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Desert labyrinth: lines, landscape and meaning at Nazca, Peru

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Clive Ruggles  and
Nicholas J. Saunders
Clive Ruggles
Affiliation:
School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
Nicholas J. Saunders
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1UU, UK
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Extract

The shapes drawn out by the famous Nazca lines in the Peruvian desert are at their most evident from the air—giving rise to some famously fantastic theories about their origin. The new understanding offered here is the result of a piece of straightforward brilliance on the part of our authors: get down on the ground, where the original users were, and see where your feet lead you. Using stratigraphic and taphonomic reasoning to decide which lines were contemporary, they discover an itinerary so complex they can justify calling it a labyrinth, and see it as serving ceremonial progressions.

Keywords

PeruNascaNazcafirst millennium ADgeoglyphslandscape

Information

Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 334 , December 2012 , pp. 1126 - 1140
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2012

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