ANCIENT PERU PYRAMID SPOTTED BY SATELLITE IN NAZCA - PLUS, THE NAZCA LINES
New remote sensing technology has uncovered a large adobe pyramid near Peru's Cahuachi desert. Cahuachi is the site of the Nazca civilization, which slid into oblivion by the time the Inca Empire rose to dominate the Andes.
DISCOVERY NEWS
Discovery Channel
By Rossella Lorenzi
A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru's Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome.
Nicola Masini and Rosa Lasaponara of Italy's National Research Council (CNR) discovered the pyramid by analyzing images from the satellite Quickbird, which they used to penetrate the Peruvian soil.
The researchers investigated a test area along the river Nazca. Covered by plants and grass, it was about a mile away from Cahuachi's archaeological site, which contains the remains of what is believed to be the world's biggest mud city.
In this satellite image, the white arrows show the buried pyramid and the black arrows other
structures which have yet to be investigated.
Via Quickbird, Masini and colleagues collected high-resolution infrared and multispectral images. After the researchers optimized the data with special algorithms, the result was a detailed visualization of a pyramid that could not be spotted using conventional imagery.
The discovery doesn't come as a surprise to archaeologists, since some 40 mounds at Cahuachi are believed to contain the remains of important structures.
"We know that many buildings are still buried under Cahuachi's sands, but until now, it was almost impossible to exactly locate them and detect their shape from an aerial view," Masini told Discovery News. "The biggest problem was the very low contrast between adobe, which is sun-dried earth, and the background subsoil."
Cahuachi is the best-known site of the Nazca civilization, which flourished in Peru between the first century B.C. and the fifth century A.D. and slid into oblivion by the time the Inca Empire rose to dominate the Andes.
Famous for carving in the Peruvian desert hundreds of geometric lines and images of animals and birds that are best viewed from the air, the Nazca people built Cahuachi as a ceremonial center, molding pyramids, temples and plazas from the desert itself.
There, priests led ceremonies including human sacrifices, drawing people from across the region.
Between the year 300 and 350, two natural disasters — a powerful flood and a devastating earthquake — hit Cahuachi. The site lost its sacred power to the Nazca, who then abandoned the area.
But before leaving, they sealed all monuments and buried them under the desert sand.
"Up to now, we have completely unearthed and restored a huge asymmetrical pyramid, known as the Grand Pyramid. A terraced temple and a smaller pyramid are in an advanced state of excavation," Giuseppe Orefici, an archaeologist who has spent decades excavating Cahuachi and has also worked with the CNR researchers, wrote in the conference paper.
Featuring a 300-by-328-foot base, the newly discovered pyramid consists of at least "four degrading terraces which suggest a truncated pyramid similar to the Grand Pyramid." With seven levels, this imposing monument was sculpted from the landscape and enhanced by large adobe walls.
"This is an interesting finding. As with the Grand Pyramid, it is likely that also this pyramid contains the remains of human sacrifices," Andrea Drusini, an anthropologist at Padova University, told Discovery News.
In previous excavations at Cahuachi, Drusini found some 20 severed "offering heads" at various locations inside the Grand Pyramid.
The Nazca Lines are the star attraction in and around Nazca. Scattered over 500 square kilometers of an arid plateau between the Nazca River and Ingenio River, they are huge representations of geometric patterns, animals, humans figures and thousands of perfectly straight lines that go on for kilometers. They were created by removing surface stones, revealing the lighter-colored soil below. They're unquestionably ancient (dating back 1400-2200 years), and remarkably precise (with straight lines and clean curves). The images on the ground are so huge that the only way to view most of them is from the air, a fact which has led to speculation that the ancient Nazca people who created them either had air travel (e.g. hot air balloons), or - even less probable - were directed by an alien civilization. The prevailing scientific viewpoint is that they were created using low-tech surveying techniques, but nobody actually knows who made them or why.
Original Source: Discovery News
Source: MSNBC
These pictures below are coming in from Photobucket and their server is down at the moment so check back.
