The Nazca Lines are giant geoglyphs (straight lines, geometric shapes and animal figures) cut into the desert of southern Peru, mostly by the Nasca culture between roughly 100 BCE and 700 CE. They were made by clearing away the dark, iron-oxide-coated stones on the desert surface to expose the paler ground beneath, a technique simple enough to reproduce with wooden stakes and cord. Most archaeologists now read them as a ritual landscape: paths that were walked, tied to water, fertility and the ceremonial life of the people who made them.
The lines matter because they sit between two very different conversations. For archaeologists they are one of the best-preserved records of how an ancient Andean society organised its land, water and religion. For the [ancient astronaut theory](/ancient-astronaut-theory-explained-origins-evidence-and-criticism), they became a headline case after 1968, when the "runway" idea entered popular culture. Knowing what the evidence shows is the only way to take either seriously.
What are the Nazca Lines?
The Nazca Lines are a group of more than a thousand ground drawings spread across roughly 450 square kilometres of the Nazca and Pampa de Jumana plateau, between the towns of Nazca and Palpa. The inventory includes over 800 straight lines, some running for kilometres across the desert; around 300 geometric figures such as trapezoids, triangles, zigzags and spirals; and about 70 biomorphs, the animal and plant figures that appear on postcards.
The best-known figures include the hummingbird (about 93 metres long), the monkey with its spiralled tail, the spider, and the condor. A figure on a hillside, popularly nicknamed "the astronaut", is better described as an owl-man or fisherman figure; it is one of several human-like figures cut into slopes rather than onto the flat pampa.
The lines have survived because the plateau is one of the driest places on Earth, rain is extremely rare and conditions at ground level are calm. Once the surface stones were moved aside, little disturbed the result for two thousand years. UNESCO inscribed the lines on the World Heritage List in 1994.
Who made the Nazca Lines?
The Nazca Lines were made mainly by the Nasca culture, which flourished on the south coast of Peru from about 100 BCE to 700 CE. Some of the earlier geoglyphs, especially human figures on the hillsides around Palpa, are attributed to the preceding Paracas culture, with dates reaching back to around 500 BCE.
Three lines of evidence tie the drawings to these people. First, the imagery matches Nasca pottery and textiles: hummingbirds, monkeys, birds and marine creatures on the ground have close parallels on painted Nasca ceramics. Second, broken Nasca pottery is found scattered along and at the ends of many lines, left there deliberately. Third, wooden stakes found at the ends of some lines have been radiocarbon-dated to the Nasca period.
The Nasca were not an empire but farming communities in the river valleys that cut through the desert. Their main ceremonial centre, Cahuachi, a complex of adobe mounds and plazas, sits close to the lines. Helaine Silverman, who excavated there, interpreted Cahuachi as a pilgrimage centre rather than a city, which fits a picture of the pampa as sacred ground.
How were the Nazca Lines made?
The Nazca Lines were made by removing the dark, weathered surface stones and piling them along the edges, exposing the lighter, yellowish ground beneath. The resulting lines are shallow, generally only centimetres deep, and it is the contrast in colour rather than any depth that makes them visible.
Straight lines could be laid out with wooden stakes and cord, sighting from one stake to the next across the desert. Remains of such stakes survive at the ends of lines. For the figures, the most widely accepted explanation is that they were scaled up from smaller drawings, using fixed points, measured cords and simple geometry to transfer proportions onto the ground.
This has been tested. In 1982 the investigator Joe Nickell and a small team reproduced the Nazca condor at full size using wooden stakes, cord and a scaled plan, with no aerial view to guide them, and the result was recognisable from the air. The experiment did not prove exactly how the Nasca worked, but it showed the figures were within reach of a people with no writing, no aircraft and no special tools.
Many of the animal figures share one more feature that matters for their purpose: they are drawn as a single continuous line that never crosses itself. A person can enter at one point, walk the whole outline and exit without retracing a step.
Who discovered and studied the Nazca Lines?
The Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejía Xesspe is usually credited as the first to study the lines, recording them in 1927 after seeing them from the surrounding foothills.
