Theory On Nazca Lines

Alright, Most, if not all of us here on ATS know what the Nazca liens are, if you dont : images.google.ca...

Anyways, alot of people suggest that aliens or the such mapped them out for the builders by flying above, another theory (which may be correct) is that it may have been possible for them to have hot air balloons.

I thought of this theory while trying to sleep last night (if someone else has offered this theory just tell me, as im unaware of it):

Astral Projection(AP) or Out of body experiances(OOBE) are pretty common and is a reality for people who focus and make it a goal to achieve it, it is where you consciously exit your body and it is possible to travel anywhere you want. (for more info check the Paranormal section) What if the builders of the Nazca lines figured out how to AP and used it to exit their bodies and look at the land below them and slowly they built the lines to such percision as they were made.

Many people claim to have Astral Projected and i believe them, but i won't be completly convinced until i have one myself. Heck, if you look int he Paranormal section theirs many threads on it including one in which a person rejoyces at the fact that she was able to do it with the help of a "friend".

Its a very real possiblility that the builders of the Nazca Lines figured out how to AP and maybe they regarded it as a gift from the gods, so they used it to build the great geoglyphs we see today in southern Peru.

Once again this is just a theory that came to me while trying to sleep so i have no links or evidence at the moment to support it.

EDIT: sorry for not naming the civilization that built the lines as i can't seem to remember them at the moment, and im busy on school work so i cant look it up

Noiro

[edit on 7-9-2005 by noiro]

How about the builders drew the designs in the sand, and using a grid copying system just magnified them. The ancient Chinese, Romans, and Egyptians used the same method. Why do people assume South American natives were not able to figure out the technique? Racism? Ethnocentrism?

Originally posted by dave_54
How about the builders drew the designs in the sand, and using a grid copying system just magnified them. The ancient Chinese, Romans, and Egyptians used the same method. Why do people assume South American natives were not able to figure out the technique? Racism? Ethnocentrism?

Honestly, I think that it is not so much racism or ethnocentrism as it is the assumption that ancient cultures were somehow more spiritual then we today are and were capable of a myriad of spiritual practices. This phenomenon is hardly new - the concept of the 'noble savage' in tune with untapped realms of spirituality can be seen throughout the history of European exploration and colonisation (Reference).

As for the Nazca lines themselves, I wholeheartedly agree with dave_54 that they were almost certainly envisioned and planned before their actual construction and then were actually created through the use of a grid system. For an example of how such a system might work, and to learn how to make your own geoglyph or biomorph, check out this article at The Unnatural Museum.

Although no advanced technology or spiritual connection would have been necessary to construct the lines at Nazca, their construction was no small feat. Constructed by (surprise, surprise) the Nazca peoples, who lived in the region between 200BCE and 600BCE (Reference 1 (Skeptic's Dictionary); Reference 2 (Wikipedia)), the lines include not only literal straight lines:


A satellite view of the Nazca region showing the straightness of some of the lines.

but also depictions of geometric shapes, humans and animals, including a hummingbird, spider, lizard and monkey, to name but a few:


This monkey from the Nazca region is deformed - it has four fingers on its right hand and five on its left.

The actual process by which the shapes were made was incredibly simple - the Nazca people simply removed the iron-rich rocks, stones and dirt to reveal the lighter coloured subsoil. A lack of serious rain in the region has allowed the shapes to stay virtually intact to the present day:


This photograph, taken at ground level, demonstrates the process used to construct the Nazca lines.

The one aspect of the Nazca lines which I personally find much more interesting then how they were built is why they were built - what purpose did they serve? Setting aside the implausible notions of an airport for visiting alien craft, we are left with a number of intriguing possibilities.

Theories in the past have included: the lines were used for running footraces. This seems highly improbable, given that the construction of the lines was a monumental undertaking that would have taken hundreds of years (Reference (Skeptic's Dictionary)). Another theory is that the shapes represented an enormous calendar by which the Nazca people could keep track of the seasons and, subsequently, important agricultural dates. Whilst this seems more plausible, it is difficult to prove given the fact that, with so many lines and shapes and formations, it would be almost impossible not to observe some form of astronomical alignment purely by chance. Lacking a written explanation by the builders themselves, we simply do not know. Indeed, in 1968, an American astronomer, attempted to calculate how many of the lines coincided in alignment with significant astronomical events. He found that the number that was significant was only equal to the number that would have been significant through chance alone (Reference 1 (The Unnatural Museum); Reference 2 (Global Water Partners)). A more recent theory argues that the shapes and lines were built to mark the presence of faults which may control groundwater. You can read more about this theory at the Global Water Partners Nazca Lines page. Their site states their hypothesis in the following terms:

Due to insufficient surface water in the river system, the ancient inhabitants of the drainage settled in locations adjacent to geological faults because the springs and water resources associated with these features provide a more reliable source of fresh water during the dry season than the rivers. Thus, the ancients marked their water supply distribution system with geoglyphs just as a modern city delineates its underground utilities with maps.

