Detailed Study Sheds Light on Nazca Lines in Peruvian Desert

A detailed study by British archaeologists sheds light on Nazca Lines in the Peruvian desert.

Nazca lines are ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca desert in southern Peru. The Nazcan civilization thrived between 2,100 and 1,300 years ago. It is believed that the Nazca people created the lines and geometric figures during that period (between 100 B.C. and A.D. 700). The Nazca figures also represent animals and birds like monkeys, hummingbirds, sharks, orcas and lizards.

Several theories have surfaced ever since the Nazca lines were discovered in the 1920s. Researchers Nicholas Saunders from University of Bristol and Clive Ruggles of the University of Leicester, UK, carried out a detailed study of the Nazca lines by walking more than 900 miles in the Peruvian desert.

Besides walking the lines, the researchers studied the layers of superimposed designs, photographed pottery litters in the area and used satellite digital mapping to examine the lines. They discovered a new design of labyrinthine complexity 'hidden' in the landscape.

Experts pointed out that the only way to know the existence of the labyrinth is by walking a 2.7 mile stretch through disorienting turns and direction changes which ended (or began) inside a spiral formation.

"This labyrinth was meant to be walked, not seen," ScienceNews quoted Ruggles as saying. "The element of surprise was crucial to the experience of Nazca labyrinth walking."

It is not known how the labyrinth was used. Researchers suggest that pilgrims might have walked the labyrinth during spiritual journeys or the lines might have been reserved for Nazca gods, according to ScienceNews. This is quite different from normal desert pathways which wear out due to extensive use by humans and animals to traverse from place to place.

"Meandering and well-worn trans-desert pathways served such functional purposes but they are quite different from the arrow-straight lines and geometric shapes which seem more likely to have had a spiritual and ritual purpose.  It may be, we suggest, that the real importance of some of these desert drawings was in their creation rather than any subsequent physical use," Saunders said in a statement.     

The findings of the study, "Desert labyrinth: lines, landscape and meaning at Nazca, Peru", are published in the journal Antiquity.