Stone figures in the Nazca desert. Nazca Plateau
In the southern part of Peru is the Nazca plateau, famous for its pattern system.
There are a large number of images painted on the plateau, the most famous of which are a lizard, a monkey, flowers, a spider and various geometric lines.
The uniqueness of these images is that they are colossal in size.
The average size of one figure is about 50 meters.
One of the largest objects, a lizard, reaches 188 meters in length.
With full confidence they can be called one of the wonders of the world.
Drawings drawn on the ground and reaching a size of more than four meters are called geoglyphs.
Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas, and geoglyphs attract hundreds of tourists to Peru every year.
In total, almost 800 geometric figures and about 30 full-fledged drawings were discovered on the Nazca plateau.
Story
Presumably, the time of appearance of the drawings is associated with the appearance of the Incas in the area.
Due to their large size, the drawings are not visible directly from the ground.
The first to see them was the American archaeologist Paul Kosok, when he was circling over the plateau in an airplane.
He discovered that certain lines indicated certain phases of the moon or constellation.
Origin
There is still no consensus on the purpose of these drawings.
Some scientists claim that the drawings represent the largest star atlas located in the open air.
The drawings look like lighter lines against a background of dark gravel. To create them, it was necessary to remove the top layers of rocky soil. 
Almost all the drawings symbolize some kind of animal, but the meaning of the geometric shapes has not yet been solved.
There is no reasoned answer to the question of who created these giant images and for what purpose.
In the 70s of the twentieth century, ancient clay products were discovered in the Nazca desert, decorated with patterns from the plateau itself.
In addition, scientists discovered wooden piles driven in the places where the lines end. The dishes and piles date back to the 6th century AD.
Historian Alan Sauer found that Most of the drawings are created using a continuous, non-intersecting line.
Another assumption is that some of the lines follow the path along which underground rivers flow from the Andes to the Pacific coast.
There are several hypotheses regarding the nature of these drawings. So, the boldest assumption assigns the authorship of geoglyphs to extraterrestrial civilizations.
This is confirmed by the fact that to create such precise and large-scale figures, technologies are required that are absolutely inaccessible to American Indians.
Another fact that suggests the extraterrestrial origin of the images is the presence of a drawing similar to a modern astronaut.
So one theory claims that the Nazca Plateau is an ancient spaceport for guests from other galaxies.
There is also an assumption that the drawings and lines had cult significance. This is doubtful, since in order to have a minimal impact on the feelings of believers, these drawings must be visible.
In confirmation of the cult purpose of geoglyphs, American Jim Woodman suggested that the Indians actively used balloons and used them to regulate the creation of images.
How to get there
If you look at the world map, the Nazca Plateau is located 380 kilometers southeast of the capital of Peru, the city of Lima.
Coordinates where the drawings are located on the Nazca Plateau:
14° 45′ south latitude and 75° 05′ west longitude.
On the way to the mysterious desert you will be able to enjoy views of the picturesque coast of the Pacific Ocean. 
The easiest way to get to Nazca is with a transfer in the town of Ica. The journey usually takes a little over seven hours.
Due to the large influx of tourists, it is better to purchase tickets in advance - at least twenty-four hours in advance.
Very often, the terminals from which you can go to Nazca are located at a great distance from the city center.
Depending on the transport company the cost of one ticket varies from 24 to 51 dollars.
It is most convenient to travel at night or late in the evening, when the heat subsides a little.
Tourists planning to visit the mysterious desert must wear comfortable closed shoes and light clothing.
The drawings are best viewed on sunny days. So, the most optimal the season for excursions to Peru begins in December and ends in March.
The air temperature at this time of year rarely drops below +27°C. An indispensable thing on the excursion is sunscreen and a thick hat.
Local agencies offer sightseeing tours on passenger planes. This is the best opportunity to view the entire plateau in detail.
On sunny days, most of the drawings are visible, especially since the guides choose routes associated with the most popular areas of the plateau.
It is also better to book such excursions in advance due to the large number of visitors.
Price
A half-hour excursion departing from the city of Nazca will cost travelers approximately $150.
If you have $350 at your disposal, you can book a tour directly from Lima.
This amount includes travel to the Nazca airfield, watching a documentary, the flight itself and lunch at a local restaurant.
This option is the most profitable, as it saves valuable time for the traveler.
The most budget option is to visit the observation deck located on the El Mirador highway. The ticket costs a little less than a dollar. 
