- 11 minutes ago
Josh travels to Peru to investigate the giant geoglyphs drawn into the earth by the ancient Nazca tribes and while studying newly found lines joining a Nazca psychadelic ritual, Josh discovers the meaning behind the mysterious tracings.
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00:00The Nazca Lines, cryptic messages from a lost civilization.
00:11Today, newly discovered symbols may finally unlock one of the world's greatest mysteries.
00:17Whoa! Ha ha ha!
00:19The sun was setting in the middle of the line. It has to have a meaning.
00:24That is so cool. New Nazca Lines.
00:28Josh, this is what I wanted to show you.
00:31Incredible. It's huge!
00:44When you think of Peru, what comes to mind?
00:47The soaring Andes Mountains?
00:49Maybe the lush jungles of the Amazon?
00:52Well, if you head a bit further south, you'll find yourself in one of the driest and most desolate environments on Earth.
00:582,000 years ago, a mysterious civilization thrived here.
01:03Little was known about them until the 1920s, when commercial flights spotted their giant glyphs, symbols inscribed in the sand that became known as the Nazca Lines.
01:13They depict huge animals, strange figures, and complex geometric shapes.
01:25For nearly a century, people have been fiercely debating the Nazca Lines.
01:29But several months ago, a sandstorm in the desert revealed something incredible.
01:34Never-before-seen symbols that may be the key to solving the entire puzzle.
01:40Scientists have also uncovered clues that may reveal how the lines were made with such mathematical precision.
01:47And more importantly, why?
01:50Were they used to pray to the gods or for drug-induced rituals?
01:54Were they a giant astronomical calendar?
01:56Or, as some wild theories suggest, a way to communicate with UFOs?
02:01Well, thanks to new discoveries, we may finally know the answer.
02:05My mission?
02:06Get to Peru and immerse myself in the world of the Nazca.
02:10I'll examine the new evidence in the case, and then look for definitive answers to one of the strangest mysteries in the world.
02:17My name is Josh Gates.
02:24With a degree in archaeology and a passion for exploration, I have a tendency to end up in some very strange situations.
02:33There has got to be a better way to make a living.
02:37My travels have taken me to the ends of the Earth as I investigate the greatest legends in history.
02:42We're good to fly. Let's go.
02:44This is Expedition Unknown.
02:47After an eight-hour flight, I touch down in Peru's capital city of Lima.
02:58In order to get to the Nazca lines, we have to get to Nazca.
03:01In order to do that, we have to head a few hundred miles south.
03:10Everybody in Peru honks all the time.
03:12They honk when they're happy.
03:13They honk when they'd like to get by you.
03:14They honk when they're angry.
03:16Just any...anytime you want...
03:18Here's a kid crossing the road.
03:20I'll beep at them.
03:21They love it.
03:23Having honked my way out of Lima, I'm embarking on a 300-mile trek down the coast to the desert town of Nazca and the never-before-seen Nazca lines revealed by a recent sandstorm.
03:34The fastest and, well, only way to get there is on the infamous Pan American Highway.
03:38This is the world's longest road.
03:4030,000 miles of lonely pavement that links almost every country in the Americas.
03:45On one side, steep cliffs drop down to the Pacific.
03:49The other, endless desert.
03:52This region gets less than an inch of rain a year.
03:55But amidst the barren dunes, there is something unlikely.
03:58Life.
03:59Water in the middle of the desert.
04:09Amazing.
04:10This is Huacachina.
04:12Home to about 100 people, it is the only true desert oasis in the Americas.
04:16A small pond of water that somehow defies the dried-up landscape all around it.
04:21Basically, there's this natural oasis here.
04:24People just flock to it.
04:25And they created a community around the water.
04:28This thirst-quenching oasis wasn't around during the time of the Nazca.
04:32But the desert was.
04:33And I'm here to get a firsthand look at the landscape the Nazca people somehow conquered.
04:38To do that, I need to go off-road.
04:45Once you leave the highways in southern Peru, this is what's left.
04:50Nothingness.
04:51One of the harshest landscapes in the world.
04:55This is Elmer, a local driver who's agreed to show me around.
04:58He's not much for conversation, but he knows these dunes like the back of his hand.