Personally, I am interested in the actual depiction of the animal figures. It occurs to me that, given the care and time and manpower that went into constructing them, why do some of the figures look the way they do? The monkey, for example, is deformed. This may have been accidental, but surely if everything was mapped out before construction began it is not unreasonable to assume that the deformity was deliberate. It just seems to me, on a purely aesthetic level, that the figures seem deliberatley surreal or even terrifying. Take this picture of a whale, for example:



It just occurs to me that some of the figures are depicted in ways that the builders may have found discomforting or even frightening. If the lines were a message or a request to the gods, I wonder what their purpose was?

[edit on 7/9/05 by Jeremiah25]

Good speculation, Jeremiah.

The notion of 'UFO airports' is silly. Ever see a spiral runway? And why would aircraft capable of interstellar flight need a runway anyway? Anyone needing a picture of a monkey or whale to land an aircraft cannot be a very advanced civilization.

I think they were just religious icons. A means of honoring the gods and imploring their graces. Deities living in the sky is a cultural universal found around the world (and it has nothing to do with extraterrestial visitors). The sky was an unachievable location. You can cross large bodies of water, walk great distances, and climb tall mountains, but no matter how you tried, you could not visit the sky. So the sky became something sacred and the gods live in sacred locations. They attempted to communicate with the gods they only way they knew -- with big pictures visible from above. The pictures were of things they knew and had cultural significance to them. Was a four fingered monkey part of an old legend or mythology? That is speculative, but possible. It could explain the riddle.

Even in contemporary culture 'Heaven' is often thought of as, well, up in the heavens. (It is not up there, of course. In contemporary theology Heaven is not a physical place but a state of being.)

An experiment was carried out to show that the Nazca could build ballons.

My theory is that they wanted to reach to the sky to touch the gods, and when they couldnt get high enough they made big pictures for them. No evidence for this really, but it makes more sense that 'Aliens!'

I have had the pleasure of visiting Ica and Nazca and flying over the desert several times.

I tend to agree with dave_54 and Jeremiah on the engineering simplicity of the "project". The graphics were inscribed on a grand scale with remarkable accuracy, to please the Gods looking down upon them. But there is no decisive proof of this, as no ancestral explanation has survived at all.

I like that part of the old Peruvian cultures. I'm not so much into the human sacrifices performed at various altars around Macchu Picchu and many of the latter day cities. *Digs out photo of MA performing "fun" simulated sacrifice there and decides not to scan or post it.* MA Today is not into occult ceremonies, much.

I thought Erich von Daniken had had his day.

I have just had an idea that I thought I would run past you. I was wondering about the various combination of geometric shapes and animals present in the Nazca lines and found it strange that intricate depictions of exotic animals should exist alongside seemingly random lines or shapes.

When I first looked at the various designs, I found it relatively easy to dismiss the simple straight lines and geometric patterns, assigning them little value when compared with the beauty of the animal depictions. But then I remembered that it must have taken the Nazca people hundreds of years to form the lines and shapes in their entirety. Why would anybody go to the trouble of creating these huge (the longest is over 9 miles) lines if they served no purpose?

So I began to look at the plain as a whole, as a true combination of shapes, lines and animals, assigning equal value to each subset. Why this elaborate blend of strange animals and shapes and lines? The thought I came up with was that the plain may have been a story, told on a gigantic scale. It would have to have been a story that was so important that it needed to be preserved indefinitely, etched into the Earth itself for permanence. It struck me that, here in Australia, the Aboriginal people believe that the world was sung into being long ago in the Dreamtime by spirits. These spirits often took the form of animals. Allow the following quote to illustrate my point:

Around the beginning the Ancestral Beings rose from the folds of the earth and stretching up to the scorching sun they called, "I am!" As each Ancestor sang out their name, "I am Snake", "I am Honey Ant", they created the most sacred of their songs. Slowly they began to move across the barren land naming all things and thus bringing them into being. Their words forming verses as the Ancestors walked about, they sang mountains, rivers and deserts into existence. Wherever they went, their songs remained, creating a web of Songlines over the Country. As they travelled the Ancestors hunted, ate, made love, sang and danced leaving a trail of Dreaming along the songlines. Finally at the end of their journey the Ancestral Beings sang 'back into' the earth where they can be seen as land formations, sleeping.

