This fascinating article was shared by S.D., (with our thanks) and I
knew when I saw it that it had to go immediately into the "finals"
folder. Most readers of this site are aware of the famous Nazca lines in
Peru, glyphs literally carved into the rock of a high plain by ancient
peoples. The problem is, the glyphs are only visible from the air. No
one really knows who carved them, nor why. One thing that does
seem to be implied by the glyphs is that whoever carved them, did so
with the understanding that they, or perhaps someone else, would be able
to view them from the air, and that in turn implies three things: (1)
the glyphs were possibly carved so that spirits or "the gods" would see
them, or (2) the glyphs were carved because someone with the technology
to be airborne could see them, or (3) both. Regarding possibility
number 2, many researchers have speculated, given the "runway" nature of
some of these glyphs, that whomever they were intended for possessed
some sort of airplane technology. Possibly. But a much simpler hot air
balloon or even prototypical dirigible or zeppelin technology would be
equally possible as explanations.
Keep that speculation in mind, because it influences today's high
octane speculation, because, it seems, hundreds of new Nazca glyphs have
been recently discovered, and by a most unusual method at that:
Note what has happened to make this recent discovery of many more such glyphs possible:
Now, using drones and AI, a team led by archaeologist and
anthropologist Masato Sakai of
Yamagata University in Japan has
discovered a jaw-dropping 303 more in just six months – nearly doubling
the known number.
With the discovery comes new insight regarding the function of the mysterious symbols.
Some of the glyphs, interpreted as humanoid, or humans wearing headdresses. (Sakai et al., PNAS, 2024)
"The reason why the purpose of the geoglyphs' creation remained
unknown for so long is that previous researchers lacked basic
information about the distribution and types of geoglyphs," Sakai told
ScienceAlert.
"However,
in this paper, thanks to field surveys utilizing AI and remote sensing,
the distribution of the geoglyphs has been clarified. As a result, we
were able to shed light on the purpose behind their creation."
This purpose, the researchers believe, is sacred – designed as part of a pilgrimage to Cahuachi, the ceremonial center of the Nazca culture, which overlooks some of the glyphs from high perches atop mounds.
The
glyphs have been difficult to uncover for several reasons. One of those
is that they were first carved into the plateau between 500 BCE and 500
CE, and weathering over hundreds of years has greatly reduced their
detectability.
Another obstacle is that the sheer size of the Nazca Pampa prohibits fieldwork on the ground. It's simply too huge a job.
"Because the Nazca Pampa is so vast, at 400 square kilometers (154 square miles), it takes a long time to conduct research...
So in other words, chalk it all up to possibility number (1) and the usual "it was all for primitive religion" explanation.
Except that now there appears to be a new mystery, implied both by the method used to create the newly discovered glyphs, and by the method used to detect them:
So Sakai and his colleagues teamed up with the IBM Thomas
J. Watson Research Center to develop an algorithm for identifying faint
glyphs amid the rubble on the Nazca Pampa from drone images.
Of
the 303 new glyphs, 178 – more than half – were suggested by the AI,
revealing the power of this tool to assist in human-led research
efforts.
These new glyphs belong to the category known as relief-type
geoglyphs. They are smaller and harder to identify than the larger,
line-type geoglyphs, which makes the new haul especially intriguing. The
previously discovered 430 glyphs consisted of 380 relief-type glyphs,
and 50 line-type glyphs.
Both
types of glyphs depict different things. The relief-type glyphs mostly
depict humans and domesticated animals, while the line-type glyphs
mostly depict wild animals. But their size, placement, and distribution
also reveal what they may have been used for, the researchers say.
"In
the case of relief-type geoglyphs, you can see them if you walk along
the trails. Therefore, I believe that the trails were created so that
people could see the relief-type geoglyphs while walking along them,"
Sakai explained.
"On
the other hand, in the case of line-type geoglyphs, they are
concentrated around the starting and ending points of the network of
linear geoglyphs. This network is connected to ceremonial centers
Cahuachi and sacred places, so I believe that people walked along the
network."
And that leads to a new problem:
Cahuachi is known to be a site to which humans undertook
pilgrimages, traveling to the adobe architectural complex, possibly for
gatherings and ceremonies, although the exact ways in which the site was used, and why it was special, are poorly understood. (Emphasis added)
So we're left where we began, merely pushing back the fundamental
mystery even further: why were two methods (one very difficult and
presumably costly and time-consuming to do) used? Indeed, do the two
types of methods actually represent two entirely and temporally separate layers of construction? and thus, two possible peoples of creative communities?
And then, of course, there is the whopper-doozie of a speculative
question that hangs over it all, suspended like Wile E. Coyote before
his plunge into the canyon of reality below: what if the relief glyphs
were deliberately created in the way they were in order to be
re-discovered much later when the technology and means to do so finally
came into existence?
Wherever one stands on all these high octane bizarreries and
speculations, one thing is very clear: the Nazca glyphs and lines just
became a whole lot more mysterious.
See you on the flip side....
(If you enjoyed today's blog please share it with a(n opened minded) friend.)
Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in
patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in
physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book
The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published
in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative
history and science".
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