The Great Nazca Line Drawings, Peru

El Capricho

At a fairly short distance from the Pacific Ocean along the Peruvian foothills of the Andes Mountains is the ancient city of Nazca where one discovers the Palpa Valley. This valley, a region stretching 37 miles, contains some of the most perplexing and quite amazing lines -- geometric lines, some parallel, others intersecting, and still others surrounded by trapezoidal designs. In the past, these drawings have been associated with the Inca empire as Nazcan pottery and ceramics were found dotting the landscape. Unfortunately, throughout this 37 miles of archeaological wonder, none of the geometric shapes and gigantic pictures can be directly attributed to the Inca culture. Traditional archaeologists do not recognize that the Inca and pre-Inca people had accurate surveying skills.

Why these drawings were made remains unanswered to cultural-anthropologists and archaeologists alike. Even the question, how these drawings were constructed is a mystery. If iron was used, there has been no evidence unearthed, and probably won't be. Metals corode. What purpose could these enormous drawings serve?

Charles Berlitz in Atlantis, The Eighth Continent states that "an outstanding example of complicated constructions left by ancient builders whose reasons for making them has not been established exists in the Nazca Valley in Peru. Pilots engaged in determining water resources in Peru photographed mysterious lines drawn into the earth, crossing mountainous hills and continuing on the other side, and sometimes on the tops of mountains whose crests have been leveled off by artificial means.... The patterns of the geometric lines, animal figures... are apparent only from the air. Their purpose is not known... they were unrecognized during the centuries that passed until... pilots flying on a hydrographic research project observed them in the early thirties.

"In 1932, Dr. Maria Reiche noted their 'great size, coupled with perfect proportion' and especially wondered how the ancient artisans were able to draw on the desert terrain the gigantic animal figures 'with their beautifully laid out curves and well-balanced dimensions' -- an incredibly difficult task to accomplish 'unless the ancient Peruvians were able to fly.'" Berlitz (p 123f)

One remarkable drawing, a Nazcan spider, measures some 150 feet in length formed by one continuous line. What is remarkable about this drawing is that it depicts a unique spider -- a member of a spider genus known as Ricinulei which is of such rarity measuring less than an eighth inch in size and is found only living beyond the reach of sunlight in the Amazon rainforest nearly 1,000 miles from these Nazcan drawings. In other words, the drawing is Nazcan; the spider isn't!

EXTRA CREDIT -- If you have time, you might want to try the following as a science project -- draw an insect found living only in Denver between the goal post and the fifty yard line of one of the football fields here in Los Angeles. And make sure the insect is no bigger than half your smallest finger nail -- oh yeah, the insect must live in total darkness. Just make sure the water sprinklers on the field don't turn on!

A usually overlooked fact about these drawings has to do with their location. All these drawings are extant today because they were constructed in a region of limited rainfall on soil that hardly erodes and becomes muddy. Those ancients think of everything, don't they?

Great Peruvian Drawing PICTURES can be found in Mystic Places -- Mysteries of the Unknown, by the Editors of Time-Life Books.

Another interesting book worth checking out especially for those who know little about the sagas and epics of the ancient South and Latin Americas is Graham Hancock's Fingerprints of the Gods. In it, dynamic figures emerge taking form and face. They are South America's Viracocha and Mexico's Quetzalcoatl.

Hancock writes, "In the late sixteenth century a magistrate named Luis de Monzon was the first Spanish traveller to bring back eyewitness reports concerning these mysterious 'marks on the desert' and to collect the strange local traditions that linked them to the Viracochas. Hancock (p. 41)

Again Hancock, "In the early sixteenth century, before the Spanish began to demolish Peruvian culture in earnest, an idol of Viracocha had stood in the Holy of Holies of the Coricancha [the great Incan temple/ fortress].... Strangely, accounts of Viracocha routinely depicted him as a lean, bearded white man, past middle age, wearing sandals and dressed in a long, flowing cloak. Therefore, he could not have been an American Indian: they are relatively dark-skinned people with sparse facial hair. Viracocha's bushy beard and pale complexion made him sound like a Caucasian.

"Back in the sixteenth century the Incas had thought so too. Indeed their legends and religious beliefs made them so certain of his physical type that they initially mistook the white and bearded Spaniards who arrived on their shores for the returning Viracocha and his demi-gods, an event long prophesied and which Viracocha was said in all the legends to have promised. This happy coincidence gave Pizarro's conquistadores the decisive strategic and psychological edge that they needed to overcome the numerically superior Inca forces in the battles that followed." Hancock (p. 45)

But who was this Viracocha?

"Through all the ancient legends of the peoples of the Andes stalked a tall, bearded, pale-skinned figure wrapped in a cloak of secrecy. And though he was known by many different names in many different places he was always recognizably the same figure: Viracocha, Foam of the Sea, a master of science and magic who wielded terrible weapons and who came in a time of chaos to set the world to rights.

"And they heard it from their fathers, who in their turn heard it from the old songs which were handed down from very ancient times... They say that this man travelled along the highland route to the north, working marvels as he went and that they never saw him again. They say that in many places he gave men instructions how they should live, speaking to them with great love and kindness and admonishing them to be good and to do no damage or injury one to another, but to love one another and show charity to all. In most places they name him Ticci Viracocha...

"Other names applied to the same figure included Huaracocha, Con, Con Ticci or Kon Tiki, Thunupa, Taapac, Tupaca and Illa. He was a scientist, an architect of surpassing skills, a sculptor and an engineer.

"Viracocha was also a teacher and a healer and made himself helpful to people in need. It was said that 'wherever he passed, he healed all that were sick and restored sight to the blind.'

"This gentle, civilizing, 'superhuman', samaritan had another side to his nature, however. If his life were threatened, as it seems to have been on several occasions, he had the weapon of heavenly fire at his disposal:

"Working great miracles by his words, he came to the district of the Canas and there, near a village called Cacha... the people rose up against him and threatened to stone him. They saw him sink to his knees and raise his hands to heaven as if beseeching aid in the peril which beset him. The Indians declare that thereupon they saw fire in the sky which seemed all around them. Full of fear, they approached him whom they had intended to kill and besought him to forgive them... They narrate further that, leaving the place where this occurred, he came to the coast and there, holding his mantle, he went forth amidst the waves and was seen no more. And as he went they gave him the name Viracocha, which means 'Foam of the Sea'. Hancock (p. 46-47)

"A bearded man of medium height dressed in a rather long cloak.... He walked with a staff and addressed the natives with love, calling them his sons and daughters. As he traversed all the land he worked miracles. He healed the sick by touch. He spoke every tongue even better than the natives. They called him Thunupa or Tarpaca, Viracocho-rapacha or Pachaccan...." Hancock (p. 47-48)

"...More than 15,000 miles of surfaced tracks had been in regular and efficient use before the time of the Spanish conquest.... [a] mystery [which] was deepened by local traditions which stated not only that the road system and the sophisticated architecture had been 'ancient in the time of the Incas', but that both 'were the work of white, auburn-haired men' who had lived thousands of years earlier.

"One legend described Viracocha as being accompanied by 'messengers' of two kinds, 'faithful soldiers' (huaminca) and 'shining ones' (hayhuay-panti). Their role was to carry their lord's message 'to every part of the world'." Hancock (p. 49)

I wonder who drew... I wonder how they drew the Nazcan drawings in Peru?

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