The New Nazca Lines

Voice 1

Welcome to Spotlight. I’m Gillian Woodward.

Voice 2

And I’m Roger Basick. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Click here to follow along with this program on YouTube.

Voice 1

You are flying over the Nazca Desert in Peru. The same flat, red earth stretches out in all directions until it is broken by lines. These white marks in the earth begin to connect into lines making shapes: birds, insects, and strange men with knives. Each of these shapes is many kilometers long.

Voice 2

These are the Nazca lines. The mystery of these huge shapes in the desert floor has long puzzled experts. Who, or what, made them? What purpose do they serve? Why would an ancient people make something that can only be seen best from the air? Today’s Spotlight is on the mystery left behind by these desert shapes.

Voice 1

There are many theories about who created the Nazca lines. Some even say that these lines are evidence of foreign beings visiting our planet. Floating in the sky, these beings must have cut the lines in the desert floor with modern technology.

Voice 2

The reality is at once much more common and much more unbelievable. Experts believe that the Nazca people created these lines between five hundred BC and five hundred AD. Though we know little about the Nazca people, the imagery in the lines is similar to those found in Nazca art. These cultured desert-dwellers often painted animals, such as killer whales, hummingbirds, and monkeys, on their pottery.  They wove similar shapes on their blankets and clothing.

Voice 1

Archaeologists, those scientists who study ancient cultures, have an important question: how the Nazca could cut the lines? Some of the lines run on for many kilometers without bending. This would be a grand achievement today. But many of the shapes in the Nazca desert are nearly 2,000 years old. There are no mountains nearby to see the shapes from above.

Voice 2

Some experts once believed that the Nazca may have used early hot air balloons to help them. Julian Nott was a British balloonist. He once made a small balloon using a fire and cloth like the Nazca made. After a short flight, he said:

Voice 3

“I do not see any evidence that the Nazca culture did fly. But  they could have. And so could the ancient Egyptians, the Romans, the Vikings, any culture. With just a device to make cloth and with fire, you can fly!”

Voice 1

Theories like Nott’s are interesting. But the truth may be much simpler. The Nazca people could have made a straight line by tying a piece of rope between two posts. Cutting the lines in the earth was not difficult. The Nazca Desert’s red soil is only a few centimeters deep. Beneath it is white-colored rock. The Nazca would only have needed to remove a little earth to expose the differently colored earth below. With little to no wind in this desert, these shapes remained untouched.

Voice 2

While some experts believe they know how the Nazca made these lines, they do not know why. It is one mystery for which we may never know the answer. Why make such large shapes if you will never see them fully? Why start such a project with no immediate visible purpose?

Voice 1

There have been many theories since people first re-discovered the lines in 1927. Some think that the lines held some religious purpose. Maybe the shapes were praise these people offered to their gods. Early discoverers thought they could have been a way to mark the stars. Maybe these shapes were ways of judging the years. Maybe they helped people find water in a land with very little.

Voice 2

Recent discoveries have made these theories more complex. Masato Sakai is a researcher at Yamagata University. In 2024, he and his team scanned images of the Nazca desert using artificial intelligence, or A.I. They designed this special program to find shapes like the Nazca lines. Before this study, it took experts one hundred years to find 430 shapes. The A.I. program found 303 more in just six months! Sakai said:

Voice 4

“The traditional method of study was identifying these shapes from high-resolution images of this huge area. This was slow. It risked missing some of them.”

Voice 1

Many of these new lines were much smaller than other shapes in the Nazca desert. They showed strange pictures like fish holding knives. Several show the heads of dead enemies. Before this find, the best theory was that the lines were places where the Nazca people performed ceremonies. They performed these religious services to ask their gods for rain.

Voice 2

The new shapes do not disprove this theory. But they do invite more mystery into the story of these ancient shapes in the desert. Experts have identified many of the new animals drawn in the desert. Some come from the Amazon Rainforest, many hundreds of kilometers away. These animals were somehow significant to the Nazca people. These may have symbolized growth or farming. But it is difficult to know why the Nazca drew animals from so far away.

Voice 1

Some lines may have been for directions to water. Some lines may have been for watching the stars. But others may have been markers of important events. The larger shapes would have required many people to make. But smaller ones would not. Maybe these lines were training for larger shapes. Maybe some were the made by a single person trying to make a permanent mark on the world.

Voice 2

Looking to other cultures may help us understand. The Paracas people lived in the same area as the Nazca. These people also drew lines. But they lived several hundreds of years earlier. The Paracas also drew lines in the earth. But these lines were usually on hillsides. A person could see them from the ground, from villages where they lived. These smaller shapes had less precise lines. It was probably important that these shapes be seen by the people who drew them. But the Nazca people did not seem to care if they could see what they made. Instead, these lines were for the sky.

Voice 1

Whatever these were for, the Nazca lines represent an important part of human art and history. What they meant to the people that made them remains mysterious. But today, we recognize them as important markers of what humans are able to do. In 1994, UNESCO marked the lines as a World Heritage Site. This makes sure these sites are protected. It directs more care because of the site’s importance for everyone in the world. 

Voice 2

Why do you think the Nazca drew their lines? Do you have a favorite theory? You can leave a comment on our website at www.spotlightenglish.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Bluesky, and X. You can also get our programs delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.

Voice 1

The writer of this program was Dan Christmann. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program and voiced by Spotlight. This program is called, ‘The New Nazca Lines’.

Voice 2

We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye.

Question: Why do you think the Nazca drew their lines? Do you have a favorite theory?