The Nazca Lines

There are a lot of Nazca lines. They are called Nazca lines because they where made by the Nazca people. But even though the Nazca people made most of them, and all the animal shaped ones, the Chavin and Paracas peoples also made some of them. There are around 1170 lines, 800 are straight lines, 300 are squares and other geometric and 70 are animals and plant pictures. The ground in the Nazca line area is covered pebbles that are iron oxide-coated, giving them deep a rust color that only reaches to around 12 inches deep, so the Nazca people dug down about 15 inches deep so that the much lighter tan colored dirt was visible, making an image best seen from the sky. There are a few puzzling questions about the Nazca lines, one of which is how they managed to dig that much, because some of the longest are 30 miles long, and seeing as the Nazca desert is one of the driest places on earth, and digging, especially 15 inch deep, 13 inch wide, and 30 mile long holes, is thirsty work. But the Nazca people did have llamas, and they used them as pack animals, so it is not to far of a jump to assume they attached a large metal blade to the back of the llamas, so that the llamas would carve out the lines instead of the humans doing it. Another question is how they managed to make such large designs on the ground, seeing as they wouldn’t be able to see what they were carving as they carved it. We only really saw them when planes and helicopters went over the area, and we are still finding more with drones. Well, there are foothills in the area that the Nazca could of built small towers on, so that the overseers could have stood on so as to see how the image looked. Another question is why they put so much time and energy into these designs. The designs could be offerings to their gods, who they thought looked like condors that lived in the mountains. That would explain why so many designs look like birds, but the others are less likely for this theory, but still plausible. Though, the names of some of them just do not fit the image. Like the Nazca Dog (bottom picture) looks nothing like a dog! Although, the spider and monkey are pretty good.