What are the Nazca Lines?

What are the Nazca lines and what is their purpose?
They are a series of geoglyphs and lines in the desert of Nazca, Peru.

They contain 300 geometric figures and 70 biomorphs which are mainly animals or plants. These drawings on the desert are large enough to make them noticeable only from the air.
The largest biomorph is 1200 square feet surface. How were they created? They were made by removing rocks from the Earth in the desert and thus uncovering the clay beneath.


This clay has lime which protects the lines from erosion. The lines can be seen from few hills but mostly from a plane. They were first mentioned in 1553. Scholars produced similar lines by recreating the life conditions of Nazca tribes and felt they used an air balloon to see them while creating them.


The meaning of the geoglyphs is unknown. The chance to be built by aliens was considered but what aliens would build such naive graffiti on a planet far away? The chance that they would be fake or built by local tribes is higher. And the question still remains…

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