Thread by @DavidZabinsky

Any idea what this is?

This strange spider-looking-thing - seen from over 1,500 feet in the air - sits mysteriously in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru.

But perhaps more interesting than the spider itself are the possible explanations behind it.

A thread on the ‘Nazca Lines’:

As much as 1,500 years ago (!!!), different Peruvian cultures, such as the Nazca, Chavin, and Paracas people, created a series of head-scratching drawings by removing dirt, soil, and rocks from the earth.

These types of images are called ‘geoglyphs.’

These geoglyphs are big.

I mean, really big.

Some of the Nazca Lines are just, well, lines...stretching 30 miles (nearly 50 km) long.

The more sophisticated drawings?

Some measure up to 1,200 feet (365 meters)...as tall as the Empire State Building.

It's believed the Nazca Lines were seen first by Spanish conquistador Pedro Cieza de Leon in 1553.

He described the lines only as ‘trail markers’.

Trail markers?! Really?

But it was the 1500s. Cieza de Leon didn't have a plane to see the lines from above, so can we blame him?

The lines were then re-discovered by Peruvian archeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe in 1926 on a hike.

But again, without a plane, Xesspe was only able to see the lines from so up close that he was unable to decipher any type of drawings or images.

Imagine what he missed out on!

With the advent of flight in the 1930s, we finally saw from above what were thought to be simply ‘roads’ and ‘trail markers’ for centuries.

American scientist Paul Kosok, seeing the lines from the air in 1941, theorized the lines were:

“The largest astronomy book in the world”

Later in the 40s, German scientist Maria Reiche visited Peru.

Called the ‘Lady of the Lines’, she spent over 40 years living in a small house in the Peruvian desert, studying the area and protecting the drawings from 'reckless visitors.'

She died there in 1998 at the age of 95.

Reiche argued the lines had astronomical purposes, in that they represented different constellations.

Other scientists say the lines were the peoples’ way of getting the gods’ attention, as a means to request rain during times of drought or thank them for it after rainfall.

Perhaps the most obscure theory is the ‘Theory of Jim Woodman’ who argued the only way to draw such sophisticated, detailed drawings was for the artists to have achieved flight….which would have been over 1,000 years ago.

Using hot air balloons, Woodman argued the Nazca people flew hundreds of feet in the air to plan and design their drawings.

To prove his theory, Woodman built a hot air balloon using materials that would have been available at the time.

The flight lasted only a few minutes.

Regardless of when, why, or how the Nazca people conceptualized and drew these incredibly mysterious works, there is one 21st century question we HAVE to ask:

When’s the first Nazca NFT drop?

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Sources:

nationalgeographic.com/history/articl…

history.com/topics/south-a…

theguardian.com/science/2020/m…

thehindu.com/children/read-…

latimes.com/travel/la-tr-d…

bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/lea…

sites.google.com/site/sciencein…

peru-explorer.com/Nazca/the_nazc…

nott.com/nazca/

CC @CardilloSamuel