05:12Peru's deserts are about the size of New York State.
05:15But if I didn't know better, I'd think I was on Mars.
05:18That long open highway.
05:23Oh!
05:24The one that calls my name.
05:26Yowzers!
05:27Shifting gears, have some fears.
05:30Didn't leave my iron on.
05:32This is crazy.
05:33That long open highway.
05:36Elmer, you're crazy!
05:37The one that calls my name.
05:39What?
05:40Ha ha ha!
05:41I'm not sure what direction we're going, or whether Elmer here has a license, but I'm
05:45quickly learning that out here in the middle of nowhere, there's definitely no Speedlin.
05:49Holy !
05:50Two thousand years ago, the Nazca people walked this scorching desert on foot.
05:58Luckily, modern humans have come up with a much more fun and dangerous way to traverse these dunes.
06:03I got this!
06:17I got this!
06:18I got this!
06:20Ha ha ha ha!
06:22Nailed it!
06:23You know, I didn't break my legs.
06:35With the sun setting and a lot of sand in my boxers, we make our way back to the paved road
06:41with a new appreciation for how vast and dry the world of the Nazca really was.
06:53By the light of a new day, I continue rumbling down the Pan American Highway.
06:57After a few more hours on the monotonous road, the dusty outline of buildings appears in the distance.
07:06Welcome to Nazca, the city of eternal summer.
07:10This area has been occupied by humans since time immemorial.
07:13Once home to the ancient Nazca people, it was later a Spanish settlement, a wine region,
07:18and today, a quiet town and an outpost for archaeologists and adventurous travelers.
07:26Everywhere you look, there are representations of the Nazca lines.
07:30But I'm here to see the real thing.
07:32Just outside of town, I pull over to get my first look at these mysterious glyphs.
07:37We have arrived at the Nazca lines.
07:42Can you see them?
07:44Me neither.
07:46The problem is that they're so huge and it's so flat here that without any elevation, they kind of disappear into the desert,
07:52which has raised a lot of questions about how they were made and why were they made if you can't really see them from down here.
07:58In order to get a good view of them, we're going to have to go up.
08:03The Nazca lines were first recorded in 1553 by the Spanish conquistador Pedro Cieza de Leon, but he mistook them for primitive roads.
08:11If only this rickety tower had been built hundreds of years ago, then perhaps he could have seen the true nature of the lines, which only reveals itself from above.
08:25Wow! Look at this!
08:30Coming up!
08:32Hey gosh! Look! I see it! It's incredible!
08:36Who knows God? What does it mean?
08:38I've crossed the deserts of Peru and I'm climbing this lonely observation tower for my first look at one of the world's greatest enigmas.
08:55Wow! Look at this!
09:01Those are the Nazca lines.
09:03These lines are a mystery on a massive scale.
09:08There are nearly 100 gigantic figures as well as strange geometric symbols and thousands of straight lines that cover an area twice the size of Washington, D.C.
09:19The most famous designs are the huge animals.
09:23The hummingbird.
09:25The condor.
09:27The spider.
09:29And the monkey.
09:30Shapes drawn with a single line that never crosses itself.
09:35Still only a very small piece of the Nazca lines.
09:39This extends for miles and miles in every direction, but at least we've got a first glimpse.
09:44The big questions are, how were these lines made and what were they for?
09:50There's been a stunning new development.
09:52Previously buried Nazca lines were just revealed by a sandstorm, and some scientists believe they could help solve the mystery.
10:00But before seeking them out, I need to know more about the Nazca people.
10:09I swing into the nearby Museo Antonini, which is filled with relics from the Nazca world, as well as some grim remains of the Nazca themselves.
10:16This is really one of the most striking and in some ways kind of disturbing part of the Nazca culture.
10:24You see these incredibly well-preserved heads.
10:27And they have a hole drilled right in the cranium with a rope through it.
10:31And they've come to be known as trophy heads.
10:32Some archaeologists have painted the Nazca as peaceful and the skulls as objects that they revered, while others believe the Nazca were aggressive headhunters.
10:42But nobody knows for sure.
10:44In terms of trying to understand more about the Nazca people, you have to look at their pottery.
