National Geographic has recently informed about the discovery of 50 new geoplyphs in the Nazca desert that have very thin lines to be seen with the human eye.
The discovery was done thanks to satellite photos done by the GlobalXplorer initiative and the help of drones operated by Peruvian archaeologists.
“Archaeologists surveyed locally known geoglyphs with drones for the first time—mapping them in never-before-seen detail”, you can read in National Geographic.
Experts suggest that earlier Paracas and Topará cultures where responsible for creating the famous Nazca Lines, which are considered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994.
“Unlike the iconic Nazca lines—most of which are only visible from overhead—the older Paracas glyphs were laid down on hillsides, making them visible to villages below.”, explains National Geographic. “The two cultures also pursued different artistic subjects: Nazca lines most often consist of lines or polygons, but many of the newfound Paracas figures depict humans.”, they continue.
The recently-discovered lines suggest that this consists of a tradition of over a thousand years, that even precedes the famous geoglyphs of the Nazca culture, “which opens the door to new hypotheses about its function and meaning”, according to National Geographic.
They also point out that “ironically” the 50 lines were only discovered because of threats that were done to the previously known Nazca lines.
In 2014, Greenpeace activists entered the area where a hummingbird-shaped geoglyph is located and left 45 pieces of fabric, and in 2015 a man wrote his name on one of the geoglyphs and was put into custody by the prosecutors. Recently, this year, a truck driver rode his vehicle over a few of the lines, causing damages too.
(Source)
(Cover Photo Wikimedia Commons)
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