Lines in the Sand

Much is written of the Nazca and their miraculous, monumental art etched into the arid plains of their Peruvian lands – and, alas, much of it is pseudo-scientific at best, and outright fallacious at worst. These writings range from the feasible attachment of those icons to the constellations (although the sheer mass of lines and figures makes such associations inevitable, rather than necessarily accurate), through to the ludicrously overblown claims that they could not possibly have been made without the assistance of extraterrestrials. Like the crop circles revealed to be hoaxes, rumours of miraculous coincidences and grand feats overwhelm the verifiable facts.

Rather than introduce something miraculous to the works of early civilisations, these theories do little but denigrate our ancient ancestors. As I have discussed on many occasions – and the general purpose of this blog is to continue to do so – I must assert the ingenuity of those who came before us. It is a simple matter, in days when gadgets we can fit into our pockets do much of our work for us, to assume that because we do not need to consider how to achieve such feats that it must have been impossible for people thousands of years earlier. In fact, it is worse than simple: it is an arrogance of modern society.

It is comparable, if you will, to imagine someone a thousand years from now looking upon the Eiffel Tower and, assuming records have been lost, believing that it simply could not have been achieved through the technology available at that time. It was, of course, possible, but required Gustave Eiffel to invent new means of construction; new varieties of crane to hoist the vast pillars of metal into place; it was possible, but accompanied by one of the very greatest of our achievements – which is to say, our incomparable desire to innovate.

The fact of the matter is, of course, that archaeologists have been able to replicate the Nazca designs using tools available to the culture of the era, with few people involved, and in relatively short order. That being said, of course, these symbols are magnificent works – truly remarkable feats of ingenuity and a manifestation of man’s desire to see their imagination and their works wrought large across the flesh of the world, as if in ink.