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The Nazca Lines are a series of large ancient geoglyphs (地画) in the Nazca Desert, in southern Peru. It is ranging from geometric patterns to drawings of different animals and stylized human-like forms. The ancient lines can only be truly taken in from high in the air, leaving generations puzzled as to how these precise works could have been completed long before the documented invention of human flight.
The Lines were first spotted when commercial airlines began flying across the Peruvian desert in the 1920,s. Who built them and what was their purpose? Are they roads, star pointers，maybe even a gigantic map? If the people who lived here 2,000 years ago had only a simple technology, how did they manage to construct such precise figures? Did they have a plan? These markings are like a vast puzzle.
The Nazca Lines are the most outstanding group of geoglyphs in the world. There are also huge geoglyphs in Egypt, Malta，United States (Mississippi and California), Chile，Holivia and in other countries. But the Nazca geoglyphs, because of their numbers， characteristics, dimensions and cultural continuity as they were made and remade throughout a certain history period, form the most impressive archeological (考古学的) group.
The Nazca plain is unique for its ability to preserve the markings upon it, due to the combination of the climate (one of the driest on Earth, with only twenty minutes of rainfall per year) and the flat, stony ground which minimizes the effect of the wind at ground level. With no dust or sand to cover the plain and little rain or wind to erode (腐蚀) it, lines drawn here tend to stay drawn. These factors, combined with the existence of lighter-colored subsoil beneath the desert surface, provide a vast writing pad that is suited to the artist who wants to leave his mark eternal.
