Spirals In The Desert
a tribute to the work of Maria Reiche on the Nazca plain
text translation service for many worldwide languages
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a remarkable woman to whom the world owes
a great debt of gratitude
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Books by
"Markings: Aerial Views of Sacred Landscapes
"Mystery on the desert;: A study of the ancient figures and strange delineated surfaces seen from the air near Nazca, Peru"
"Geheimnis Der Wuste/
"Peruanische Erdzeichen/Peruvian Ground Drawings
"Geheimnis Der Wuste/
Books about the Nazca
"Maria And The Stars Of Nazca / Maria Y Las Estrellas De Nazca" |
The spiral geoglyphs are some of the most spectacular of the many symetrical drawings on the Pampa. Constructed from one continuous line, they betray a similar knowledge of spiral geometry that has been found on petroglyphs, or rock art, in many different ancient cultures worldwide. The example below left is similar to some found in the islands of Prydain, and is criss-crossed by the straight lines that are found all over the flat areas on the pampa at Nazca. Below right is a smaller spiral that is made up of one continuous line, and the lines themselves are small enough to walk along in the ritual fashion suggested by Maria Reiche, and confirmed by the observations of other researchers since.
"A smaller double spiral was found among a maze of lines. The line pointing to its border ... could have been constructed for solstice observations. The marvellous regularity of two spirals was produced by winding two ropes, 150 and 130 feet long, around three posts forming a triangle."
The diagram below shows the scale in feet of the double spiral shown at top right. Whilst the spiral bottom right is in fact the equally amazing spiral tail of the monkey geoglyph. Like the other double spirals it is made up of one continuous line which is wide enought to permit a ritual procession along it. Recent archaeological surveys have shown a proliferation of pottery pieces from a number of periods known as Nazca I; Nazca II; Nazca III; Nazca IV and Nazca V.
The suggestion now is that during ritual processions along the various lines and figures that pottery was ritually smashed on the ground as an offering to the rain gods. This is probably the result of a severe drought which ended the Nazca cultures.
It is a little known fact, but the path traced by the sun over a specific quarter of a year, such as during the period from the cross-quarter day, Samhain, to the Winter Solstice, will form an anti-clockwise spiral. This will continue to the next cross-quarter day before straightening out as it approached the Spring (Vernal) Equinox. After the equinox the path of the sun will begin to form another spiral as it approaches the next cross-quarter day at Beltaine, this time in a clockwise direction as it heads for the Summer Solstice. Perhaps this precise astronomical knowledge of the Sun-Earth interaction is what the geoglyph builders were depicting when they built the amazing double-spirals on the Nazca Plain.
all quotes on these tribute pages are from |
"Pathways to the Gods: The Mystery of the Andes Lines"
"Nazca: Eighth Wonder of the World?"
"The Nasca
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