Περού
NAZCA
Time
magazine March 1974
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ ΣΚΕΨΗ
(φωτο από το δημοσίευμα)
(φωτο από το δημοσίευμα)
Mystery
on the Mesa
The long
strips crisscrossing the desert veer from a straight line by only a few yards
every mile. The accompanying triangles, rectangles and trapezoids are laid out
with equal precision. In their midst are drawings of huge spiders, a giant
nine-fingered monkey, birds, fish and reptiles, some of them so large they are
recognizable only from the air.
For decades
these ancient patterns, spreading across 30 miles of Peru's desolate Nazca
plain, have confounded archaeologists. Why were they so painstakingly etched
out of the bleak mesa? Could they have been signals to the gods, or — as the
current movie Chariots of the Gods? Suggests
— to extraterrestrial visitors?
The drawings
are at least 1,000 years old, the work of a sophisticated pre-Inca people who
survived with the help of elaborate irrigation systems. To create their desert
art, these early Peruvians removed strips of the topmost layer of stone, piece
by piece, exposing the lighter-colored dirt underneath. They apparently made
their precise markings without modern tools or surveying gear or even a high
platform from which to view their progress. But how?
After nearly
half a lifetime of sleeping in an adobe hut, subsisting on goat cheese and
fruit and working under a blistering sun, Maria Reiche, a tall, lean
70-year-old German scientist, is satisfied that she can answer many of the
questions raised by the Nazcan figures.
“It’s
basically simple,” says Reiche, who was trained in mathematics at Hamburg
University. First, she explains, the artists apparently worked out their
designs in advance on small 6-ft. by 6-ft. plots still visible near many of the
larger figures. On these dirt sketch pads, she says, they could break down each
drawing into its component parts. Straight lines could be drawn by stretching a
rope between two stakes. Curves represented more of a challenge. The ancient
draftsmen apparently dealt with it by breaking each curve into smaller, linked
arcs. Recognizing that the arcs represented sections of the circumferences of
different-sized circles, they could have anchored one end of a string to a rock
or stake at the center of the appropriate circle and with the other end traced
out the necessary arc. Once the designers established the proper relationships
between lines, arcs, center points and radii for a figure, says Reiche, they
could plot them on a large scale for the full-sized drawing — even without an
overview of the whole area. Proof of her theory, she says, lies in the fact
that many drawings are pockmarked with stones and holes at points that are
indeed centers for appropriate arcs.
A greater
puzzle perhaps is what prompted such prodigious effort. In his bestseller Chariots of the Gods? (on which the
movie is based), Science Fiction Writer Erich von Daniken says that the lines —
which do, in fact, resemble airport runways — may have been landing strips for
otherworldly visitors. A huge, cliffside trident, overlooking the nearby Bay of
Pisco, may even have pointed the way to them, he says.
But most
scholars, including Reiche, flatly reject that farfetched idea; for one thing,
no extraterrestrial artifacts have ever been found at the site. Scientific
observers lean to a more down-to-earth explanation first proposed by the late
archaeologist Paul Kosok of Long Island University, who found the drawings in
1939 while looking for ancient irrigation systems.
Astronomy Book.
Kosok noticed
that some of the lines are aimed directly at points on the horizon where the
sun rises on the longest and shortest days of the year. Other strips point
toward the spot where the Pleiades (a constellation considered important by
many ancient peoples) rose during the era when the drawings were made. Calling
the desert plateau possibly “the largest astronomy book in the world,” Kosok
speculated that it was used by Nazca’s astronomer-priests to mark the passage
of the seasons — important to people who cherished every drop of rainfall — and
perhaps even to predict eclipses.
In his recent
book, Beyond Stonehenge, Astronomer
Gerald Hawkins disagrees. He says that he could find no more than an apparently
random matchup between the lines and the sun, moon or stars.
There is
scholarly agreement on one point: unless protective measures are taken soon,
the markings (which have been preserved by the dry climate) may not survive
much longer. The Pan American Highway cuts directly through some of the
drawings, and many of them have already been churned up beyond recognition by
car wheels. Several years ago, while a Peruvian armored column was maneuvering
in the area, it wiped out the head of a huge lizard.
Only the
fiery Maria Reiche’s determination acts as a buffer between the drawings and
their elimination by civilized man. Often she will intentionally misdirect
tourists away from the site, or warn them, only half in jest, that if they appear
at night they might find her dancing in the nude across the desert. She has
also waged a singlehanded campaign to get the Peruvian government to fence off
the huge area. So far it has refused to foot the bill.
Time, March 25, 1974, p. 94.
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[ ανάρτηση 12 Ιανουαρίου 2025 :
Περού NAZCA
Time magazine March 1974
ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΗ
ΣΚΕΨΗ
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