But due to the large size and distance between the drawings, only two of them are visible to the traveler.
You should hurry up when visiting the Nazca Plateau: despite the fact that the authorities are fighting to preserve these mysterious patterns, some of them are crossed by the wheels of trucks and cars.
For example, during the construction of the Pan-American Highway, workers simply cut a 188-meter drawing of a reptile in half. Part of the image is irretrievably lost.
Having visited Nazca, you can fully feel the presence of a great mystery, the solution of which is still beyond the control of man. With its scale, The quality of the geoglyphs is comparable to the Egyptian pyramids.
In addition to drawings, Nazca attracts with other attractions. So, Very close by are the ruins of the largest ancient city of Kuachi, the Chauchilla necropolis and the Cantayoc aqueducts.
Video flight over the Nazca plateau
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Nazca Drawings are located on Nazca Plateau- one of the most mysterious places on Earth. It is located 450 km south of the capital Peru, between cities Nazca And Palpa. Here the entire territory is 500 sq. km. covered with lines and drawings of unknown origin. They are nothing special if you look at them standing next to them.
Map of Nazca drawings
In 1553 Cieza de Leon was the first to report the Nazca drawings. From his words: “Through all these valleys and through those that have already been traversed, the beautiful, great Inca Road runs along its entire length, and here and there among the sands signs are seen to guess the route laid.”
ABOUTMonkey, Nazca drawing
The drawings were noticed in 1939, when an airplane flew over the plateau American archaeologist Paul Kosok. A huge contribution to the study of mysterious lines belongs to the German doctor of archeology Maria Reiche. Her work began in 1941. However, she was able to photograph the drawings from the air only in 1947, using the services of military aviation.
In 1994, the Nazca Geoglyphs were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Tree and handsNazca drawing
Nazca Plateau occupies 60 kilometers and approximately 500 sq. m of its territory is covered with a pattern of strange lines folding into bizarre shapes. The main mystery of Nazca is geometric figures in the form of triangles and more than thirty huge drawings of animals, birds, fish, insects and people of unusual appearance. All images on the Nazca surface are dug into sandy soil, the depth of the lines varies from 10 to 30 centimeters, and the width of the stripes can reach as much as 100 meters. The lines of the drawings stretch for kilometers, without changing at all under the influence of the relief - the lines rise up hills and descend from them, while remaining almost perfectly smooth and continuous. Who and why created these drawings - unknown tribes or aliens from outer space - there is still no answer to this question. Today there are many hypotheses, but none of them can be a solution.
Dog, Nazca drawing
Whale, Nazca drawing
Hummingbird has a length of 50 meters, spider — 46, condor extends from beak to tail feathers for almost 120 meters, and heron has a length of up to 188 meters. Almost all the drawings are made on this huge scale in the same manner, when the outline is outlined by one continuous line. Ideally straight lines and stripes go beyond the horizon, crossing dry river beds, climbing hills and without deviating from their direction (although modern geodetic methods do not allow drawing a straight line up to 8 kilometers long on rough terrain so that the deviation does not exceed 0, 1 degree). The true form of the images can only be observed from a bird's eye view. There is no such natural elevation nearby, but there are half-mountain humps. But the higher you rise above the plateau, the smaller these drawings become and turn into incomprehensible scratches.
Hummingbird,Nazca drawing
Spider, Nazca drawing
Condor, Nazca drawing
Heron, Nazca drawing
What scientists have been able to establish more or less accurately is the age of the images. Based on ceramic fragments found here and data from analyzes of organic remains, they established that in the period between 350 BC. and 600 AD there was a civilization here. However, this theory cannot be accurate, since objects of civilization could have been brought here much later than the appearance of the images. One theory is that these are works of the Nazca Indians, who inhabited areas of Peru before the formation of the Inca Empire. The Nazcas did not leave anything behind except burial places, so it is unknown whether they had writing and whether they “painted” the desert.
"Astronaut", drawing by Nazca
The Nazca Lines pose many questions to historians: who created them, when, why and how. In fact, many geoglyphs cannot be seen from the ground, so we can only assume that with the help of such patterns the ancient inhabitants of the valley communicated with the deity. In addition to the ritual, the astronomical significance of these lines cannot be ruled out.
