Nazca Lines still thought mysterious

China Jim

New member
Once again the mystery of the Nazca lines need to be solved and into this fray enters two British archaeologist named Dr Nick Saunders from the Bristol University and Professor Clive Ruggles of the University of Leicester (pronounced Lester). The research is being funded by the Anglo-Peruvian Cultural association in Lima and they hope the research will unlock the mystery :D of the lines doing away with the bizarre explanation of alien visitation landing sites or astronomical calenders the joint research will focus on serious archaeological and anthropological ideas. Ruggles and Saunders agree with other experts that some lines were pathways across the desert, others have more religious significance Dr Saunders stated "identifying which lines came first, whether they were spiritual or functional or how they were used during a thousand years of prehistory is a great challenge. The treasure is not gold but insight, and the mystery is cultural not extraterrestrial". :D :whip:
 

Goonie

New member
Peru's famous Nazca lines damaged by rain

From CTV News:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090122/nazca_lines_090122/20090122?hub=SciTech

A bit of Indy 4 has been damaged by rain:

Peru's famous Nazca lines damaged by rain: report
Updated Thu. Jan. 22 2009 8:33 AM ET
The Associated Press

LIMA, Peru -- An archeologist says heavy rains have damaged part of Peru's famed Nazca lines.

He says the rains have deposited desert clay and sand on top of three fingers of a geoglyph shaped like a pair of hands.

Mario Olaechea, an archeologist with Peru's National Culture Institute, says water from the unusually heavy rains washed off the nearby Pan-American highway and pushed sand and clay onto part of the site Sunday.

The damage is minor, and the institute plans to clear the material and restore the glyph.

Nazca's dry and windless climate has preserved the mysterious lines for more than 1,000 years since they were etched into the desert sand by indigenous groups who cleared away rocks and small pebbles to form the shape of animals and other figures.

Fully visible only from the sky, they are one of Peru's top tourist destinations.

Archeologists have warned the lines are vulnerable to flooding, but Olaechea said it was the first known instance of rain damage.

The lines were added to the UNESCO World Heritage site list in 1994.
 
Well it does say the damage is only minor, and there are thousands of the things, all criss crossing, drawn over each other, half rubbed out, like some mad processional sketch book
 

AnnieJones

New member
I'm just a little curious,but what are the Raven members opinion(or opinions)of the Nazca lines?
I personally don't have an opinion of them,other than the fact that they look interesting.
nazca.jpg

nazca-lines.gif

nazca-lines-2.jpg

Nazca_Lines.jpg

nazca-lines1.jpg
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Annie, I discovered the existence of the Nazca lines when I began reading the wacky books of von Daniken whilst I was at school. Whilst you should treat his theories as blatant fiction, they're a good read, and great as a jumping off point for you to do your own investigations by reading the books of other writers with a more authoritative slant.

Daniken thought they were the landing marks left by the spaceships of the gods. Which is utterly ludicrous, as they form intricate patterns of birds and animals. But he did go on to say something that might be closer to the truth:

That they were sacrificial symbols shown to the heavens to encourage the gods to return. He doesn't say that they could only be seen from the air, but that "they would be visible from a great height." (In Search of Ancient Gods, von Daniken).
 

Archaeologist

New member
My opinion of the Nazca lines... Well, they are not "etched" into the ground as Indy said, I believe, but made from pushing the rocks and sand out of the way. But none the less amazing! They can be recreated using simple tools and just a bit of practice. But that is just my empirical opinion of them: pushed around sand/rocks made with simple tools.

The purpose? I believe they likely served a similar purpose to the carvings on the hills in the UK, the ones carved into the chalk forming large white Nazca-esque images. Those were fertility carvings (I am not saying Nazca lines were fertility, I am saying their function in society might have paralleled). Directions, rituals... Why not art?

If you examine the Peruvian gold objects, your notice that a lot of them resemble most of the Nazca lines. If the gold objects were done for decoration, why not the lines? I think that this is a route that needs exploring. As I mentioned above, they are relatively simple to re-create with little practice: They would have been able to do them much quicker. So, with little effort/energy input, why not only for aesthetic purpose?

