Nazca Lines and Mummies

This morning we were collected by our driver, Oscar – just the two of us in his car, after all those minibus trips (and yesterday’s marathon bus journey) we felt pretty special. We even got the VIP treatment at the airport and hardly had to wait around before our flight in a Cessna 206 which holds six people – the pilot and five passengers – Gregg had to be co-pilot and sit up front to even out the weight distribution (all those cooked breakfasts!) It was a bit hazy, which is unusual for Nazca as it is located at 600m above sea level which puts it just above any fog that drifts in from the sea. Nazca is one of the driest places on the planet and maintains a temperature around 25 °C (77 °F) all year round and it never rains (so they say) but this morning there was a thick blanket of cloud which Oscar said was very unusual but was getting more common as a result of climate change. Anyway we were soon airborne and it was one of the best experiences of our trip so far – to be looking down on the Nazca Lines and the geoglyphs etched on to the desert floor.
The Nazca Lines have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The high, arid plateau stretches more than 80 kilometres (50 miles) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana. Scholars believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture between 200 BCE and 700 CE. The hundreds of individual figures range in complexity from simple lines to stylized condors, hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, orcas, dogs, and a parrot. Hundreds are simple perfectly straight lines which stretch for miles or are geometric shapes; more than seventy are designs of animal, bird, fish or human figures. The largest figures are over 200 metres (660 ft) across. Monkeys, parrots and orcas are not indigenous to this area and so indicate significant trade routes.

Scholars differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but they generally ascribe religious significance to them, as they were major works that required vision, planning and coordination of people to achieve but no one has ever satisfactorily answered why these shapes – many of them over 2,000 years old should have been fashioned in such a way that they can only be seen in their entirety from the air.
Due to the dry, windless and stable climate of the plateau and its isolation, for the most part the lines have been preserved although their presence was not really discovered until people started flying in planes over the desert and by then some of the glyphs had been damaged – one of the worst acts of vandalism being when the Pan-American highway was built right across the Pampa destroying some of the glyphs.
Experts have theorised the Nazca people could have used simple tools and surveying equipment to construct the lines. Studies have found wooden stakes in the ground at the end of some lines, which support this theory. One such stake was carbon-dated and the basis for establishing the age of the design complex.
The lines were made by removing the reddish-brown iron oxide-coated pebbles that cover the surface of the Nazca desert. When the gravel is removed, the light-colored earth beneath shows in lines of sharply contrasting color and tone. The Nazca drew several hundred simple curvilinear animal and human figures by this technique. In total, the earthwork project is huge and complex: the area encompassing the lines is nearly 500 square kilometres (190 sq mi). The extremely dry, windless, and constant climate of the Nazca region has preserved the lines well - the lack of wind has helped keep the lines uncovered and visible to the present day.
Archeologists, ethnologists and anthropologists have studied the ancient Nazca culture and the complex to try to determine the purpose of the lines and figures. One theory is that the Nazca people created them to be seen by their gods in the sky. Dr Maria Reiche who studied the lines for over 40 years (usually from a stepladder)advanced a purpose related to astronomy and cosmology: the lines were intended to act as a kind of observatory, to point to the places on the distant horizon where the sun and other celestial bodies rose or set as many prehistoric indigenous cultures all over the world constructed earthworks that combined such astronomical sighting with their religious cosmology.
Some individuals propose alternative theories. Jim Woodmann believes that the Nazca Lines could not have been made without some form of manned flight to see the figures properly and purported that the Nazca culture had hot-air balloons. Probably the most famous alternative theory was put forward by Erich von Däniken who suggests the Nazca lines and other complex constructions represent higher technological knowledge than he believes existed when the glyphs were created. Von Däniken maintains that the Nazca lines in Peru are runways of an ancient airfield that served beings from another extra-terrestrial culture. Von Däniken's claims, however, are not substantiated by any archaeological evidence and are not supported by scholars.
People trying to preserve the Nazca Lines are concerned about threats of pollution and erosion caused by deforestation of the valleys in the region and the continuing threat of earthquakes (one of which virtually destroyed the town of Nazca in 1997) because of the location of the Pampa on the huge tectonic plate that runs directly beneath. The real fear is that climatic change will bring heavy rain to the area and as the lines are superficial; they are only 10 to 30 cm deep and could be washed away...
After a flight of about 35 minutes we landed safely and not in the least bit queasy – we had been warned not to eat breakfast, which we ignored! Oscar then drove the two of us to Chauchilla – dare we say we were feeling Pampa’d? (groan) Chauchilla is about 30km south of Nazca and on the way he played a Buffy Sainte-Marie on the car CD player – which needless to say Gregg greatly enjoyed. At Chauchilla there are numerous cemeteries from the Nazca period where the dry, humidity-free climate has preserved numerous mummified bodies as well as the tapestries and cloth they were wrapped in as well as the burial offerings that were placed in the adobe brick tombs below the sand. Grave robbers have ransacked many of the tombs and left bones, skulls, mummies and pottery shards littering the desert as they were only interested in the gold. Archaeologists have worked to preserve the tombs and the bodies and we were able to visit about a dozen of them. The bodies were all buried in the foetal position and were placed in the ground facing east – where there is a large mountain shaped like a pyramid but no-one else seems to have noticed this. The tombs reveal interesting things such as the snificant trade routes as the tombs contained obsidian tools and one of them has a mummified parrot (some feathers still intact) and that some of priestly and ruling class Nazcas never cut their hair as some of the mummies have hair about 2 metres long.


We arrived back in Nazca at about 1pm by which time the cloud had burned off and it was sunny and hot – a light lunch and some beer was called for.