. In her opinion, some of the geometric shapes symbolize constellations, and the images of animals symbolize the location of the planets.
The study of astronomy for ancient civilizations had makes a lot of sense. Among other things, it also had a practical function - it helped to predict rainy periods important for agriculture, but archaeologist H. Lancho expressed the idea that the drawings are maps indicating the path to life. important places, for example, to underground water sources.
The most incredible and at the same time the most popular theory belongs to the famous Swiss researcher Erich von Däniken. He suggested that the images are nothing more than markings on the earth's surface for aliens from other planets.
No less surprising is another hypothesis, according to which representatives of the ancient Nazca civilization mastered aeronautics, which is why the drawings are visible only from above. In support of this theory, several dark spots that are present on the surface of the plateau are interpreted as traces of fire pits on the sites for balloons. In addition, on the pottery of the Nazca Indians there are patterns reminiscent of Balloons or kites.
The exact age of the geoglyphs is unknown. According to the results of archaeological research, the images were created in different periods. The earliest, straightest lines probably appeared in the sixth century BC, the latest - drawings of animals - in the first century AD.
Scientists have proven that the figures were created by hand. The drawings were applied to the surface of the desert in the form of furrows 130 cm wide and 50 cm deep. On dark soil, the lines form white stripes. Since the light lines heat up less than the surrounding surface, a difference in pressure and temperature occurs, which leads to the fact that the lines do not suffer during sandstorms.
Who and why painted these pictures on the surface in ancient times, visible only from a great height, still remains a mystery. A huge number of theories have been put forward, but none of them have yet received scientific confirmation.