Reference

But what is really interesting is the belief that the locations visited and created by the spirits must be revisited and the old songs sung there anew, to preserve the land indefinitely. The stories must be retold so that the land will be forever preserved. There needs to be a permanence to the story. Perhaps, in the same way, the Nazca lines are some form of story, or myth, or legend, that had to be permanately preserved for practical or religious reasons, or some combination of both. Perhaps the seemingly random straight lines and swirls and rectangles represent landmarks as the Nazca people understood them. The lines may represent a journey, or the swirls may represent a body of water. The animals might be the spirits responsible for creating or guarding these landmarks. The Nazca region is an arid desert. Perhaps the lines tell a story about how the spirits created the land and told the people where to find water. In many of the Aboriginal tales, the journeys and creator spirits are often linked with a series of waterholes. The story essentially tells people how the spirits created the waterholes in the arid desert, where they should journey to find them and how to preserve them indefinitely. The following quote describes the importance of knowledge of waterhole locations and its incoporation into the sacred:

The inclusion of important water soakages in ritual Aboriginal sand paintings was necessary survival knowledge.

Reference

Maybe the Nazca lines are a similar type of story, etched into the plain to ensure its permanence. This would explain why there is a combination of geometric shapes (representing landmark features and acting as a map of sorts) and animals (representing the spirits who formed the land or who guard the locations).

Now then, if the plain is a story, why construct it so that it can only be seen from the air? Why the huge scale? Several reasons spring to mind: the size of the lines and the amount of work and devotion put into their construction may have been an effort to placate the gods or the spirits, to demonstrate to them that the Nazca people were keeping their story/ies alive in a manner only the gods could read. The paths may have been walked generation after generation, as the elder members imparted knowledge of the stories and the landmarks to the young. For example, an older member of the Nazca may walk around the spider feature, telling the stories of the spider spirit to a young initiate as they went and pointing out valuable information relating to the geometric lines and their relation to important landmarks. Finally, the sheer size of the lines may have been a deliberate effort to ensure their permanence, to create something of reverence that would, by its very nature, require the effort of many generations, thereby ensuring its longevity.

So there you have my hypothesis. I don't know what the lines and shapes on the plain were for and unless we develop time travel none of us ever will. But this is one theory - that the shapes represented a story that was intimately bound to religion and the land, with animals representing spirits and lines and shapes representing important landmarks, the knowledge of which was required for survival and thus made part of the land itself. What do you guys think?

[edit on 8/9/05 by Jeremiah25]

Some decent reasoning, here, but you need to go back over it again and look at the original stories of the people.

Originally posted by Jeremiah25
When I first looked at the various designs, I found it relatively easy to dismiss the simple straight lines and geometric patterns, assigning them little value when compared with the beauty of the animal depictions. But then I remembered that it must have taken the Nazca people hundreds of years to form the lines and shapes in their entirety. Why would anybody go to the trouble of creating these huge (the longest is over 9 miles) lines if they served no purpose?

Actually, it doesn't take that long. And rock art is full of abstract shapes. Some are conceptualized versions of deities (Tlaloc is one that gets almost unrecognizable in some areas.) Others are representations that don't make sense to our modern eyes (because we are so used to looking at representational art.) The rock art symbol for peyote here in south Texas is a set of black dots... but elsewhere, dots mean other things.

You need to look at the art of the culture first.

The thought I came up with was that the plain may have been a story, told on a gigantic scale. It would have to have been a story that was so important that it needed to be preserved indefinitely, etched into the Earth itself for permanence.

A lovely and interesting idea, and one that I like. However, I'm not sure that it was done as a single unit. Rock art/geoglyphs are occasionally recontextualized by later groups.

But what is really interesting is the belief that the locations visited and created by the spirits must be revisited and the old songs sung there anew, to preserve the land indefinitely. The stories must be retold so that the land will be forever preserved. There needs to be a permanence to the story. Perhaps, in the same way, the Nazca lines are some form of story, or myth, or legend, that had to be permanately preserved for practical or religious reasons, or some combination of both. Perhaps the seemingly random straight lines and swirls and rectangles represent landmarks as the Nazca people understood them. The lines may represent a journey, or the swirls may represent a body of water. The animals might be the spirits responsible for creating or guarding these landmarks.

