LINES IN THE SAND, CITIES IN THE SKY
IN THE 1920S, WHEN AVIATORS FIRST STARTED FLYING OVER A high desert region in inland Peru, they noticed long straight lines and huge figures drawn in the dry desert soil. Now known worldwide as the Nazca Lines, the figures technically are geoglyphs and include a spider, a dog, birds, monkeys, a tree, and a strange figure that looks like an ancient astronaut.
Nearly half a century later, in 1968, Erich von Däniken published a book called Chariots of the Gods? In it, he suggested that the Nazca Lines must have been created for, or by, ancient astronauts. He argued that only people who could see the figures from the air could have drawn them, because they can’t really be recognized at ground level. He also suggested that the long straight lines were landing strips for ancient aircraft or spaceships. As he wrote, “What is wrong with the idea that the lines were laid out to say to the ‘gods’: ‘Land here! Everything has been prepared as you ordered!’”
What’s wrong with that, he asks? Well, pretty much everything. To begin with, invoking ancient aliens to explain the Nazca Lines is a conclusion with which almost all archaeologists completely disagree. And yet a considerable portion of the general public takes von Däniken’s theories seriously—so much so that his books have sold millions over the years (65 million, according to his webpage).
In 2003 von Däniken even opened up a theme park in Switzerland, called Mystery Park. One of the seven pavilions at the park was devoted to a display and discussion of the Nazca Lines. Unfortunately for von Däniken, even though there was an initial burst of enthusiasm, attendance at the amusement park quickly dropped. Although the one-millionth visitor came through in October 2006, the park closed down just a month later.
In any event, the Nazca Lines are very real and are well worth a visit, even if ancient astronauts didn’t build them. They are now a protected site, and most tourists can’t walk through the area. It is best to arrange for a low-flying airplane, helicopter, or hot-air balloon, for the lines really are best seen from the air.
They were in the news again in August 2014, when new images were spotted after sandstorms and high winds hit the area. They also made headlines around the world later that same year, in December 2014, when Greenpeace volunteers laid out a huge message saying “Time for Change. The Future Is Renewable.” The Greenpeace people came under heavy criticism for damaging the ancient site in their zeal to protect the future, which is, quite frankly, rather ironic.
The Nazca Lines are in the high desert of southern Peru, about two hundred miles from Machu Picchu, which we will discuss later in this chapter. As mentioned, they were not made by ancient astronauts. Instead, they were made by the local indigenous group known as the Nazca, who lived in this area between 200 BCE and 600 CE and whose graves and other ancient settlement remains are near the lines.
We know this in part because of the similarity with the designs found on Nazca pottery, which include designs of animals, birds, and humans in red, white, and black paint on the vessels. In addition, carbon-14 dating on the wooden stakes that were found at the end of some of the lines indicates a date of about 525 CE, plus or minus eighty years—so, somewhere between 445 CE and 605 CE, which matches well with the known date for the Nazca presence in this area.
It is not generally known outside the profession, but the Nazca culture was not the first to create geoglyphs in this region. An earlier culture known as the Paracas, from which the Nazca might have evolved, also created geoglyphs in the desert just a bit further to the north, near the modern town of Palpa. These date hundreds of years earlier, in some cases. They are mostly found on the sides of hills rather than on the desert floor and include enigmatic human figures as well as more of the “landing strips” to which von Däniken refers. Both sets of figures, Paracas and Nazca, were collectively declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994.
The Nazca Lines drawn in the desert are huge—and there are hundreds of them, ranging from basic lines that go for miles to very complex and stylized depictions of creatures. Simply moving the oxidized rocks that form the top layer here in the desert to reveal the lighter-colored sand that lies underneath created the lines and pictures. By doing this as a series of narrow lines, either straight or curved, it is possible to create a picture that is very easily seen from above, even if it isn’t always easily identifiable what it is.
