In southern Peru, on a dry plain of about 450 square kilometres between the Andes and the Pacific, an extraordinary sight appears from the air: straight lines that run for kilometres, triangles and spirals, and hundreds of figures the size of a city block depicting a hummingbird, a spider or a monkey. Known as the Nazca Lines, these markings were made by the Nazca culture, which lived in the region between about 500 BCE and 500 CE, and they have been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1994.
A Giant Canvas on the Desert
The pampa between the towns of Nazca and Palpa is an almost ideal surface for this kind of "drawing." The ground is covered by a layer of gravel that looks dark reddish-brown because it is coated with iron oxide. Directly beneath it lies a much lighter, yellowish-grey subsoil. The contrast between the two is the secret behind every figure.
How the Lines Were Made
The Nazca did not "draw" anything; they removed material from the surface. When the thin top layer of dark pebbles, some 10 to 30 centimetres deep, was cleared along a strip and piled to the side, the pale ground underneath was exposed, creating a "negative" line that stood out against the dark terrain around it. For the long, remarkably straight lines, wooden stakes and cords stretched between them were probably used; some of the stake holes can still be seen. The animal figures were most likely scaled up from a small preliminary sketch. Because the technique is simple, the work called not for advanced engineering but for organised labour and careful planning.
What Do They Mean?
The purpose of the lines is still debated. In the 1940s Paul Kosok, and then the mathematician Maria Reiche, who devoted decades to the site, argued that the lines formed a giant astronomical calendar tracking the movements of the stars and the Sun. That view has largely been abandoned; only a small fraction of the lines align with celestial events. The most widely accepted explanation today is that the lines were sacred paths walked during ceremonies connected with water and fertility. For the Nazca, living in an arid region, water was life; the figures and lines are thought to have been offerings to deities believed to bring rain and abundance, walked in ritual processions.
Why Have They Lasted 2,000 Years?
That such a fragile surface marking has endured for millennia is almost as striking as the lines themselves. The Nazca Desert is one of the driest places on Earth; in some years measurable rainfall is close to zero. Without rain there is no runoff to erase the lines. Wind is weak at ground level, and the dark stones, which heat up by day and radiate warmth at night, create a thin layer of hot air just above the ground that suppresses the sandstorms that might otherwise bury the lines. Gypsum and lime in the soil also harden slightly when dampened by the morning mist and then dried, holding the grooves together. The site’s isolation limited human damage for centuries.
Rediscovery and an Unfinished Count
For centuries the lines were known to almost no one beyond local people. The Spanish chronicler Pedro Cieza de León mentioned some of them in 1553, but real interest came only when regular commercial flights began crossing the region in the 1920s and 1930s and pilots reported strange shapes in the desert. In the 1940s the American historian Paul Kosok and the German mathematician Maria Reiche began to study the site systematically. Known as the "Lady of the Lines," Reiche devoted most of her life to measuring, mapping and protecting the figures; she paid for guards out of her own pocket and had the area closed to vehicles.
The count is still not complete. In recent years AI-assisted surveys of aerial and satellite imagery have revealed hundreds of previously unnoticed figures, most of them small and showing a single animal or person. These discoveries suggest that the lines were not made in a single period but added to over centuries by different groups.
The Threats They Face Today
In modern times the balance has broken. The Pan-American Highway cut one of the figures, a lizard, in two. Squatter settlements, unauthorised vehicles and mining put pressure on the site. In 2014 a group of environmental activists left permanent footprints on the surface while unfurling a banner beside the hummingbird figure. The rare but intense rainfall that now reaches the region with climate change is a further risk. Peru’s authorities protect the area strictly today: visitors cannot walk on the lines, and the figures can only be seen from an observation tower or from small aircraft.