NASCA LINES FROM NASCA PERU
Most of the Nasca lines were discovered in the 40's but the last giant picture on the Nazca Plateau in Peru, which is famous for it's giant patterns, was discovered by a team of Japanese researchers in the fall of 2007.
The image is 210 feet long, and appears to be an animal with horns, somewhat resembling (of all things) a lobster. It is thought to have been drawn as a symbol of hopes for good crops, but there are no similar patterns elsewhere, and the type of the animal remains unclear. The discovery marks the first time since the 1980s that a picture other than a geometrical pattern has been found on the Nazca Plateau.
The picture was found by a team of researchers including Masato Sakai, an associate professor at Yamagata University, after they analyzed images from a U.S. commercial satellite. They confirmed it was a previously undiscovered picture in a local survey in March this year. It is located at the south of the Nazca Plateau, and apparently went undiscovered since few tourist planes pass over the area.
There is evidence that vehicles had driven in the area, and part of the picture is destroyed.
Two parts of the picture, that appear to be horns, bear close resemblance to those that appear on earthenware dating from 100 B.C. to A.D. 600, during the time when the Nazca kingdom flourished, and it is thought that they relate to fertility rites.
The research team will use images from the advanced land-observing satellite "Daichi," which was launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in January this year, to create a distribution map of images on the earth that can be seen from the air.
For years people have been making theories about who made the giant figures, how they were made and especially why they were made. A review of these theories follows.
Perhaps even more interesting than the figures of animals and the zig-zag lines is one unusual image known as "the mandala." This image is extremely remote and sits atop an arid mountain plateau.
The image appears to have been carved with exceptional precision. A large square measures 180 feet across while an inner circle spans the same diameter. Several smaller squares, about 20 feet wide, appear to have been etched in the landscape along with an assortment of stategically placed holes.
Many of the Nasca lines are random and seem to have no pattern to them. They are seen over the scattered seemingly at random over the desolate plain, crossing and intersecting for no apparent reason.
Theories About The Nasca Lines
1. They were used for rituals, probably related to astronomy.
2. There were used to confirm the "ayllus" or clans who made up the population and to determine through ritual their economic functions held up by reciprocity and redistribution.
3. They were created for ET creator Gods.
In 1969, Erich von Daniken floated the idea that airborne extraterrestrials might have laid out the lines as runways for their aircraft.[1] However, his imaginative theory ran into a number of problems. First, it is claimed that the soil is not hard enough to sustain repeated landings of heavy aerial craft. Secondly, why did the alleged extraterrestrials not design something far more sophisticated? Thirdly, many lines are only 3 feet wide - too narrow for aircraft. In addition, von Daniken has failed to explain the meaning or purpose of the animal geoglyphs.
The foremost expert on the Nazca Lines is undoubtedly Maria Reiche, a German mathematician who has devoted more than fifty years of her life to the study and protection of the Lines. Reiche has led a determined effort to discredit the von Daniken theory of extraterrestrials. The strategy of this attack has been to argue that the Nazca Indians constructed the Lines relatively recently - some time between 300 BC and AD 800. In support of this possibility, some scientists have put forward ingenious ideas on how the geoglyphs could theoretically have been designed from the ground. The more important evidence, however, is that which attempts to link the Lines definitively to the Nazcan culture. Here, neither of the two key pieces of evidence survive close scrutiny.
The first piece of evidence is a series of radiocarbon dates, based on ceramic and wood remains which were left at the Lines by the Nazcan people. It is claimed that this proves that the Nazcans constructed the Lines. On the contrary, the dating of these materials tells us only that the Nazcans lived in the area of the Lines. Since the Lines themselves cannot be radiocarbon dated, the possibility remains that they already existed when the Nazcan culture emerged.
The second piece of evidence is the alleged resemblance of the Nazca geoglyphs to certain features found on Nazcan pottery. This is an important issue because it potentially offers proof that the Nazcans had either designed the images or at least viewed them from the air.
