Nazca Lines: Mysterious Geoglyphs in Peru
The animal mounds were found in a region famous for a series of ancient geolyphs, called the Nazca Lines, which are now considered a World Heritage Site in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. Here, Nazca Lines resembling a humming bird, as viewed from a plane. The Nazca (also spelled Nasca) Lines are geoglyphs placed in an arid coastal place of Peru that cowl an estimated 170 square miles (450 square kilometers). Scratched on the ground, they number in the thousands and depict creatures from each the natural world and the human imagination. They include animals such as the spider, hummingbird, monkey, lizard, pelican and even a killer whale. Also depicted are plants, trees, flowers and oddly fashioned outstanding figures. Also illustrated are geometric motifs such as wavy lines, triangles, spirals and rectangles. How old are they? The large majority of the lines date from 200 BC to 500 AD, to a time when a people referred to as the Nazca inhabited the region. The earliest lines, created...