Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies 2013, 1(2), 48-54
DOI: 10.24411/2310-2144-2013-00002
Maria Reiche's line to archaeoastronomy
Amelia Carolina Sparavigna1
1Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino (Polytechnic University of Turin), Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, Turin, 10129, Italian Republic;E-mail: amelia.sparavigna@polito.it
Abstract
Maria Reiche was a German mathematician and archaeologist that, from 1940, devoted her life to the study of the Nazca Lines, the most famous Peruvian geoglyphs, gaining recognition and preservation of them. Created by removing the upper most layer of the arid soil of the Nazca desert, these geoglyphs, declared in 1995 a UNESCO World Heritage Site, are composed by very long straight and trapezoidal lines, spirals and large figures representing animals. Maria Reiche, in fact an archaeoastronomer too, proposed for the Lines some interesting astronomical interpretations, telling that some of them were created to point to the rising and setting of some stars. We can appraise her approach to this interpretation of the Lines by using satellite imagery and a free planetarium software. A discussion of some geoglyphs is also proposed, showing their astronomical orientations.
Keywords: Peru, Nazca Lines, Geoglyphs, Astronomical orientation, Solar orientation, Precession, Planetarium software.
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References
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2. Kathy Doore wrote for Labyrinthina.com an article entitled Maria Reiche, "The Nazca Lines Theory", which reports a lecture given by Maria Reiche in the 1980's on the history of her discovery. http://www.labyrinthina.com/mariareiche.htm (accessed on 15.12.2013).
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