In 1968, a study by the National Geographic Society determined that, whilst some of the Nazca lines did point to the positions of the Sun, Moon and certain stars two thousand years ago, it was no more than could be expected by mere chance. In 1973, Dr Gerald Hawkins studied 186 lines with a computer programme and found that only 20 per cent had any astronomical orientation - again no more than by pure chance. In 1982, Anthony Aveni obtained similar results, whilst in 1980, Georg Petersen pointed out that Reiche's theory did not explain the different lengths and widths of the lines. More recently, Johan Reinhard has noted that the surrounding mountains provided a ready-made and much more effective mechanism for the Nazcans to use as a solar calendar; the lines would thus have been quite superfluous to them. In addition to this avalanche of scientific opinion, we should also note that Reiche, like von Daniken, has failed to explain the significance of the animal geoglyphs.
Truck Driven Across Nazca Lines
Tourists have driven a pickup truck across a section of Peru's mysterious Nazca Lines, damaging at least three of the lines that were etched in desert sands centuries ago, authorities say.
The thousands of Nazca lines, located 250 miles south of Lima, are among Peru's top tourist attractions. The loosely guarded lines cover a 35-mile stretch of desert.
The intruders, whose vehicle had a California license plate, bypassed protective concrete markers and drove across the desert plain, over the ancient lines, reports park guardian Hector Garcia.
The tourists had camped overnight among the lines, then departed today leaving garbage behind, Garcia says. The tourists were not stopped or identified and it is not known if they are still in Peru.
The most famous figures among the lines -- a hummingbird, monkey, heron, whale, spider and flower -- have not been damaged, says district prosecutor Jose Herrera Ramos.
The shallow etchings were made well over 1,000 years ago by Indians who cleared the stony surface, exposing the whitish soil underneath. Scientists continue to debate their purpose, offering such theories as a calendar, a map of underground water supplies -- even landing strips for space aliens.
1. Killer Whale 2. Wing 3. Baby Condor 4. Bird 5. Animal 6. Spiral 7. Lizard 8. Tree 9. Hands 10. Spiral 11. Spider 12. Flower 13. Dog 14. Astronaut 15. Triangle 16. Whale 17. Trapazoids 18. Star 19. Pelican 20. Bird 21. Trapazoid 22. Hummingbird 23. Trapezoid 24. Monkey 25. Llama 26. Trapezoids
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DISCOVERY NEWS
Discovery Channel
By Rossella Lorenzi
A new remote sensing technology has peeled away layers of mud and rock near Peru's Cahuachi desert to reveal an ancient adobe pyramid, Italian researchers announced on Friday at a satellite imagery conference in Rome.
Nicola Masini and Rosa Lasaponara of Italy's National Research Council (CNR) discovered the pyramid by analyzing images from the satellite Quickbird, which they used to penetrate the Peruvian soil.
The researchers investigated a test area along the river Nazca. Covered by plants and grass, it was about a mile away from Cahuachi's archaeological site, which contains the remains of what is believed to be the world's biggest mud city.
In this satellite image, the white arrows show the buried pyramid and the black arrows other
structures which have yet to be investigated.
Via Quickbird, Masini and colleagues collected high-resolution infrared and multispectral images. After the researchers optimized the data with special algorithms, the result was a detailed visualization of a pyramid that could not be spotted using conventional imagery.
The discovery doesn't come as a surprise to archaeologists, since some 40 mounds at Cahuachi are believed to contain the remains of important structures.
"We know that many buildings are still buried under Cahuachi's sands, but until now, it was almost impossible to exactly locate them and detect their shape from an aerial view," Masini told Discovery News. "The biggest problem was the very low contrast between adobe, which is sun-dried earth, and the background subsoil."
Cahuachi is the best-known site of the Nazca civilization, which flourished in Peru between the first century B.C. and the fifth century A.D. and slid into oblivion by the time the Inca Empire rose to dominate the Andes.
Famous for carving in the Peruvian desert hundreds of geometric lines and images of animals and birds that are best viewed from the air, the Nazca people built Cahuachi as a ceremonial center, molding pyramids, temples and plazas from the desert itself.
There, priests led ceremonies including human sacrifices, drawing people from across the region.
Between the year 300 and 350, two natural disasters — a powerful flood and a devastating earthquake — hit Cahuachi. The site lost its sacred power to the Nazca, who then abandoned the area.
