Between about 500 BCE and 500 CE, people in southern Peru scraped lines and figures into the desert, including a hummingbird, a monkey and a spider. The lines add up to more than 1,300 kilometres. What they were for is still argued over.
Truth label: Debated. Serious people disagree. You get both sides.
Go deeper
A calendar in the sand?
German mathematician Maria Reiche, working with Paul Kosok, thought many marked the rising and setting of the Sun and stars. In 1990, Gerald Hawkins and Anthony Aveni concluded the evidence was not strong enough to support this.
Water and ritual
Anthropologist Johan Reinhard links the lines to the worship of water, in one of the driest places on Earth.
Not aliens
In 1968, Erich von Däniken suggested ancient astronauts. Investigator Joe Nickell showed the figures can be reproduced on the ground with simple tools.
Learn
- Still finding more. In 2024, a team from Yamagata University and IBM Research used AI to help find 303 figures no one had known about.
- Protected. The lines became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994.
Test yourself
Who argued that the lines were linked to astronomy?
Maria Reiche. Reiche, with Paul Kosok, proposed that the lines marked solstice sunrises and sunsets.
Sources
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