Between the Lines: The Mystery of the Giant Ground Drawings of Ancient Nasca, Peru by Anthony F. Aveni

Between the Lines: The Mystery of the Giant Ground Drawings of Ancient Nasca, Peru Reviews

• 
  Lora Shouse

  This is very much a niche book. If you are interested in mysterious ancient artifacts, you would find this interesting. Otherwise, you would probably find it boring.
  
  The giant ground drawings discussed here are some of the same ones that were cited years ago as evidence that extraterrestrials had visited Earth long ago and were responsible for its civilizations. More recently, it has been claimed that they were astronomical maps pointing to various stars or the places where the sun and/or certain constellations rose or set at special times of the year, similar to what is believed about Stonehenge.
  
  While there may be some truth to the astronomical marker idea, the author has come to believe that there are other, simpler explanations for the drawings that are related to the lives of the people who created them and that these people are not after all so very different from the people who still live in the area and whose customs give the best clues to what the drawings are all about.
  
• 
  Joni Heredia

  Between the Lines, Anthony F. Aveni
  
  Part One: Prelude
  
  Part One introduces the Nazca Lines and emphasizes the fact that the majority of Nazca lines are straight lines, not figures. It lays out the pampa and orients the reader to the location and concentration of the lines. The Nazca Pampa is bordered by a river on the north, a river on the southwest, and Andean foothills on the east. In this part, Aveni also orients the readers to the ancient seven wonders of the world, setting up the question of whether the Nazca lines should be considered on a modern list of (ancient) wonders. Only one of the original eight wonders are still standing (The Great Pyramid,) and almost all of them were located in the Mediterranean Roman Empire. The pyramids of the Americas get little attention, though some were probably built before the
  Egyptians and some were larger (Sechin Alto and Las Haldas, in Peru). Coastal cultures in Chile originated one of the first cultures of the dead, and made mummies, before the Egyptians.
  
  Modern wonders might include the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, Mount Rushmore, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, the Suez and Panama Canals, the Palace of Versailles, etc. The Nazca Lines certainly fit the criteria for capturing the imagination of the public but it is questionable whether they really involved advanced mathematic or building skills and great effort.
  
  Aveni supposes the lines were cleared rather quickly and easily with no great plan, done in the field with the eye, and requiring a small group of people to clear away stones and line them up along the borders. Birds make up most of the animal figures, with other animals common in myths and pottery images such as the spider, monkey, fox, and fish. The large majority of the lines are straight pathways, which Aveni argues were made for walking, which converge upon dozens of ray centers. It is probable that the lines do not harbor any secret measurements or mathematical principles, as Maria Reiche argued, but were more simply made.
  
  Part Two: Processional
  
  Aveni focuses on the culture of Nazca before Columbus, which began to rise about 200 BC in the Nazca Valley. The Pampa was surely inhabited because there are signs of irrigation and cultivation, and the climate could have been milder and wetter. Housing ruins have been found as well as large architectural centers. One of these is Cahuachi, a group of buildings including a Great Temple which was situated just across the river from the largest concentration of lines. The pottery at Cahuachi was all decorated, and this led archeologists to believe it was a special ceremonial center, and not a living village. Another site, named Vantilla, is on the other side of the pampa and connected to Cahuachi by a seven mile long line.
  
  Aveni argues that the lines are experienced in a completely different way when walked than when seen from above. Archaeologists have found and cataloged much pottery along the lines and this gives rise to the theory that the lines were used for processionals and social or sacred gatherings. They were not simply etched for far-away viewing. They were walked.
  
  Here Aveni looks at many other theories that have existed about the lines, and takes them apart. He tells the story of Maria Reiche, and argues that she spent her life looking for what she wanted to see: astronomical connections. She did walk and map the pampa, but her work consisted of drawing maps and
  trying to align the lines and figures with the skies. Aveni argues that almost every other researcher did not take the ancient people of Nazca, and the coastal Peruvian culture and times, into account. The astronomers who studied Stonehenge came to study Nazca and used the same constellations and alignments
  they had used in England, which had no relevance and sometimes didn't exist in the Southern Hemisphere.
  
  Most of the findings from Reinhardt are corroborated here. The lines were connected to local worship of mountain gods.
  
  Part Three: Ceremony
  
  The ray centers in Nazca are very reminiscent of the Ceque Line system that was chronicled in Cuzco, and which Aveni spent several seasons studying, walking, and mapping. Although the Nazca lines predate the Inca Ceque system, it could have been an idea or tradition which had earlier roots and was applied in Cuzco. The Ceque Lines in Cuzco were not often physical lines, but an organizing system that served many purposes and which was well-known to all at the time, though possibly not documented. The lines divided the city and surrounding areas and provided a way of organizing kin groups into heierarchies and organizing tasks as well as the yearly calendar. For this reason writing was not needed in the Inca society. The Ceque lines served many purposes at once, some astronomical/calendar, some organization, some religious, etc. Aveni surmises that the Nazca lines may have served many similar purposes, and not all lines were equal. Some do mark solstices and other events, but that does not make the Nazca lines "the world's largest astronomy book," as Reiche proposes. Some were used as pathways, some religious, and some practical. Some were probably used to mark water sources and show direction of underground water, some may even have been used as irrigation canals.
  
  In this respect Aveni concurs with Johan Reinhardt in that the pathways were probably used in religious ceremonies worshipping mountain and fertility gods. This does not mean the lines necessarily connect with mountaintops, but that the hills and mounds at the ray centers probably represented mountains. Many of the lines begin at small dunes connected to foothills. Reihnardt had discovered modern-day tribes using very long straight paths used to worship similar mountain gods, and documented those practices.
  
  Part Four: Recessional
  
  Aveni surveys some more modern attempts to reform the surface of the earth, art projects undertaken to recapture the ancient spirit of looking towards the sky or simply to claim a piece of the earth and mold it. He believes the Nazca lines are an expression of human spirit, an audacious adventure in
  earthmoving. The Ley Lines in England are remarkably similar to the concepts behind the Ceque line system in Cuzco, although their authenticity is in question. Also, more ancient geoglyphs in many places feature many similarities to the Nazca lines and figures. There are humanoid figures in England as well as in North America of similar size and scope. The Hopewell people built gigantic earth mounds in specific geometric shapes that were also sometimes connected by miles-long straight paths, walled on both sides by 12" of earth. The Serpent Mound is an animal figure similar in size to some of those in
  Nazca. The geoglyphs in California feature straight lines, radial lines, and humanoid figures and these are found in similar configurations all over the Western United States. The peoples here used the etchings for different purposes, some solitary, some social, some religious, for walking/dancing, etc.
  
  The Nazca lines must be understood within the context of the culture in that place at that time. They were built over centuries and influenced in that time by other nearby cultures, although Aveni believes the lines and figures are probably contemporary, they may have served different purposes. The lines were surely meant to be walked and probably served religious functions of worshiping fertility, water, and mountain gods. Other lines were probably pathways across the desert. The spirals such as the monkey's tail and the fishing rod are double spirals probably serving a purpose similar to other labyrinths found in the world.
  
• 
  Shriya Uday

  This was so detailed and well researched. It takes the time to explain everything relavent to the nasca lines however outlandish the theories surrounding it are.
  
  It gives cultural context to both the lines themselves and the discovery of the lines.
• 
  Beverley Kaye

  This book not only discussed Mr. Aveni's research and conclusions but also a discussion about other theories and findings concerning the Nasca lines. It read like a thesis with a comprehensive lit review. I'm glad I read it right to the end, I wanted to quit several times. I feel like I learned something