But before leaving, they sealed all monuments and buried them under the desert sand.
"Up to now, we have completely unearthed and restored a huge asymmetrical pyramid, known as the Grand Pyramid. A terraced temple and a smaller pyramid are in an advanced state of excavation," Giuseppe Orefici, an archaeologist who has spent decades excavating Cahuachi and has also worked with the CNR researchers, wrote in the conference paper.
Featuring a 300-by-328-foot base, the newly discovered pyramid consists of at least "four degrading terraces which suggest a truncated pyramid similar to the Grand Pyramid." With seven levels, this imposing monument was sculpted from the landscape and enhanced by large adobe walls.
"This is an interesting finding. As with the Grand Pyramid, it is likely that also this pyramid contains the remains of human sacrifices," Andrea Drusini, an anthropologist at Padova University, told Discovery News.
In previous excavations at Cahuachi, Drusini found some 20 severed "offering heads" at various locations inside the Grand Pyramid.
The Nazca Lines are the star attraction in and around Nazca. Scattered over 500 square kilometers of an arid plateau between the Nazca River and Ingenio River, they are huge representations of geometric patterns, animals, humans figures and thousands of perfectly straight lines that go on for kilometers. They were created by removing surface stones, revealing the lighter-colored soil below. They're unquestionably ancient (dating back 1400-2200 years), and remarkably precise (with straight lines and clean curves). The images on the ground are so huge that the only way to view most of them is from the air, a fact which has led to speculation that the ancient Nazca people who created them either had air travel (e.g. hot air balloons), or - even less probable - were directed by an alien civilization. The prevailing scientific viewpoint is that they were created using low-tech surveying techniques, but nobody actually knows who made them or why.
Original Source: Discovery News
Source: MSNBC
These pictures below are coming in from Photobucket and their server is down at the moment so check back.
NASCA LINES FROM NASCA PERU
Most of the Nasca lines were discovered in the 40's but the last giant picture on the Nazca Plateau in Peru, which is famous for it's giant patterns, was discovered by a team of Japanese researchers in the fall of 2007.
The image is 210 feet long, and appears to be an animal with horns, somewhat resembling (of all things) a lobster. It is thought to have been drawn as a symbol of hopes for good crops, but there are no similar patterns elsewhere, and the type of the animal remains unclear. The discovery marks the first time since the 1980s that a picture other than a geometrical pattern has been found on the Nazca Plateau.
The picture was found by a team of researchers including Masato Sakai, an associate professor at Yamagata University, after they analyzed images from a U.S. commercial satellite. They confirmed it was a previously undiscovered picture in a local survey in March this year. It is located at the south of the Nazca Plateau, and apparently went undiscovered since few tourist planes pass over the area.
There is evidence that vehicles had driven in the area, and part of the picture is destroyed.
Two parts of the picture, that appear to be horns, bear close resemblance to those that appear on earthenware dating from 100 B.C. to A.D. 600, during the time when the Nazca kingdom flourished, and it is thought that they relate to fertility rites.
The research team will use images from the advanced land-observing satellite "Daichi," which was launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in January this year, to create a distribution map of images on the earth that can be seen from the air.
For years people have been making theories about who made the giant figures, how they were made and especially why they were made. A review of these theories follows.
Perhaps even more interesting than the figures of animals and the zig-zag lines is one unusual image known as "the mandala." This image is extremely remote and sits atop an arid mountain plateau.
The image appears to have been carved with exceptional precision. A large square measures 180 feet across while an inner circle spans the same diameter. Several smaller squares, about 20 feet wide, appear to have been etched in the landscape along with an assortment of stategically placed holes.
Many of the Nasca lines are random and seem to have no pattern to them. They are seen over the scattered seemingly at random over the desolate plain, crossing and intersecting for no apparent reason.
Theories About The Nasca Lines
1. They were used for rituals, probably related to astronomy.
2. There were used to confirm the "ayllus" or clans who made up the population and to determine through ritual their economic functions held up by reciprocity and redistribution.