Really, an interesting idea.

*AFTER* I finish these three big papers, I'll look into it. I do like the concept, though.

The Nazca region is an arid desert. Perhaps the lines tell a story about how the spirits created the land and told the people where to find water. In many of the Aboriginal tales, the journeys and creator spirits are often linked with a series of waterholes. The story essentially tells people how the spirits created the waterholes in the arid desert, where they should journey to find them and how to preserve them indefinitely. The following quote describes the importance of knowledge of waterhole locations and its incoporation into the sacred:

I seem to recall a recent article that links the lines with water in a relatively reasonable fashion.

Now then, if the plain is a story, why construct it so that it can only be seen from the air? Why the huge scale? Several reasons spring to mind: the size of the lines and the amount of work and devotion put into their construction may have been an effort to placate the gods or the spirits, to demonstrate to them that the Nazca people were keeping their story/ies alive in a manner only the gods could read. The paths may have been walked generation after generation, as the elder members imparted knowledge of the stories and the landmarks to the young. For example, an older member of the Nazca may walk around the spider feature, telling the stories of the spider spirit to a young initiate as they went and pointing out valuable information relating to the geometric lines and their relation to important landmarks. Finally, the sheer size of the lines may have been a deliberate effort to ensure their permanence, to create something of reverence that would, by its very nature, require the effort of many generations, thereby ensuring its longevity.

I don't know the cultural practices of the tribes, but it's an interesting line of thought!

Actually, it doesn't take that long. And rock art is full of abstract shapes. Some are conceptualized versions of deities (Tlaloc is one that gets almost unrecognizable in some areas.) Others are representations that don't make sense to our modern eyes (because we are so used to looking at representational art.) The rock art symbol for peyote here in south Texas is a set of black dots... but elsewhere, dots mean other things. You need to look at the art of the culture first.

You're right, of course. The next step is clearly research into the art and mythology of the Nazca people, to determine common motifs and to see if any links exist between art, symbolism and the depiction of myths or landmarks.

Some extremely limited, very inital research seems to indicate at least a tenuous link:

The purpose of the drawings is uncertain, but it is believed to be connected to their beliefs and economical systems. According to anthropologist Johan Reinhard, the Nazca people believed that mountain gods protected humans and controlled the weather. These gods also affected water sources and land fertility since they are associated with lakes, rivers and the sea. Each figure might have a different meaning for the Nazca people depending on their social class.

The straight lines, as sacred paths, from Nazca to Andean highlands are still used to bring water. Today, these lines are maintained for the religious merit of the people. The triangles and trapezoids are made for the flow of water and are placed near the river. People often have ceremonies beside the water flow. The figure of spirals depicts seashells and the ocean, and the figure of zigzags illustrates lightning and river. The bird figures, representing a heron, pelican or condor, are believed to be signs of faithfulness to the mountain gods. Other sea birds are associated with the ocean. Monkeys and lizards represent the hope for water. Shark or killer whale motifs show the success of fishing. Spiders, millipedes and plants are associated with the rain. Even though the Nazca River was located near this cultural area, river water was not enough to support their agricultural needs.

Reference

And this from another source:

it seems that the straight lines going through the desert have constituted some sort of ceremonial roads. It seems that the triangle figures, in turn, have connections with water veins underground.

Reference

And again:

Even the theory that animals in the geoglyphs were symbols of mythological god-protectors, or were linked to water, had an agricultural basis. Life on the desert-oasis meant knowing how to adapt to an unyielding environment, and hard work in extracting springs of life from it. These ancient Peruvians mastered the challenge. Successful at irrigation, they improved their crops, extended cultivated areas, and built terraced pyramids. And during this era, they developed and perfected a new art form: Ground art... using the surface of the earth itself to create wonderful works, which, in this special environment, would be frozen in time.

Reference

Hardly gospel, but at least it sounds as though this theory has been raised before, so there may be some research material floating around somewhere. Perhaps this theory may not turn out to be as crazy as my brain first told me it was?

