The Nazca Lines: A Guide to the Geoglyphs of Nasca and Palpa

Quick answer: The Nazca Lines are huge designs drawn on the desert floor of southern Peru: straight lines running for kilometres, geometric shapes, and figures of animals, plants and humans. Made over many centuries, roughly between 500 BC and AD 500, they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Lines and Geoglyphs of Nasca and Palpa, inscribed in 1994.

How they were made

The desert surface is covered with reddish, iron-oxidised stones. By removing them and piling them along the edges, the Paracas and Nasca peoples exposed the paler ground beneath, creating lines that have survived for two thousand years in one of the driest places on earth.

Twice as many figures

In 2024 a team led by Masato Sakai of Yamagata University, working with IBM Research, published in PNAS the results of an AI-assisted survey. In six months of fieldwork it found 303 new figurative geoglyphs, nearly doubling a total that had taken almost a century to reach 430. The study distinguished two kinds of figures: large line-type figures, mostly wild animals, set along the network of lines and trapezoids and probably used for community rituals; and small relief-type figures, often humans or domesticated llamas, placed beside footpaths where individuals or small groups could see them.

What were they for?

The German researcher Maria Reiche spent decades studying the lines and argued that they formed an astronomical calendar; that theory has not been borne out as a general explanation. Most archaeologists now connect the lines with ritual, water and movement across the landscape, and the new survey supports a ritual purpose for the large figures.

The figures in this Journal

• Plant geoglyphs: flowers, trees and the "seaweed" figure.
• The spiral: one of the most striking geometric figures.
• The parrot: one of the bird figures of the pampa.
• Pachacamac: the great oracle sanctuary of the Peruvian coast.

Nazca designs in jewellery

A Nazca design carries a figure drawn to be seen from far above, now small enough to wear. AURYN's Andean designs can be found in the charms collection.

Frequently asked questions

How were the Nazca Lines made?

The makers removed the darker, iron-oxidised stones from the desert surface to reveal paler ground beneath. In the extremely dry environment of southern Peru, many of those cleared lines and figures have survived for roughly two millennia.

What were the Nazca Lines used for?

No single explanation accounts for every line and figure. Archaeological interpretations emphasise ritual, water and movement through the landscape, and the 2024 survey supports a community-ritual role for many of the large line-type figures.

Were the Nazca Lines an astronomical calendar?

Maria Reiche famously argued for an astronomical-calendar interpretation, but later research has not supported that as a general explanation for the whole complex. Individual orientations can still be studied without treating the entire landscape as one calendar.