The American historian Paul Kosok visited in 1941. Watching the sun set along one of the lines near the June solstice, he proposed that the pampa was an astronomical calendar and called it "the largest astronomy book in the world". His assistant, the German-born mathematician Maria Reiche (1903–1998), took up the work and devoted the rest of her life to it. Reiche mapped and cleaned the figures, argued for an astronomical purpose, and campaigned for decades to protect the pampa. Peruvians still call her the "Lady of the Lines", and much of what survives today survives because of her.
Later researchers tested her ideas. In 1968 the astronomer Gerald Hawkins ran a computer analysis of line directions and found no significant astronomical alignment beyond chance. From the 1980s Anthony Aveni, working with Silverman and others, mapped dozens of "line centres" (small hills from which many lines radiate) and traced how the lines related to water and movement. Johan Reinhard connected them to Andean mountain and water worship, and the German-Peruvian Nasca-Palpa project led by Markus Reindel and Johny Isla excavated on the geoglyphs themselves.
What were the Nazca Lines for?
The Nazca Lines were most likely made for ritual: paths for ceremonial walking, closely bound up with water, fertility and the social life of Nasca communities. No single explanation covers every line, and most modern researchers see several overlapping uses rather than one purpose.
The astronomical calendar idea
Kosok and Reiche's calendar theory was the first serious interpretation. A few lines do point to solstice or horizon events, but Hawkins and Aveni found no more alignments than chance would give across hundreds of lines. Astronomy may explain a few cases, not the whole.
Water and the puquios
Water is the strongest recurring theme. In one of the driest places on Earth, Nasca survival depended on rivers that ran only seasonally and on underground water. Aveni and colleagues found that many lines and line centres relate to water sources and to the direction of water flow. The Nasca also built puquios, underground aqueducts with spiralling access wells that tapped groundwater for irrigation, some of which still carry water today. Reinhard's reading places the lines within a wider Andean tradition of rites to mountains and water.
Ceremonial pathways and offerings
The walking evidence is persuasive. The single-line construction of the figures and the broken pottery along the lines suggest people moved along them, likely in procession. The Nasca-Palpa excavations found small stone platforms on some geoglyphs with offerings, including Spondylus, a marine shell prized across the Andes as a symbol of water and fertility. On this view the lines were not made to be looked at from above; they were made to be used on the ground.
Why the "runway" idea fails
The claim that the Nazca Lines were landing strips for alien craft does not hold up, because the ground is soft and the lines are only centimetres deep. The idea was popularised by Erich von Däniken in his 1968 book "Chariots of the Gods?", which suggested that some of the wide trapezoids resembled airfields.
The physical problems are simple. The lines are not paved or compacted; they are shallow clearings of loose stones on soft desert ground. A heavy craft landing there would sink and leave obvious damage, which the lines do not show, and a craft capable of crossing interstellar space would hardly need a runway. Many lines are too narrow or too irregular to serve that function, and the animal figures could not be runways at all.
The cultural evidence points the same way. The imagery belongs to Nasca art, the lines carry Nasca pottery and Nasca-period stakes, and the methods have been reproduced by hand. The same pattern appears in debates over [Puma Punku and Tiwanaku](/puma-punku-and-tiwanaku-explained-the-stones-the-builders-and-the-myths), where close study of tool marks and quarries replaces speculation, and in the [Antikythera mechanism](/antikythera-mechanism-and-lost-ancient-technology-explained), where real ancient ingenuity turns out to be more interesting than the myths built around it.
New discoveries: drones and AI
New Nazca figures are still being found, thanks to drones, high-resolution aerial imagery and artificial intelligence. A team from Japan's Yamagata University, led by Masato Sakai, announced 168 previously unknown geoglyphs in 2022, and in 2024, working with IBM, reported 303 new figures identified with the help of an AI model trained on known examples.
Many of the new finds are small relief-type figures, often only a few metres across, sitting beside ancient footpaths where passers-by would have seen them. They reinforce the view that the geoglyphs were part of how people moved through and experienced the landscape.
