Amazing ancient tableau of gigantic figures and lines drawn on the desert floor about 402 kilo meters (250 miles) southwest of Lima, Peru; brought to prominence with the 1970 publication of Erich Von Daniken’s best-selling book Chariots of the Gods? The several hundred drawings of birds, animals, humans, geometric shapes, and straight lines cover about 500 square kilometers (200 square miles) and are believed to have been inscribed by the Nazca people between 500 B.C.E. and 500 C.E. They were created by people who systematically removed surface rocks and scraped off the surface of the desert in the forms of their designs. Stone cairns, fire pits, and evidence of animal sacrifice remain at some of the sites. How and why they were created has been the subject of controversy.
One of the most amazing aspects of the Nazca drawings is that they can only be seen fully when viewed from the air. This fact has led to fantastic speculation, most notably by von Daniken, who theorized that the drawings are a large airfield or, he later amended, at the very least navigation aids for visiting extraterrestrials.