Author Description

Over two millennia ago gigantic figures and lines began to be drawn on the surface of the desert near the town of Nazca in southern Peru. Depictions of animals and birds, geometrical designs, and human-like figures were made on such a scale, including some over 100 m long, that they could only be seen without distortion from the air. This collection of geoglyphs (earth drawings), known today as the Nazca Lines, is considered to be one of the most baffling enigmas of archaeology. In this book the Nazca geoglyphs are analyzed in terms of traditional religious concepts and economic practices found in the region and elsewhere in the Andes. Archaeological, ecological, and historical information is utilized in the development of a theory to explain the lines and figures as part of religious practices designed primarily to insure the availability of water and the fertility of crops.