Mystery has a limit, but this mystery of the secret sand drawings at Nazca desert is spell bounding. The Nazca Lines are a series of geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert, a high arid plateau that stretches more than 80 kilometres (50 mi) between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana in Peru. Although some local geoglyphs resemble Paracas motifs, these are largely believed to have been created by the Nazca culture between 200 BCE and 700 CE. There are hundreds of individual figures, ranging in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks or orcas, llamas, and lizards.
The lines are shallow designs in the ground where the reddish pebbles that cover the surrounding landscape have been removed, revealing the whitish earth underneath. Hundreds are simple lines or geometric shapes, and more than seventy are natural or human figures. The largest are over 200 metres (660 ft) across. Scholars differ in interpreting what the lines were for but generally ascribe religious significance to them. "The geometric ones could indicate the flow of water or be connected to rituals to summon water. The spiders, birds, and plants could be fertility symbols. Other possible explanations include: irrigation schemes, giant astronomical calendars, or landing for spaceships."The dry, windless, stable climate of the plateau has preserved the lines to this day, for the most part. Extremely rare changes in weather may temporarily alter the general designs. Now coming to the point, how were these enormous drawings made? In an age when there were no aeroplanes or no means of flying, how could such gigantic drawings, whose view is complete only from space would have been made? There are lots of such questions but still no answer.
Moreover, what was the purpose of these drawings? No big task is done without a purpose. So there must be some purpose for constructing these gigantic drawings. One theory of the purpose of the lines is that the Nazca people's motivations were religious and that the images were constructed so that gods in the sky could see them. Kosok and Reiche advanced one of the earliest reasons given for the Nazca Lines: that they were intended to point to the places on the distant horizon where the sun and other celestial bodies rose or set. This hypothesis was evaluated by two different experts in archaeoastronomy, Gerald Hawkins and Anthony Aveni, and they both concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support an astronomical explanation.
There is another theory too that states that he Nazca Lines presuppose some form of manned flight in order to see the figures properly and that a hot air balloon was the only possible available technology. Woodmann actually made a hot air balloon using materials and techniques that he believed would have been available to people at the time, in order to test this hypothesis. The balloon flew, after a fashion, but there is no evidence in support of Nazca-era hot air balloons, and Woodman's work has been rebutted.
However these mystic drawings give a sense of creativity. It proves that nothing in this world is impossible. The creation of such massive painting in such a primitive age is a testimony to the result of determination and creativity!
Friday, July 10, 2009
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