3. They were created for ET creator Gods.
In 1969, Erich von Daniken floated the idea that airborne extraterrestrials might have laid out the lines as runways for their aircraft.[1] However, his imaginative theory ran into a number of problems. First, it is claimed that the soil is not hard enough to sustain repeated landings of heavy aerial craft. Secondly, why did the alleged extraterrestrials not design something far more sophisticated? Thirdly, many lines are only 3 feet wide - too narrow for aircraft. In addition, von Daniken has failed to explain the meaning or purpose of the animal geoglyphs.
The foremost expert on the Nazca Lines is undoubtedly Maria Reiche, a German mathematician who has devoted more than fifty years of her life to the study and protection of the Lines. Reiche has led a determined effort to discredit the von Daniken theory of extraterrestrials. The strategy of this attack has been to argue that the Nazca Indians constructed the Lines relatively recently - some time between 300 BC and AD 800. In support of this possibility, some scientists have put forward ingenious ideas on how the geoglyphs could theoretically have been designed from the ground. The more important evidence, however, is that which attempts to link the Lines definitively to the Nazcan culture. Here, neither of the two key pieces of evidence survive close scrutiny.
The first piece of evidence is a series of radiocarbon dates, based on ceramic and wood remains which were left at the Lines by the Nazcan people. It is claimed that this proves that the Nazcans constructed the Lines. On the contrary, the dating of these materials tells us only that the Nazcans lived in the area of the Lines. Since the Lines themselves cannot be radiocarbon dated, the possibility remains that they already existed when the Nazcan culture emerged.
The second piece of evidence is the alleged resemblance of the Nazca geoglyphs to certain features found on Nazcan pottery. This is an important issue because it potentially offers proof that the Nazcans had either designed the images or at least viewed them from the air.
In 1968, a study by the National Geographic Society determined that, whilst some of the Nazca lines did point to the positions of the Sun, Moon and certain stars two thousand years ago, it was no more than could be expected by mere chance. In 1973, Dr Gerald Hawkins studied 186 lines with a computer programme and found that only 20 per cent had any astronomical orientation - again no more than by pure chance. In 1982, Anthony Aveni obtained similar results, whilst in 1980, Georg Petersen pointed out that Reiche's theory did not explain the different lengths and widths of the lines. More recently, Johan Reinhard has noted that the surrounding mountains provided a ready-made and much more effective mechanism for the Nazcans to use as a solar calendar; the lines would thus have been quite superfluous to them. In addition to this avalanche of scientific opinion, we should also note that Reiche, like von Daniken, has failed to explain the significance of the animal geoglyphs.
Truck Driven Across Nazca Lines
Tourists have driven a pickup truck across a section of Peru's mysterious Nazca Lines, damaging at least three of the lines that were etched in desert sands centuries ago, authorities say.
The thousands of Nazca lines, located 250 miles south of Lima, are among Peru's top tourist attractions. The loosely guarded lines cover a 35-mile stretch of desert.
The intruders, whose vehicle had a California license plate, bypassed protective concrete markers and drove across the desert plain, over the ancient lines, reports park guardian Hector Garcia.
The tourists had camped overnight among the lines, then departed today leaving garbage behind, Garcia says. The tourists were not stopped or identified and it is not known if they are still in Peru.
The most famous figures among the lines -- a hummingbird, monkey, heron, whale, spider and flower -- have not been damaged, says district prosecutor Jose Herrera Ramos.
The shallow etchings were made well over 1,000 years ago by Indians who cleared the stony surface, exposing the whitish soil underneath. Scientists continue to debate their purpose, offering such theories as a calendar, a map of underground water supplies -- even landing strips for space aliens.
1. Killer Whale 2. Wing 3. Baby Condor 4. Bird 5. Animal 6. Spiral 7. Lizard 8. Tree 9. Hands 10. Spiral 11. Spider 12. Flower 13. Dog 14. Astronaut 15. Triangle 16. Whale 17. Trapazoids 18. Star 19. Pelican 20. Bird 21. Trapazoid 22. Hummingbird 23. Trapezoid 24. Monkey 25. Llama 26. Trapezoids
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