The Nazca Lines

     It never ceases to amaze me how a civilization can be so advanced in some areas of culture, technology, and art, and be behind in others. One of the best examples of this can be seen in the remains of the Nazca culture, which lasted from 200 BCE - 950 CE. On the one hand, they were isolated from much of the world, and had not developed much of an agricultural base since their home lacked calorie rich crops like wheat and was fairly arid. On the other hand, they were able to create thousands of monumental pieces of art to pay tribute to their gods with little more than basic surveying - the Nazca Lines.
     The Nazca Lines are representations laid out as representations of various things the Nazca culture held valuable, such as their gods, glyphs representing important ideas, and in one case even a priest wide eyed from a hallucinogenic drug. They also represented animals the Nazca dealt with everyday or had heard about from other parts of Peru, such as monkeys and hummingbirds. How they were created is still a mystery, since many of the 3,000 lines can only be viewed fully from an airplane. It implies that the Nazca possessed powers of surveying the topography of the local area that few other people at the time could even dream of. They created and knew the layout of enormous patterns in the hills and plains of the desert without ever having gazed directly at them.
     Looking on the lines, I felt in awe of the work ethic and motivation their workers must have had. I often feel the need for tangible rewards when I start a project, but the Nazca made all of their lines strictly for the viewing of their gods, not themselves.