We continue our series of stories about mysterious ancient objects. Today we will tell you about the Nazca geoglyphs in Peru, created many centuries before the rise of the Inca Empire, and which are the most important evidence of the existence of a mysterious ancient culture in Peru. These lines and geoglyphs are located on the Nazca plateau and reach tens of meters in length, so they are only visible from the air.
The German scientist Von Daniken, in his book “Answer to the Gods,” claims that these lines were created as signals for the landing of alien spaceships. And the German doctor of archeology Maria Reiche called these patterns a strange confirmation of the existence of the ancient Peruvian culture:
“The Nazca Lines are nothing less than the documented history of ancient Peruvian science. The ancient inhabitants of Peru created their own alphabet to describe the most important astronomical events. The Nazca Lines are pages of a book written in this strange alphabet.”
From the air you can observe various shapes such as large giant spiders, lizards, llamas, monkeys, dogs, hummingbirds, etc., not to mention zigzags and geometric designs. There are many unanswered questions regarding these lines. For example, how they remain intact after hundreds of years, or how they were created in such sizes, accurately recreating all the proportions. 
In 1927, Mejia Hespe, a student of the famous Julio Tello, the father of Peruvian archaeology, reported mysterious, incomprehensible geoglyphs on the territory of the Peruvian plateau. Initially, this was not given any importance; scientists were studying other more significant sites, such as Machu Picchu 
In the same year, US researcher Paul Kosok arrived in Peru, who was very attracted by the ancient history of Peru. On one of his first trips to the south of the country, he stopped at the top of a plateau and saw vast lines on both sides of the road. After careful examination, he was amazed to discover that one of the figures depicted the ideal flight form of a bird. Kosok spent almost 20 years researching the Nazca Lines; in 1946, he returned home, offering to study the drawings of the Nazca tribes to the German doctor of archeology Maria Reiche. Maria devoted her entire life to this work. 
Maria Reiche studied the Nazca Lines for 50 years. She explained how these lines were used by ancient Peruvian astronomers - they were a giant solar and lunar calendar, buried in the sand, legends and myths of the local people. 
The lines themselves are applied to the surface in the form of furrows up to 135 centimeters wide and up to 40-50 centimeters deep, while white stripes are formed on the black rocky surface. The following fact is also noted: since the white surface is heated less than the black one, a difference in pressure and temperature is created, which leads to the fact that these lines do not suffer in sandstorms.
The hummingbird has a length of 50 meters, the spider - 46, the condor stretches from beak to tail feathers for almost 120 meters, and the lizard has a length of up to 188 meters. Such enormous sizes of the drawings are admirable; almost all the drawings are made on this huge scale in the same manner, when the outline is outlined by one continuous line. The true form of the images can only be observed from a bird's eye view. There is no such natural elevation nearby, but there are medium-sized hills. But the higher you rise above the plateau, the smaller these drawings become and turn into incomprehensible scratches. 
Other animals captured by Nazca include a whale, a dog with long legs and a tail, two llamas, various birds such as herons, a pelican, a seagull, a hummingbird and a parrot. Reptiles include alligator, iguana and snake.
All geoglyphs are located on the map, with detailed names. Click to enlarge
So who created the Nazca geoglyphs? Locals or aliens? Is it a giant solar and lunar calendar or spaceship landmarks? It is impossible to know the answers to these questions, since the Nazca lines are one of the largest
The giant ground drawings of the Peruvian Nazca plateau are deservedly considered one of the most mysterious attractions not only of South America, but of the entire planet.
Mysterious lines folding into bizarre shapes cover about 500 square meters of the plateau. The lines that form the Nazca drawings are applied to the surface of the earth in a unique way - by excavating the soil, as a result of which trenches are formed up to 1.5 meters wide and up to 30-50 centimeters deep.
The lines form a huge number of geoglyphs - geometric and shaped patterns: over 10,000 stripes, more than 700 geometric shapes (mainly trapezoids, triangles and spirals), about 30 images of birds, animals, insects and flowers.
The Nazca paintings are impressive in their size. For example, the figures of a spider and a hummingbird are about 50 meters long, the figure of a condor extends to 120 meters, the image of a pelican - almost 290 meters. It is amazing that with such a gigantic size, the contours of the figures are continuous and surprisingly accurate. Almost perfectly smooth stripes cross the beds of dry rivers, climb high hills and descend from them, but do not deviate from the required direction. Modern science is not able to explain such a phenomenon.
These amazing ancient figures were first discovered by pilots only in the 30s of the last century.
