Those Strange Nazca Lines

Genesis 4:22a
“And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron:”

I’m sure that many of you have seen aerial photos of massive drawings that can only be viewed while flying over the Nazca Desert south of Lima, Peru. Some of these images depict spiders, hummingbirds and monkeys. Others are perfectly straight lines that run as far as five miles. In fact, writes Dr. Donald Chittick in The Puzzle of Ancient Man, “the lines are as straight as our best modern methods of aerial surveying could make them.”

Scholars believe the lines were created by the Nazca culture between 500 BC and 500 AD. And this is why most archaeologists find these figures so perplexing. They assume that the Nazca people were too primitive to have known anything about surveying techniques. But as Dr. Chittick points out, “Evidence indicates early surveying was available to the builders of the pyramids in Egypt”, and the Nazca people “probably knew about surveying methods” as well.

The question remains of why the Nazca people created massive figures in the desert that could only be seen from an airplane or hot-air balloon. Dr. Chittick points out that researchers have discovered that the Nazca people knew how to make a high-quality black cloth with a very fine weave that could have been used for constructing hot-air balloons. The black cloth would absorb the rays of the sun and heat the air inside.

Sound far-fetched? Considering that the Bible tells us that even the earliest men were building cities and making things of brass and iron, it isn’t implausible at all.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for the Bible, which gives us a better understanding of the world around us and reveals how sinful man can be adopted into Your family through saving faith in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Author: Steven J. Schwartz
Ref: Donald E. Chittick, Ph.D., The Puzzle of Ancient Man, pp. 177-188 (Creation Compass, Third Edition, 2006). Photo: Aerial photo of “the monkey,” taken by Maria Reiche, one of the first archaeologists to study the Nazca lines, in 1953.

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