In fact, in some cases, it’s not clear at all what is being portrayed. There’s one animal that looks a bit like a cross between a scared cat and some sort of weird dog. It is very cartoonish, with completely straight legs and only three or four digits on each foot.
Another one is most definitely a monkey, but without any eyes or nose and with four digits on one hand but five on the other. Speaking of hands, one of the Nazca figures is simply called The Hands, though it actually looks more like another monkey, but unfinished. It also doesn’t have any eyes or nose and again has four digits on one hand and five on the other.
There is also a very convincing—though not particularly scary—spider that is 150 feet long. One of its hind legs goes far past the bounds of the picture, not to mention reality. It might represent the silken thread that the spider is attached to, but they’ve done it very strangely by making it an extension of one of the legs.
There’s also a huge stylized tree and a similarly large stylized birdlike figure known as the Heron, as well as a three-hundred-foot-long hummingbird, with a beak that is about the same length as its body. Another bird is known as the Condor and a fourth bird is called the Parrot, though it doesn’t look much like one to me.
Finally, there is the figure sometimes called the Astronaut, who was created on the side of a hill, much like the earlier Paracas drawings that are further to the north. This figure is almost one hundred feet tall, with a bubblehead and big owl-like eyes. Archaeologists more usually call him the Owl-Man, a nickname acquired back in 1949. One of his arms is pointing up; the other is pointing down. He doesn’t look much like an astronaut, and many reasonable explanations have emerged for what he might be doing, including perhaps holding a fishing net and wearing a traditional poncho.
A lot of people have made suggestions about the Nazca Lines since they were noticed in the 1920s, ranging from pseudo-archaeologists working on their own to scientists sponsored by the National Geographic Society and other institutions. One of the very first archaeological studies, and systematic description of the lines, was conducted by Berkeley anthropologist Alfred Kroeber in 1926, though his findings would not be published for another seventy years. Theories to explain the existence of the lines and other designs include von Däniken’s ancient aliens using the region as landing strips; Paul Kosok’s and Maria Reiche’s ideas about the figures representing constellations in the form of an astronomical calendar; anthropological hypotheses involving the identification and tracking of underground water sources in this dry desert; and suggestions that they were ceremonial paths for performing religious rituals of the Paracas and Nazca cultures.
Most recently a joint German-Peruvian expedition has been documenting and studying the geoglyphs in both the Nazca area and the Palpa region to the north. They are finding the ruins of many Nazca villages, with glyphs near virtually every settlement. The findings suggest a long history of such glyphs in the region, and some are even superimposed upon others. It also is now clear that the earliest were created on hillsides, from where they could be seen from the plain below, rather than necessitate a view from the air. Even the more complex ones, like the hummingbird, have now been shown to be single-line drawings—in which one can start walking at a specific point and walk along the line without ever having to cross another line. Thus, it is quite possible that these were used as ceremonial processions, as has been suggested.
In any case, there is simply no need to invoke extraterrestrial visitors in order to explain the amazing Nazca Lines. The phenomenon of building these geoglyph figures on the ground has a long tradition over many centuries in many places in Peru, most of which were very visible to the people for whom they were made. It seems to be a regional form of artistic, religious, and cultural expression, not landing strips for extraterrestrials. Nor were they outside the skill level of our predecessors on this planet, who were advanced enough not to need outside assistance in such building projects.
Elsewhere, in northern Peru, the spectacular discovery of a royal tomb made worldwide headlines in 1987. Dating to about 250 CE, it was found in the area of Sipan and was excavated by a Peruvian archaeologist named Walter Alva. This was the region where the Moche culture flourished from 100 to 800 CE.
The kingdom of the Moche was large by Andean standards, located in a north–south strip by the coast. It was an area of about three hundred fifty miles long by fifty miles wide, covering a dozen narrow valleys descending out of the Andes toward the Pacific coast and separated by desert. The Moche traded widely with regions along the coast and over the Andes in the Amazon rainforest, in what is now modern Chile and Ecuador, for goods including lapis lazuli and spondylus shells, as well as boa constrictors, parrots, and monkeys. They supported themselves using irrigation canals to grow crops such as corn, avocados, potatoes, and peanuts; from the ocean they got fish, shrimp, crabs, and other seafood.