This is explained by the fact that from the ground it is almost impossible to recognize figures stretching tens and hundreds of meters in length.
Despite decades of research, it remains a mystery how, by whom and for what purpose these drawings were made. The estimated “age” of the images is from fifteen to twenty centuries.
Today, about 30 designs, about 13 thousand lines and stripes, about 700 geometric figures (primarily triangles and trapezoids, as well as about a hundred spirals) are known.
Most researchers attribute the authorship of the drawings to representatives of the Nazca civilization, who inhabited the plateau before the appearance of the Incas. The level of development of the Nazca civilization has not been sufficiently studied, so it is impossible to say with certainty that its representatives possessed technologies that allowed them to create such drawings.
There are many versions explaining the purpose of the Nazca geoglyphs. The most common of them is astronomical. Its supporters consider the Nazca Lines to be a kind of astronomical calendar. The ritual version is also popular, according to which the giant drawings are intended to communicate with the heavenly Deity.
Multiple repetitions of the same lines and figures, as well as the identified mathematical patterns in their proportions and relative positions, give the right to assume that the Nazca drawings represent a kind of encrypted text. According to the most fantastic hypotheses, the figures on the plateau function as landmarks for the landing of alien ships.
Unfortunately, targeted and regular study of Nazca geoglyphs is not carried out in our time. The centuries-old mysteries of the famous Peruvian drawings are still waiting for their researchers.
Geoglyphs Nazca and Palpa from a copter. Peru 2014 hd
Satellite drawings of Nazca
These gigantic drawings are visible only from a great height: only when flying by plane over the Nazca plateau, which is located in the southern part of Peru, can you see this “art gallery” on the ground, consisting of images of birds and animals, flowers and insects. The regular contours of a lizard, hummingbird, monkey, condor and spider are intersected by numerous straight lines, spirals, triangles, trapezoids and other geometric shapes.
Where did this heritage come from, what was the purpose of the ancient artists who created desert masterpieces, and, finally, what technologies allowed them to maintain the ideal proportions of the drawings, the size of the smallest of which is 46 meters, and the largest - the pelican - reaches 285 meters? These questions have occupied the heads of scientists from the very moment the Nazca geoglyphs were discovered - since 1939, when a plane with an American archaeologist on board flew over the desert.
The technique for making all the drawings is the same: the outline of the image is a single unbroken line that stretches for tens and hundreds of meters and often crosses hills, depressions and dry river beds. Tell me, how, without the help of special instruments and control from a height, was it possible to draw all these straight lines, curves and broken lines, without ever deviating even half a degree from the given direction?
Yes, hundreds of meters - the lines of some geometric shapes stretch for 8 kilometers! Without the opportunity to rise high above the “canvas”, it is more than difficult to get an idea of the nature of the drawing and, moreover, the correctness of the direction taken. And that is not all. Careful studies of drawings and figures have shown that all geoglyphs are subject to strict mathematical laws.
How were these “canvases” created? Like many other geoglyphs, with the help of digging trenches: moving along a given contour, the ancient creators plowed the desert earth, digging up soil along the entire length of the pattern, 120-140 cm wide and 25-35 cm deep. Due to the peculiarities of the semi-desert climate, the drawings of the Nazca plate have survived to this day.
Another mystery that haunts researchers: how did it happen that the workers digging numerous trenches (remember that some lines are several kilometers long) did not leave any traces of their presence - at least trampled paths? By and large, pundits do not have exact answers to any of the pressing questions - only hypotheses.
Except that the time of creation of the drawings and lines was determined relatively accurately - the geoglyphs were formed before the 12th century, when the Incas settled the valley. This means that the authorship of the marvelous patterns is attributed to the predecessors of the Incas - the Nazca civilization. One can only guess about the purpose of creating a “gallery” in the desert. Based on the fact that the huge paintings are visible only from a great height, it is logical to assume that the ancient people who inhabited the desert tried to communicate with the deities in this way.
According to other versions, representatives of the Nazca civilization tried to reproduce a celestial map of constellations using patterns and drawings or transmitted an encrypted message to someone. One of the idle assumptions is completely devoid of common sense: supposedly the signs inscribed on the face of the earth served as a landing strip for alien ships. One thing is clear: there are still far more questions in the matter of the geoglyphs of the Nazca plateau than answers - huge drawings in the middle of the desert remain an unsolved mystery to this day.