If you want to look at it for routes, you'll see routes. Ritual, ritual. I hope the next study will add some evidence to the function. Personally, I see the lack of evidence for function evidence for function of art. Could you imagine a huge sidewalk chalk drawing where no one walks and in never rains? What would the aliens think of that... :hat:
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Archaeologist said:
My opinion of the Nazca lines... Well, they are not "etched" into the ground as Indy said, I believe, but made from pushing the rocks and sand out of the way. But none the less amazing! They can be recreated using simple tools and just a bit of practice. But that is just my empirical opinion of them: pushed around sand/rocks made with simple tools.

The purpose? I believe they likely served a similar purpose to the carvings on the hills in the UK, the ones carved into the chalk forming large white Nazca-esque images. Those were fertility carvings (I am not saying Nazca lines were fertility, I am saying their function in society might have paralleled). Directions, rituals... Why not art?

If you examine the Peruvian gold objects, your notice that a lot of them resemble most of the Nazca lines. If the gold objects were done for decoration, why not the lines? I think that this is a route that needs exploring. As I mentioned above, they are relatively simple to re-create with little practice: They would have been able to do them much quicker. So, with little effort/energy input, why not only for aesthetic purpose?

If you want to look at it for routes, you'll see routes. Ritual, ritual. I hope the next study will add some evidence to the function. Personally, I see the lack of evidence for function evidence for function of art. Could you imagine a huge sidewalk chalk drawing where no one walks and in never rains? What would the aliens think of that... :hat:

Great works of art are the product of civilizations with time on their hands, which pre-supposes successful civilizations with a well-running agricultural system, which allows the storage of food and for members of society to spend time making the art (as opposed to working in the fields, hunting or foraging).

I would say that the purpose of the art was likely religious. The figures are on an enormous scale, and best appreciated from a high vantage point. That would indicate a 'virtual' offering to the gods (or they are symbols representing individual gods), and that the effort and scale of their art was equivalent to their respect for their gods, and of their desire that their life will continue to provide them the resources to flourish as a civilization.

Whether or not the priests themselves believed this is another matter, but as long as the they managed to get their society believing in the same goal, their society would be more easily managed.
 

Archaeologist

New member
Plenty of cultures have art without those requirements from the caves in France, the Venus cult in Africa, to insular southeast Asia.

Nonetheless, the Nazca lines were made. That cannot be argued! Whether it was done by a religious class or artisans is what I was getting at. We mostly assume they serve a function. I was proposing that since they were made, why not for art just as they had with the jewelry? The fact that they are making jewelry shows they had more than enough time on their hands!
But that brings me back to my point: little time and energy were required to make them. Despite the scale.

And appreciated from a vantage point presupposes that the only way to appreciate them is to see them from above, hence your offering to the gods statement. That is a projection of how we appreciate them. This does not mean that is how they appreciate them.

Let me offer an example to illustrate my point. Greek Vases are appreciated as works of art and collectibles. Museums are evidence of this. But the Greeks used these vases in ways we would never imagine because they did not appreciate them the way we do. The only reason these vases have survived is not because they are valuable works of art, but the exact opposite: to looters of Greek times, they are junk! Not gold, no value, might as well leave them. That and ceramics do not deteriorate so easily.

All I am saying is that we cannot assume without evidence that they were appreciated only aerially.

Religious, Direction Markers, Art, we must understand their function in order to understand how they may have been appreciated, just as we understand how certain Greek vessels were used so we understand the value to the Greeks, rather than our own value placed upon them.

I hope I made this point clear, but it is difficult sometimes to condense these concepts.
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Archaeologist said:
All I am saying is that we cannot assume without evidence that they were appreciated only aerially...I hope I made this point clear, but it is difficult sometimes to condense these concepts.

I know the pitfalls of condensing concepts into bitesize posts. It's not easy to establish a full train of thought without boring everyone to tears! ;)

I could never argue for an interpretation beyond statements such as "likely" or "unlikely". Even wacky Daniken admitted that he was only putting forward a theory, and that's quite a big admission from a guy with his reputation for controversy.

Were cave paintings the evidence of man's willingness to express the world around him? Were they an educational exercise to show would-be hunters what animals they were to look for? Were they pleas to the gods that these animals will be plentiful in their land? We will never know for sure, unless we discover the long lost diary of a neolthic man.

Whilst a cave painting might be the work of one person, or many people over time, adding their own images to build a continuing picture, the Nazca images are likely to have been the work of more than one person.

Take just one image in isolation: the lines run straight for a great distance, and this supposes the setting up of markers, and this would be easier if a person wasn't working alone. When two or more people combine to produce art, it indicates that this is more than the expression of one man's will to create something for it's own sake. So that begs the question, why did people combine to produce these images? What was their motivation? And why reproduce the shapes of their jewellery on a level that is so hard to discern from the ground?