[edit on 8/9/05 by Jeremiah25]

From what I've read coming from an Inka Shaman Don Antonio said to be ancient Shaman sacred geometry of the Inka Shamans now a forgotten practice...they used them for shapeshifting rituals or something of the sort

Originally posted by Jeremiah25

excellent explanation/speculation. it is by far the most intelligent one i have ever read. sure its fun to believe the ancients were in contact with an alien race, and that their lines had some power, but your hopothesis of a grid enlargement system and messages to the gods hit the "logic and practicality nail" of right on the head.

who knows, perhaps that civilization was just having a good time, thinking about the mystery and headaches thier work would cause in the future?

and about oobes and aps, they only exist if they believe they exist. they cannot be proven. their existence is based on nothing more than faith. to say they exist is faith, not truth, speaking.

[edit on 8-9-2005 by purelogik]

hi there guys. just throught that i would add my questions to the mix...


1: out of the animals depicted. Which are part of there everyday animals?

2: for animals that are from the sea, how far from sea are all there lines?

3: Are the non indiginous animals to there area, are they depicted in a good anitomical way? or were they copyed from some ones painting?

4: wht is the ratio between the animals eg. land/sea reptile/mamale etc.?

5: Is the direction of each animal. pointing to the location where the animals live in relation to the lines?

6: are the ends of each straight line, pointing to high ground. or stopping on a high point?

7: On the spot where the BIG straight line runs throught the animals, which one was drawn first? why would they over ride each other?




all the best, also i delive that there is more lines inland to where they lived, in the mountains, and there are many lines that run from one mountain to the next, and there are what appears to be shrines at the end of some. i will try to remember the link.

hi im new,and got somthing interesting to share.
i have searched but cant find it in here.

i was strolling around in the old space race history and i suddenly connected a few dots, for me this is very possible seen our own use of these kind of lines to map our earth in space.

well look at it for yourselves, i find it quite amazing



______________


the explanation that these are religious lines to walk on is flawed at least.
we send a space map on 2 satellites,
when we look at nasca lines, you cant miss the hugeness of them and can only be interpreted from a high distance.

you cant miss the meaning of these lines after seeeing what we send out to inform our location of earth.

oh wait like the first info we send we portrayed ourselves, a huge mistake (they admitted later on, look we are here and our bodies are extremely fragile... lol)
but wait, what do we see here.

its in the middle bottom of the line drawing, and it waves friendly like *hello, we`ve been here we left our mark, come visit us some time!


anyone else ever heard of this speculation?
it stand up for me, bu hey i found it myself

greetings telfyr

Its quite funny you should mention astral projection because there happens to be a 'mandala' formation in the Nazca area as well.

Google Earth 'Mandala' KML

And, for those of you who don't have GE, here's a pic of it.

reply to post by Mad Simian


never really began to dig in astral projection, im getting drawn to it lately.

i really think Nazca and its works is the key to unlock a lot of unsolved mystery`s , and even more new mystery`s

and i firmly believe that we will find way more new images etc

reply to post by telfyr


Actually, to be quite honest and despite it looking remarkably like a mandala, it looks to me more like some kind of site similar to Woodhenge(Stonehenge's wooden counterpart) but that's just me. Its definitely food for thought either way.

Also, one of the major misconceptions about the Nazca Lines is that they are only found in and around the valley proper. If you have Google Earth, you can find many more in the surrounding mountains and nearby smaller valleys.

[edited to fix grammatical errors]

[edit on 1/24/2010 by Mad Simian]

humm, you could be correct there.
an way more advanced "blueprint"perhaps, misunderstood and forgotten

to be hounest, i see a sort of tool on the ground to start mapping out where they are perhaps. or plotting a sort of star map for us to use when we can.

way more plausible than the BS that its wrapped in now.

look close at the spaceman, you see he is wearing a backpack.

what we see there has been planned out and well thought of.


yeah i knew that there are more bu never really looked in to it.

verry interesting

i haven't got a theory it's i have been addicted to these lines for a while now, i got drawin on google earth to see if i could make anything out of it, i'd spent months...... then my harddrive died not good. then when i came back to it after a month or so, after zoomin out a bit i noticed what looked like a dragon head, it even had an eye, so i zoomed out more, and there was a dragon. my girlfriend says i've been stairin at the lines to long!. so i looked around and i saw a face zoomed out more and plain as day is a face

this is the dragon


this is the face (head with long hair)
www.facebook.com...


this is the dragon head


here is a vid i made to show you


please let me know what you think

oh yeah p.s the 'mandala' that looks more like the navigation tools on google earth.

People like making things big... pyramids, temples, coliseum, sketch art. For all we know they made the drawings because they thought a civilization lived on the clouds. Maybe they thought the sun could see them and would reward them with good weather and rain.