July 8, 2020
Johny Isla, chief archaeologist for the Nazca and Palpa Lines for Peru’s ministry of culture, saw an image of a Nazca geoglyph in a German exhibit in 2014. He had never seen this glyph. It was of a killer whale deity, Using drones, he found the image 30 miles from Nazca. It depicts a mythological beast, part orca but with a human arm holding a trophy head and several more heads inside its body.
New drone research has now uncovered hundreds of such figures near Nazca which pre-date the Nazca lines by 1,500 years. They were created by the Paracas and Topará cultures between 500BC and AD200.
On one hillside, a warrior wearing a headdress and carrying a staff or spear stands close to a female figure. Between them is a mythological creature with a mass of tentacles or snakes. The figures are believed to symbolise fertility.
From the ground, the designs are now hard to see. But the drone’s eagle-eye reveals the full design on a monitor viewed by Castillo.
Photogrammetry is being utilized in the search. This is a highly detailed three-dimensional mapping of large areas. While the team have discovered hundreds of geoglyphs in Palpa, Castillo expects to find many more. “We’ve registered maybe just 5% of what there is,” he says.
The Guardian has the story here, with photos;
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/may/24/nazca-lines-drones-new-discoveries-peru
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