Of course, I'm playing devil's advocate here, but going by other works of art which were produced on grand scales, the motivation was often religious. Granted, all they had to do was clear the ground, and not carve huge blocks and create the means of assembling them into pyramids as in Egypt. (Yet the pyramids in other parts of South America, and in Central America, had a religious purpose, such as human sacrifice to the gods).
 

Montana Smith

Active member
Another point I meant to include in the above post, was about the nature of the art itself. Unlike a piece of jewellery or a vase created by a Greek artisan, the Nazca lines cannot be sold or traded for goods. They have no intrinsic tradeable value, they can't be moved to another location. So that's one less motivation for their creation.
 

Archaeologist

New member
Clarifications:
Cave paintings, I was referring to the one of the various hands, not the animals. Prehistoric cognitive archaeology is changing its theories all the time over their interpretations of the animals and hands. The hands with various amounts of fingers are the paintings I was referring to. Prehistory, with the exception of hominid evolution, is not really my subject because it cannot answer the questions you pose with any certainty.

I never wanted to imply that the Nazca lines were done by one person, I am sorry if I gave that impression. The experiments I referred to were done with multiple people. We cannot rule out the possibility of a designer leading people. It would be really special if a bunch of people joined together and each shared an equal part in planning the design.

Art does not have to be movable or able to be traded over distances. Architects are enough evidence of that. Land with this art on it can be controlled (reference to the Cambodia/Thailand conflict over a UNESCO World Heritage Site), therefore traded and of value despite their immobility. Perhaps it is their immobility that adds to their value?
End Clarifications.

I wouldn't say you are playing the devil's advocate. This is a necessary part of the scientific procedure. Hypothesis and theories need to be scrutinized by other scholars. I would hate to be talking to myself about all of this or simple having people agree with me without checking the facts. That leads to Daenikin and Hancock.

I will say this about Daenikin though: He may have a theory, but only in the sense that he means speculation, rather than a scientific theory or hypothesis. That point should be emphasized. Too many people think that the vernacular theory and scientific theory mean the same thing.

But I think that we can agree that people and artifacts, including geoglyphs, can and do have multiple functions. A piece of art made for religious reasons to the gods, can also serve as a spiritual path to be walked about (hence appreciated for its design on the ground) or perhaps slept in by an individual as was done for other geoglyphs and was also directions.

You ask about motivation and why like jewelry...
I do not know their economics, but why not have conscripted or hired workers? That is a simple enough motivation for working. Why like the jewelry? The design could (pure speculation) have been chosen by the Big Man/Chief because of his fondness, hence the jewelry of same images (of course we do not know who chose the design). Religious adviser says they need an offering or they need fertility, etc, whatever, a designer leads a team to create the Nazca lines.

Therefore it turns into a religious/artistic/perhaps directional function all at the same time.

I believe it can be agreed upon that it does not need to serve only one function at a time. I look forward to the results, especially being a Leicester grad student ;)
 
Last edited:

Montana Smith

Active member
Archaeologist said:
Clarifications:
Cave paintings, I was referring to the one of the various hands, not the animals. Prehistoric cognitive archaeology is changing its theories all the time over their interpretations of the animals and hands. The hands with various amounts of fingers are the paintings I was referring to. Prehistory, with the exception of hominid evolution, is not really my subject because it cannot answer the questions you pose with any certainty.

Are those the hands made by spitting pigment onto the artist's own hand? They're remarkable for representing the actual hand of the artist, and really do seem to present the case for art for art's sake.

Archaeologist said:
I never wanted to imply that the Nazca lines were done by one person, I am sorry if I gave that impression. The experiments I referred to were done with multiple people.

No. you didn't give that impression. I was making a case that art made by many hands may be more motivated by a combined religious perspective, as opposed to art produced by a single artist.

Archaeologist said:
Art does not have to be movable or able to be traded over distances. Architects are enough evidence of that. Land with this art on it can be controlled (reference to the Cambodia/Thailand conflict over a UNESCO World Heritage Site), therefore traded and of value despite their immobility. Perhaps it is their immobility that adds to their value?
End Clarifications.