Threats and protection
The Nazca Lines are fragile, and most of the damage they have suffered is modern. The Pan-American Highway was cut straight through the pampa and through one of the figures, the lizard. Vehicles and informal settlement at the margins of the protected zone continue to press on the site. In 2014, Greenpeace activists staging a climate message during the United Nations talks in Lima walked into the restricted area beside the hummingbird and left footprints on the desert surface, drawing condemnation from the Peruvian government.
Because a footprint on this surface can last for centuries, visitors see the figures from light aircraft or viewing towers, not on foot.
Billy Carson's reading
Billy Carson approaches the Nazca Lines as part of a larger question he returns to often: how much ancient peoples knew, and how much of that knowledge may have been lost. In his view, sites like Nazca, Puma Punku and the monuments of the Andes point to a deeper and older story of human civilisation than textbooks usually allow, and he places them within the lost-civilisation framework he explores across his books, shows and his wider [Anunnaki topic hub](/topics/anunnaki).
That is his interpretation, and it sits alongside the archaeological record rather than replacing it. What the evidence firmly supports is that the Nasca achieved something remarkable with simple means: precise geometry at enormous scale, planned without any view from above. Carson's interest in how ancient cultures understood the landscape, the sky and consciousness itself also connects to the ideas in the [holographic universe hub](/topics/holographic-universe). He leads group tours to ancient sites, including a Peru tour through Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley, where he discusses Andean civilisation on location.
Watch, read and go deeper
For Billy Carson's conversations on ancient civilisations, lost knowledge and the Andes, watch [the Billy Carson 4biddenknowledge Podcast on 4BK TV](/watch/billy-carson-4biddenknowledge-podcast). To follow the wider debate about ancient visitors and the Sumerian texts behind much of it, continue into the [Anunnaki topic hub](/topics/anunnaki). If you want to see Andean sites in person, the Peru tour page has current dates and details.
Frequently asked questions
How old are the Nazca Lines?
Most of the Nazca Lines were made between about 100 BCE and 700 CE by the Nasca culture. Some earlier geoglyphs, particularly human figures on hillsides near Palpa, are attributed to the Paracas culture and date back to around 500 BCE. The dates come from radiocarbon dating of wooden stakes and from pottery found on the lines.
Can you see the Nazca Lines from the ground?
Some figures can be seen from the surrounding foothills and from viewing towers beside the Pan-American Highway, but the large figures are easiest to take in from a light aircraft. The Nasca themselves experienced the lines mainly by walking them; today walking on them is prohibited.
Why have the Nazca Lines lasted so long?
The Nazca plateau is one of the driest places on Earth, with extremely little rain and calm conditions at ground level. With so little erosion, lines made two thousand years ago remain visible, although modern roads, vehicles and people are a serious threat.
Were the Nazca Lines made by aliens?
There is no evidence that they were. The imagery matches Nasca pottery, the lines contain Nasca offerings and Nasca-period stakes, and the drawings have been reproduced with simple tools. The "runway" idea also fails physically, because the ground is soft and the lines are only centimetres deep.
How many Nazca Lines are there?
Researchers count over 800 straight lines, around 300 geometric figures and about 70 large animal and plant figures on the main pampa. Drone and AI surveys by Yamagata University have added hundreds more small figures since 2022, including 303 announced in 2024, so the total keeps rising.
Sources and further reading
- Paul Kosok, "Life, Land and Water in Ancient Peru" (1965)
- Maria Reiche, "Mystery on the Desert" (1949)
- Gerald S. Hawkins, "Beyond Stonehenge" (1973), which reports his Nazca alignment study
- Anthony F. Aveni (ed.), "The Lines of Nazca" (American Philosophical Society, 1990)
- Anthony F. Aveni, "Between the Lines: The Mystery of the Giant Ground Drawings of Ancient Nasca, Peru" (2000)
- Helaine Silverman, "Cahuachi in the Ancient Nasca World" (1993)
- Johan Reinhard, "The Nazca Lines: A New Perspective on Their Origin and Meaning" (1985)
- Masato Sakai and colleagues, the 2024 AI-assisted Nazca geoglyph survey published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
