The Nazca Lines of Peru have fascinated archaeologists for centuries. A Japanese research team is now making more of the geoglyphs. The discovery is based on aerial photographs evaluated by artificial intelligence.
A Japanese research team, together with local experts, has discovered 168 new geoglyphs in Peru’s Nazca Desert. The newly discovered drawings show humans, camelids, birds, killer whales, cats and snakes, according to Yamagata University. Some are just simple lines or trapezoidal patterns.
Some of the new discoveries can be seen in photos that have been published. Lines were added to the images to complete the original rendering, which has faded due to erosion.
For their research, the archaeologists were near the city of Nazca from June 2019 to February 2020 and created high-resolution aerial photographs and drone images. The university worked with the IBM Thomas J Watson Research Center in New York, which scanned the aerial photos with artificial intelligence (AI). The AI is believed to be able to detect landmarks in the landscape that the human eye would otherwise miss.
If you add the newly discovered 168 geoglyphs to the 190 discovered until 2018, the total number is now 358. They show people, camelids, birds, orcas, cats and snakes. Other motifs that have already been identified include a dog, a hummingbird, a condor, a monkey, a spider and a mythical animal sticking out its tongue.
Current research suggests that there are two types of geoglyphs: a linear type and a relief type. Of the drawings discovered in this study, only five belong to the former type, while 163 belong to the latter type. Most geoglyphs of the latter type are rather small, less than 10 meters in diameter. According to a statement, the group of experts assumes that the newly discovered geoglyphs were created between 100 BC and 100 BC. and 300 AD.
Over the decades, the lines have been interpreted in a variety of ways. The most common explanation is that they were intended for gods in heaven looking down on humans. Another popular theory is that the figures and patterns were drawn for ritual astronomical purposes and are meant to reflect the stars.