Their society seems to have been highly stratified, with arts such as textile weaving, impressive ceramics, and items crafted from precious metals, though they had no writing system and apparently didn’t use money as we know it. They also worked hard at construction projects—not only the irrigation canals, but also pyramids, temples, and elaborate burial mounds. One pyramid, near the capital city on the Moche River by the modern city of Trujillo and called the Pyramid of the Sun, was built from more than 130 million mudbricks. It covered more than five hectares, which is about twelve acres. An administrative structure, it is thought to be the largest construction ever built in South America. The other side of the capital city featured the slightly smaller Pyramid of the Moon, which was highly decorated and used for ceremonial purposes.
The Moche civilization suddenly collapsed about 800 CE. We don’t know exactly why it happened; theories range from a devastating earthquake to a severe drought caused by an El Niño weather system. By the time the Spanish arrived in the area centuries later, all they found were the weather-beaten and melted remains of the mudbrick pyramids and other buildings that the Moche had left behind.
It was in 1987 that Walter Alva got a call from the local police station near Sipan. Several tomb robbers had had a falling out after finding a wealthy tomb and were fighting over the objects that they found. Rather ironically, one of them called the police for help. The police confiscated the objects and called Alva. When he arrived at the police station, one of the officers reached into a paper bag and then pulled a small gold mask out of it. Alva nearly fell off his chair in surprise.
He took a team of archaeologists back to where the robbers said they had found the tomb, which turned out to be located in an absolutely huge pyramid made of mudbricks. The pyramid, which is one of several at the site, was so damaged by erosion and other mostly natural forces that it almost looked more like a natural mountain than something constructed by humans.
Alva hoped that there might be other tombs that the looters had missed, so he and his team began a proper excavation. Soon they did indeed find several other tombs, including one that turned out to be what National Geographic has called “the New World’s Richest Unlooted Tomb”—this is Tomb 1, the tomb belonging to the Lord of Sipan, as he is called.
In the tomb, which is basically a large room measuring about five meters by five meters, they first found the body of a man whose feet had been cut off. This was possibly to prevent him from walking away in the afterlife, so that he had to stay to protect the other occupants. He was buried in the upper right corner of the burial chamber, a few feet above the rest of the bodies.
The Lord of Sipan himself was found in the middle of the chamber, with additional burials on all sides of him. Counting the man whose feet had been cut off, there may have been as many as eleven people in the tomb besides the lord himself—three other adult men, one adult woman, three adolescent boys and three adolescent girls, and one child.
More than 450 objects were buried in this one tomb, many of precious metal, including gold and silver, as well as others of copper or bronze now oxidized to a pleasant green color. Among them are necklaces with beads in the shape of what look like peanuts, including one that has silver peanuts on one side and gold peanuts on the other. Because we know that the Moche cultivated peanuts, we shouldn’t be surprised to see them represented in jewelry.
There are also three pairs of earrings, or ear ornaments, including one set with an animal inlaid on them who looks a bit like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Another set has a bird that looks like a cross between a duck and a pelican. A third set has what appears to be a three-dimensional representation of the Lord of Sipan himself, all dressed up and ready to go, complete with spear or scepter, shield, ear ornaments, and a necklace of what look like skulls that goes from shoulder to shoulder. If he wore this last set of ear ornaments as part of his outfit when he was all dressed up, then he’d be wearing a miniature of himself, which is intriguing.
On his chest were hundreds of tiny beads still in place, forming a magnificent pectoral collar of green, brown, and white. These had to be painstakingly preserved and conserved. Often the way to recover such artifacts intact is to put some sort of easily removable glue onto cloth, cardboard, or some other material, and then lay it on top of the beads while they are still in place and allow the whole assembly to dry. Then it is lifted up and the beads come with it, still in their original place and with the original design intact, though it’s now a mirror image. It can then be transported safely to a conservation room or elsewhere, where the glue can be dissolved and the original pectoral collar, with all of the beads still in place, can be safely studied and worked on some more.
