The town of Nazca is really only known for one thing - the famous Nazca Lines. Never heard of it? We didn’t either until Amy read, “Fingerprints of the Gods” and few years ago. If you’re interested in a brief overview, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines.
To set the scene, think of traveling out to the middle of the desert where it is VERY dry and hot…pretty much Arizona. Here were there is virtually no rainfall, an ancient civilization felt compelled to draw geoglyphs in the sand. There are hundreds of figures, but about 10 are the most obvious and well-known: the whale, spider, hummingbird, fish, monkey, and a human figure called "the astronaut" because of the appearance of boot-like shoes and a rounded head. As with the candelabra we saw Pisco, no one knows exactly when or why they were created or what the symbols mean. There are many theories, all fun to consider. Everyone likes a good mystery! Some say it is a detailed water map, others say they are religious symbols or astronomical representations, and others...aliens!
We splurged (we seem to be doing that a lot!) and booked ourselves two tickets on a small aircraft to get a birds-eye view of the lines. This is really the only way to see them. It was a quick trip, but definitely worth it. Again, we have never seen anything like this. Check out the pics below, I posted the ones that are the easiest to make out.
After visiting The Lines, we had another day in Nazca, so we decided to visit a museum. This one was pretty uninteresting at first (although, it would have been an anthropologist’s dream!), since it was pretty much a museum explaining a series of archeological digs – a bit on the dry side – until, we entered the part of where they displayed all their findings. This museum had pottery from 2000 years ago. Some of the pottery had representations of people of different ethnicities. This was shocking. Haven’t we heard that these people had no contact with other societies, especially before the Spanish came, yet here in this pottery are not just brown faces, but black, tan, and white faces too. There are also several pieces depicting what is clearly a man of Asian descent, with Asian features and a thin, long mustache. This means that either they had contact with these people or knew about them somehow. We kinda didn't know what to think. Our minds were blown. There is so much we don't know about what happened in the past! The mystery deepens!
To set the scene, think of traveling out to the middle of the desert where it is VERY dry and hot…pretty much Arizona. Here were there is virtually no rainfall, an ancient civilization felt compelled to draw geoglyphs in the sand. There are hundreds of figures, but about 10 are the most obvious and well-known: the whale, spider, hummingbird, fish, monkey, and a human figure called "the astronaut" because of the appearance of boot-like shoes and a rounded head. As with the candelabra we saw Pisco, no one knows exactly when or why they were created or what the symbols mean. There are many theories, all fun to consider. Everyone likes a good mystery! Some say it is a detailed water map, others say they are religious symbols or astronomical representations, and others...aliens!
We splurged (we seem to be doing that a lot!) and booked ourselves two tickets on a small aircraft to get a birds-eye view of the lines. This is really the only way to see them. It was a quick trip, but definitely worth it. Again, we have never seen anything like this. Check out the pics below, I posted the ones that are the easiest to make out.
After visiting The Lines, we had another day in Nazca, so we decided to visit a museum. This one was pretty uninteresting at first (although, it would have been an anthropologist’s dream!), since it was pretty much a museum explaining a series of archeological digs – a bit on the dry side – until, we entered the part of where they displayed all their findings. This museum had pottery from 2000 years ago. Some of the pottery had representations of people of different ethnicities. This was shocking. Haven’t we heard that these people had no contact with other societies, especially before the Spanish came, yet here in this pottery are not just brown faces, but black, tan, and white faces too. There are also several pieces depicting what is clearly a man of Asian descent, with Asian features and a thin, long mustache. This means that either they had contact with these people or knew about them somehow. We kinda didn't know what to think. Our minds were blown. There is so much we don't know about what happened in the past! The mystery deepens!
