These lines and geoglyphs, that mostly include drawings of animals and geometric shapes, are the largest man-made creations. The drawings can be found in a 520 square kilometres area, the origin and the purpose of these drawings are still unknown, and researchers still can’t find satisfactory explanations for them. The mystery is not the drawings themselves, but their amazingly accurate execution.
By removing the top layer of the desert and the rocks underneath the slightly lighter rock is revealed. Loose rocks from nearby were placed along the lines. Each figure (although the lines of different figures sometimes come into contact with other symbols) is made of one single line which never crosses over itself.
The origin of these lines is linked to the Nazca Indians and Incas. Motifs (for example hummingbirds) of Nazca culture, that flourished from 100 to 800 CE, makes it likely that the people of this group made those drawings. According to others only the animal figures were made by them and the geometrical symbols were made by the Incas. Whatever it was, the execution of the lines was done with an engineering precision (sometimes 8-9 m long straight lines were drawn with only 2 or 3 m deviation) that still amazes researchers.
The diagrams are virtually invisible from ground level (only small sections of the drawings are visible) the entire figures can only be seen from the air. Due to the fact that they can only be seen from the air (and considering the perfectly long, straight lines) more people, for example German astronomer and mathematician Maria Reiche, believe that whoever made these drawings had to know the science of flight. In support of this conclusion, Reiche reveals that there have been several ceramic materials found in the Nazca graves that had symbols of hot-air balloons or painted pictures reminding one of a flying dragon. At the end of some lines round shaped holes were discovered, that may have been the take