There was also a huge crescent-shaped helmet or headdress made of gold, with feathers that probably went with it; also possibly a faceplate made of gold, to cover the lower part of the lord’s face; and what is probably a scepter or a goblet made of gold. There are also several backflaps made in silver, gold, and bronze or copper. These were worn, as the name suggests, as part of the backside of the outfit, most likely covering the lord’s rear end. On several of these the so-called Decapitator God is pictured, standing on what looks like a row of skulls. He is found on other objects in the tomb as well. Although small, this is not a god whom one would want to meet in a dark alley.
Other representations, presumably of other gods, are equally ferocious looking, including some with open mouths and lots of sharp pointed teeth, but there are also small gold beads in the shape of faces with inlaid blue eyes that aren’t as scary to look at.
As for who this important person in the tomb was, Moche specialists such as Christopher Donnan, in addition to Walter Alva, have suggested that he may have been the Warrior Priest who is known from pictorial scenes that have been found on Moche pots and painted on murals. One of the most famous themes is the so-called Sacrifice Ceremony.
In this ceremony, sacrificial victims have their throats cut; their blood is poured or drained into goblets; and the priests and other participants then drink it. The Warrior Priest is always shown wearing things like a helmet and headdress, backflaps, and ear ornaments and carrying a large goblet or scepter, just like the Lord of Sipan has in his tomb. If that is the case, then the scenes that are portrayed on the pottery and in the murals apparently represent real-life events and real people.
There are numerous other Moche sites that have been investigated during the past several decades, and they have yielded important artifacts and information. The tomb of the Lord of Sipan remains among the best known, however, which has unfortunately resulted in large-scale attempts at looting by would-be tomb robbers looking for another rich burial nearby. At least one aerial photograph shows that the region by Sipan now looks like a moonscape, with pits dug absolutely everywhere. Obviously this is one of the areas of the world where we have to be proactive in the future to prevent such looting activities.
Moving now a bit closer to us in time, to about 1500 CE, and back down to the southern part of Peru directly east from the region of the Nazca Lines, we reach Machu Picchu, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983.
The site of Machu Picchu is spectacular, like few others in the world. It lies at an altitude of 7,972 feet above sea level. The views are quite literally breathtaking, in part because at that altitude, it’s literally hard to catch your breath. In fact, many tourists suffer from altitude sickness while they are there, which can adversely affect the visit. By way of comparison, the official elevation of Denver is 5,280 feet above sea level, and so Machu Picchu could legitimately be nicknamed the Mile-and-a Half-High City.
The site dates back to a little more than five hundred years ago. It was first built during the fifteenth century, about 1450 CE, and was abandoned less than a century later, around 1532 CE, at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Built at the direction of one of the Inca emperors as a summer refuge and a secondary palace, it is five days’ walk from Cuzco, the Inca capital. It is placed atop a large mountain with lush vegetation and a two-thousand-foot drop to the river below. At one end of the site rises a peak, Wayna Picchu, a popular climb for more adventurous tourists. New scholarly projects are continuing at the site, including one that will be testing the DNA of skeletal remains found there.
Machu Picchu
Hiram Bingham, who was a professor at Yale, gets credit for the discovery of Machu Picchu, which was first brought to the attention of the world in 1911. As a recent great book by Mark Adams, Turn Right at Machu Picchu, points out, Bingham didn’t really discover the city, since he was basically just shown it by the locals, who had always known it was there. He might not even have been the first Western explorer to find it. But he claimed credit for it, and that’s certainly not the first time such a thing has happened. Heinrich Schliemann did the same thing at Mycenae in Greece about forty years earlier, when the locals took him to the ruins of the Lion Gate at the ancient city, and at Troy, when he took over Frank Calvert’s work there.
