Word: nazca
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Scientists have long wondered how the ancient Nazcas were able to draw the giant designs and figures that stretch for miles across Peru's bleak Nazca plains. They have been particularly fascinated by the fact that although there are no nearby mountains, the designs are recognizable only from a high elevation...
Maria Reiche, a German researcher, speculates that the Nazca artists executed the drawings by first sketching them on small plots of land, then used a complex system of strings and central piles of rock to make large-sized "blowups" (TIME, March 25, 1974). Members of the International Explorers Society, a travel-oriented organization based in Coral Gables, Fla., have another explanation. They believe that the Nazcas laid out their remarkable figures while being guided by observers hovering above them in a hot-air balloon. In an attempt to prove their point, I.E.S. members last month flew a crude balloon over...
...cosmologist Erich von Däniken conjures up primordial heroes from the plain of Nazca and the temples of Palenque ?extraterrestrial astronauts who strayed to this planet long ago and then vanished. Today heroes and leaders bred on the earth seem almost as scarce. "There is a very obvious dearth of people who seem able to supply convincing answers, or even point to directions toward solutions," says Harvard President Derek Bok. "Leadership," observes Northwestern University Political Scientist Louis Masotti, "is one of those things you don't know you need until you don't have...
...laid out with equal precision. In their midst are drawings of huge spiders, a giant nine-fingered monkey, birds, fish and reptiles, some of them so large they are recognizable only from the air. For decades these ancient patterns, spreading across 30 miles of Peru's desolate Nazca plain, have confounded archaeologists. Why were they so painstakingly etched out of the bleak mesa? Could they have been signals to the gods, or-as the current movie Chariots of the Gods? suggests-to extraterrestrial visitors...