Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

In the 1930's international air travel literally took off.

 

 

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Panam was the first airline to carry passengers to the Caribbean and South America using the giant flying clippers.

 

 

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The Americas route took in all of the major cities.

 

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En route to Lima over the Nazca desert in Southern Peru, passengers reported seeing strange images – gigantic geoglyphs - on the high plateau that stretches more than 80 kilometres between the towns of Nazca and Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana about 400 km south of Lima.

 

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The Nazca desert is one of the driest on Earth and maintains a temperature around 25 °C (77 °F) all year round.

 

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The lack of wind has helped keep the lines uncovered and visible to the present day.

 

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The Nazca Lines are thought to have been created by the Nazca culture between 400 and 650 AD.

 

 

Edited April 19, 2014 by Flex Mentallo

[Flex Mentallo]

Most of the complex has been perfectly preserved. The largest figures are over 200 metres (660 ft) across.

 

 

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The Nazca people used simple tools and surveying equipment to construct the lines. Wooden stakes have been found still in the ground at the end of some lines, which support the theory.

 

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One such stake was carbon-dated and was the basis for establishing the age of the design complex.

 

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The scholar Joe Nickell of the University of Kentucky has reproduced the figures by using tools and technology available to the Nazca people. The National Geographic called his work "remarkable in its exactness" when compared to the actual lines.

 

With careful planning and simple technologies, a small team of people could recreate even the largest figures within days, without any aerial assistance.

 

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When the reddish-brown iron oxide-coated pebbles that cover the surface are removed the light-colored clay earth which is exposed in the bottom of the trench produces lines which contrast sharply in color and tone with the surrounding land surface. This sublayer contains high amounts of lime which, with the morning mist, hardens to form a protective layer that shields the lines from winds, thereby preventing erosion.

 

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The Nazca "drew" several hundred simple but huge curvilinear animal and human figures by this technique. The area encompassing the lines is nearly 500 square kilometres

 

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Scholars differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but in general they ascribe religious significance to them.

 

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Paul Kosok, a historian from Long Island University, is credited as the first scholar to seriously study the Nazca Lines. In 1940 he flew over the lines and realized that one was in the shape of a humming bird.

 

 

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He was joined by Maria Reiche, a German mathematician and archaeologist to help figure out the purpose of the Nazca Lines.

 

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Reiche, “the lady of the desert”, was to make the study of the Nazca lines her life’s work until her death in 1998.

 

 

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During her life she received numerous honors and acknowledgement, especially from the town of Nazca that named her "Nazca's Favorite Daughter".

 

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In 1992, the Government of Peru granted her Peruvian nationality in recognition of her work carried out through 50 years. In 1993 she was honored by the Government with the Medal of Merit, "Orden del Sol" in the degree of Great Cross by the Peruvian Prime Minister. She was buried in Nazca with Honors of State.

 

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"It was a kind of destiny. When I first came to Peru by sea the ship went passing through the center of four consecutive rainbows, four arcs, one inside the other. It was a marvelous spectacle! It must have been some kind of prediction or something. Imagine a boat, a boat driving through the open sea, passing through arching rainbows that touched the waves".