Nazca Lines

14.7370°S, 75.1300°W.

Geoglyph field on the Nazca and Palpa plains of southern Peru, etched into the desert pavement between approximately 500 BCE and 500 CE by the Paracas and later Nazca cultures. More than 800 straight lines, 300 geometric figures, and 70 zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures — including a hummingbird 93 metres long, a spider 46 metres long, a monkey with a single continuous spiral tail, and a 32-metre human figure called the Astronaut on a hillside. The figures are produced by removing the dark, oxidized iron-rich surface stones to expose the lighter, calcium-rich soil beneath, a contrast 5–15 cm deep. The plain receives less than 4 mm of rainfall per year and has minimal wind erosion, which is why the lines persist. Each figure is drawn as a single unbroken line.

They were drawn by people who could not see what they were drawing, on a surface that erases nothing.