Bingham returned to the site in 1912, sponsored by both National Geographic and Yale University, and excavated there for about four months, even though he had no real formal training as an archaeologist. In 1913 National Geographic devoted their entire April issue to Machu Picchu. Some see that issue, and the National Geographic Society’s association with Bingham, as the beginning of its rise to the international prominence that it still enjoys today. In that article, Bingham tried to convey some of the wonder of the initial discovery, writing, “we found ourselves in the midst of a tropical forest, beneath the shade of whose trees we could make out a maze of ancient walls, the ruins of buildings made of blocks of granite, some of which were beautifully fitted together in the most refined style of Inca architecture. A few rods farther along we came to a little open space, on which were two splendid temples or palaces. The superior character of the stone work, the presence of these splendid edifices, and of what appeared to be an unusually large number of finely constructed stone dwellings, led me to believe that Machu Picchu might prove to be the largest and most important ruin discovered in South America since the days of the Spanish conquest.”
Additional excavations took place in 1914 and 1915, and then Bingham began writing books and articles about his discoveries, of which probably the most famous is Lost City of the Incas. He thought that Machu Picchu might have been the lost Inca city of Vilcabamba, but that is now thought to be located elsewhere.
Looking out over the site itself, one can see that it is split into an upper town and a lower town. There is a residential district, presumably where the regular people lived. There also is what seems to be a royal district, possibly for the nobles or royalty, which is distinctly possible if the whole site was used as a royal retreat—like a Camp David for Inca rulers. And then there are temples, warehouses, channels for water, and lots and lots of agricultural terraces. Within the so-called Temple of the Sun, there is also a massive tower known as the Torreon, which was possibly used as an observatory (but that assertion is still debated). A large stone called the Intihuatana might be a ritual stone used to mark winter and summer solstices, but whether that was its use also is debated.
All these buildings were constructed using the standard—or classic—Inca technique. The stones were cut and fitted together so well that there was no need to use any mortar to bind or seal them together. Most of the doors and windows are neither square nor rectangular, but rather trapezoidal. Obviously this was a deliberate architectural feature and some people have suggested that it was to help prevent the buildings from collapsing during an earthquake, which is an interesting idea.
Bingham brought a lot of artifacts back to Yale from Machu Picchu after his excavations at the site in 1912 and 1914–1915. He was supposed to hold them for only eighteen months so that experts in the United States could study them. In fact, they remained at Yale for the next ninety years. It was only when the wife of the Peruvian president, who was an anthropologist herself, began agitating for their return that anything was done about it. The first few objects were returned in 2006, and by 2012 pretty much all the artifacts had been sent back to Peru, except for those that both sides agreed should stay at Yale for further study.
The objects that were returned are now displayed in a museum and research center in Cuzco, where both local and foreign archaeologists and students can study them. They include ceramic bottles decorated with highly intricate designs, some of which will have been used to hold oil or perfume. One has a human face on the long neck of the bottle, with what looks like a flounced skirt on the body of the vessel; another is in the shape of a hand holding an elongated cup. There also is a pin for a shawl, which is made of bone and features two birds facing each other, as well as various pieces of jewelry and other metal objects, including ceremonial knives.
We’ll end our brief survey of archaeology in Peru here, having noted some amazing cultures—the Nazca, the Moche, and the Inca—and covered several thousand years and hundreds of square miles of territory, from the deserts to the mountains. We can clearly see the rise and fall of distinctive civilizations, each occupying the same general region one after the other, here in the New World just like in the Old World. In some ways, though, the developments here in Peru are almost more impressive, set as they are in a landscape of enormous mountains and isolated valleys, coastal streams separated by desert, and the Amazon basin nearby, which combined to make it a much harder place in which to develop a large complex society, garner agricultural surpluses, maintain communication between various parts of the polity, and so on. Regardless, it seems that the cycle of history is not so different, whether studying the Moche or Mesopotamia, the Inca or the Indus Valley, the Nazca or New Kingdom Egypt.