On the dry coastal plain between the Andes and the Pacific in southern Peru, the Nazca people etched hundreds of lines, geometric shapes, and enormous animal figures into the desert floor between approximately 200 BCE and 600 CE. Some lines run perfectly straight for kilometres. Some figures — a hummingbird, a spider, a condor, a monkey — are so large they can only be fully seen from the air. For centuries they lay unnoticed, until commercial aviation in the 1920s brought the first aerial views. The question of why they were made has never been fully answered.
The Nazca geoglyphs fall into three categories. The biomorphs — animal and plant figures — number around 70 and are the most famous. The geometric forms — spirals, trapezoids, rectangles, triangles — number in the hundreds. The straight lines — some extending up to 50 kilometres without deviation — are the most numerous and the most mysterious.
The lines were made by removing the reddish-brown iron oxide-coated pebbles from the surface to reveal the pale yellowish ground beneath. The method required no special technology — only patience, surveying skill, and organisation. Researchers have demonstrated that the figures could have been planned using simple tools: wooden stakes, cords, and basic geometric principles. The challenge was not the technology but the scale and precision of execution.
The Nazca lines do not require an extraordinary explanation. They require an extraordinary appreciation of what ordinary human beings — with clear skies, plentiful time, deep cosmological motivation, and a genius for collaborative effort — are capable of.
— Anthony Aveni, Between the LinesThe Nazca Lines have survived two millennia primarily because of the extreme aridity and low wind speeds of the Nazca plateau — conditions that preserved the surface essentially unchanged. In recent decades they have faced increasing threats from human activity: a water pipeline was inadvertently run through the site in 1998; a Greenpeace climate protest in 2014 irreparably damaged the area near the hummingbird figure; agricultural encroachment, tourism traffic, and illegal settlement continue to threaten the margins of the site.
In 2018, a new geoglyph — a cat figure, about 37 metres long — was discovered on a steep hillside near the main plateau, previously invisible due to erosion. It predates the better-known figures by several centuries. New geoglyphs continue to be discovered through aerial photography and drone survey, suggesting the full extent of the site is still not known.
Maria Reiche: German mathematician and archaeologist Maria Reiche devoted fifty years to studying and protecting the Nazca Lines, living near the site from 1946 until her death in 1998. She is credited with saving the lines from agricultural destruction in the mid-20th century and establishing the international attention that eventually led to UNESCO World Heritage status. She is buried near the site she spent her life protecting.