Again, I agree with you. I was thinking of the reasons for creating the art. A piece of jewellery in the shape of a bird might be made for trade, religious reverence, or just for the enjoyment of creating the object and appreciating it once made. An impression of a bird made over a huge distance by clearing the ground negates it as art for trade in the simple terms. And therefore reduces the motivations possible for its creation.

Archaeologist said:
I wouldn't say you are playing the devil's advocate. This is a necessary part of the scientific procedure. Hypothesis and theories need to be scrutinized by other scholars. I would hate to be talking to myself about all of this or simple having people agree with me without checking the facts. That leads to Daenikin and Hancock.

I know that curiosity killed the cat, and I often risk the same fate here by thinking out loud, presenting questions as much to myself as to anybody who takes the time to read them. I'm not really dogmatic about these things, and will always remember one of the first things I was taught about studying history at college: you mustn't state absolutes unless there are irrefutable facts to back them up. And the 'facts' are even then often in question. Even if we found the lost diary of a neolithic man (if that were even possible!) we still wouldn't be sure whether it was fact or a document tainted by personal bias.

Archaeologist said:
I will say this about Daenikin though: He may have a theory, but only in the sense that he means speculation, rather than a scientific theory or hypothesis. That point should be emphasized. Too many people think that the vernacular theory and scientific theory mean the same thing.

Daeniken's 'theories' are tainted by his objective: he set out to sell books, and he began with his hypothesis and set about twisting the 'facts' to suit it. Similar to finding 'truth' in Nostradamus' predictions by matching and twisting bits of history to make a random statement appear as prophesy.

Archaeologist said:
But I think that we can agree that people and artifacts, including geoglyphs, can and do have multiple functions. A piece of art made for religious reasons to the gods, can also serve as a spiritual path to be walked about (hence appreciated for its design on the ground) or perhaps slept in by an individual as was done for other geoglyphs and was also directions. The design could (pure speculation) have been chosen by the Big Man/Chief because of his fondness, hence the jewelry of same images (of course we do not know who chose the design). Therefore it turns into a religious/artistic/perhaps directional function all at the same time.

I agree without doubt that there are rarely simple answers, that the history of civilizations are the result of complex factors which are affected by any number of external and internal forces. One of Marx's enduring statements was that history was the result of struggle, and that would include man's struggle against nature as well as against other men. The figures on the Nazca plain may represent their conquering of the land, putting down their mark with symbols that represented something special or pertinent to their lives.

Archaeologist said:
I believe it can be agreed upon that it does not need to serve only one function at a time. I look forward to the results, especially being a Leicester grad student ;)

It's over a year and a half since China Jim began this thread, and thanks to Annie for bumping it. As long as they haven't been abducted by aliens :)p) Saunders and Ruggles ought to be coming up some results.

:hat:
 
Australian Raven members...

...maybe you can let us know how this is:


Secrets of Nazca, Sunday, August 7

SBS One, 7.30pm

While much of the material is new, the theme, tone and delivery are not. We are in the realm of ancient civilisations here - images of vast, decayed wildernesses that, these programs generally posit, may open a window into something ordinary, such as how ancient kingdoms rose and fell, or perhaps even something extraordinary, such as aliens, mystical powers or Raiders of the Lost Ark-style mythologies.

Nazca-Secrets-420x0.jpg


Here we are in Peru's Atacama Desert, where giant lines are etched into the arid landscape. What function did they serve, if they were not - as many would love to imagine - a set of runways marked for the landing of alien spaceships, visiting the Earth in its pre-Star Trek era. Were they venerations to a higher power? Or a giant sun calendar used to plot the planting and harvesting of crops?

If you've ever watched the History Channel, particularly during the years we like to look back on as the Atlantis/Hitler/Pyramids era (the channel generally offers slightly more intellectual fare now), you will know this genre well.

But Secrets of Nazca is actually a great television show, not just because of the clinical approach it takes to the possible use of the ancient lines but because by the time it's done you have more than enough information to make a few reasonable conclusions.
 

Mickiana

Well-known member
Interesting doco. Looked at the current German archaeological research into the history and culture of the Nazca people, why they built the geoglyphs and how and why their society perished, or moved on. In short, the glyphs were for honoring the gods and were meant to be used on the ground for group spiritual ceremonies to implore and appease the gods to bring rain. Eventually though, climate change caused desertification of the region and they had to migrate. They had moved into the region originally no later than 4000 BC. There were different theories about exactly how the society came to an end, whether it was inter tribal fighting over dwindling resources or just plain moving on.
 
Top