"Archaeologists only look at what lies beneath their feet. The sky and the heavens don't exist for them."
Agatha Christie (author)
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One day in 1939, while flying high above the arid southern Peruvian landscape, Paul Kosok sees something peculiar. Down below, there’s a smattering of lines and shapes spread across 310 square miles. Have giants been playing tic-tac-toe?
From his seat in the sky, the American anthropologist sees a monkey, a hummingbird and a spider. There’s practically a zoo drawn on the ground! What are these funny creatures, and where do they come from?
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Nazca Culture, photograph of lines in the shape of a monkey, Nazca Desert, Peru.
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Turns out that these lines date back perhaps 2000 years and are a rare surviving example of the Nazca culture. Considered an archeological mystery, the Nazca site is something scholars know little about, though they’ve certainly got plenty of theories.
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In his writings, Kosok suggested that the lines were part of a gigantic solar calendar. Other specialists claimed that they mapped out a subterranean water system. Still others said they were religious symbols designed to bring rain.
Would you believe that these weren’t the wildest theories? Apparently, certain folks were convinced that the Nazca designed these lines as landing strips to guide extraterrestrial vessels. Roger that, Houston!
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Nazca Culture, photograph of lines in the shape of a hummingbird, Nazca Desert, Peru.
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The drawings have survived the centuries thanks to the area’s microclimate. In that part of Peru, it rains barely half an hour every year. But with climate change, that might not be true for much longer.
Ironically, environmental activists are making things worse. In 2014, when Greenpeace supporters trudged across the sensitive land and laid out banners to protest global warming they caused devastating damage. As Peru’s culture minister said, "You walk there, and the footprint is going to last hundreds or thousands of years."
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Nazca Culture, photograph of lines in the shape of a spider, Nazca Desert, Peru.
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 Archaeologists only look at what lies beneath their feet. The sky and the heavens don't exist for them.
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Agatha Christie (author) 
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Photograph of the Greenpeace protest, Nazca Desert, Peru.
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Christina’s World was painted by which American painter?
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Contact Co-Founders Coline and Jean at hello@artips.co.
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