10:49You know, this is really what they left behind, and all of these broken pieces are actually clues in a puzzle.
10:57There are several competing theories about the function of the Nazca lines, and I'm hoping to hone in on the right answer.
11:02Theory one, the lines were used as a sort of massive astronomical calendar, evidenced by their position beneath the heavens, and symbols for stars painted on the sides of various ceramics.
11:17Theory two, since it's hard to see the lines from the ground, and since so many of them look like landing runways, many fringe theorists insist that they were built with the help of aliens.
11:26Theory three, the lines were used in drug-fueled rituals, where wild ceremonies took place to pray for resources from the gods.
11:39Some of these deities were represented by animals, like the monkey or the killer whale.
11:44Pottery depicting psychedelic cactuses and dancing shamans seemed to support this idea.
11:52So which theory is right?
11:54I plan to test them out.
11:55First, I want to see if the lines could really be a massive astronomical calendar.
12:00The late German mathematician Maria Reiche was the loudest proponent of this theory, and she's just about single-handedly responsible for preserving the lines as a world heritage site.
12:09Her image is everywhere in Nazca, and her home is now a museum.
12:13To better understand the so-called Lady of the Lines and her theory, I'm meeting with the head of her foundation, Anna Maria Cagorno.
12:20How did she first come to see the lines?
12:22She was very involved with many scientists in the Museum of Lima.
12:28She met there, Dr. Paul Cossack from the University of Long Island, New York.
12:35So they flew, and when they were flying, they saw so many different roads.
12:42They didn't know what they were.
12:45Then they decided to come in the car, and Maria was very curious.
12:50Suddenly, Maria saw that the sun was setting exactly in the middle of the line.
12:58So then she was shocked. It had to have a meaning.
13:04And do you believe that the lines and the glyphs align to celestial bodies?
13:10Well, some of them, yes.
13:11Raiche spent over half a century fighting to prove the astronomical purpose of the lines, but her work is still hotly debated.
13:28At the museum's nearby planetarium, I'm meeting Edgardo Azabache from the Peruvian Astronomical Institute.
13:33Hola. Hola.
13:35He's giving me a first-hand look at Maria's theory by showing me how the lines relate to the sky above.
13:40Maria, as she worked on the desert for 40 years, she discovered groups of lines pointing to the rising or setting of the brightest stars, the sun and the moon.
13:56For example, the hummingbird.
13:59And she noted that the longest line point at the rising of the sun at summer solstice day.
14:06It does. It goes straight to where the sun came up during the solstice.
14:09Hmm.
14:10That's very compelling.
14:11It appears that the hummingbird is in perfect alignment with important astronomical events, and so are other shapes.
14:18And this is the contour. The line crossing the third figure was oriented to the setting of the sun at winter solstice day.
14:27And the third figure was the heron.
14:30Well, Maria also noticed that the long beak used to point to the rising of the sun at winter solstice day.
14:37As soon as the sun set or rose on these particular lines, the Nazca would have known it was the first day of winter or the first day of summer, their rainy season.
14:49This calendar could have been a vital agricultural tool for growing crops or collecting water.
14:53But there are hundreds of other lines and animal shapes that don't match up to the sun or stars.
15:00So Maria's work offers only a partial explanation.
15:03Time to move on to the next theory.
15:04The next morning, I motor out to a blank section of desert to tackle the wildest theory about the lines.
15:16People, and I mean a lot of people, have been insisting for years that since the Nazca couldn't really see their handiwork from the ground, and since the lines are massive, they must have been made with the help of aliens.
15:26One of the Nazca lines is even referred to as the astronaut, and it does bear a striking resemblance to a notable extraterrestrial.
15:35But I'm not sure I'm buying that this is just a giant desert airport for ET and his buddies.
15:39So in terms of how the Nazca lines were made, what's the simplest explanation?
15:44Well, maybe the Nazca people just came out here into the desert, and they just drew these shapes freestyle.
15:51So that's what I'm going to try to do.
15:52This is the spider, one of the most famous of the Nazca lines, and I'm going to attempt to recreate it using this simple piece of bamboo.
16:00JJ, what's your confidence level here on a scale of 1 to 10 as to how good a job I'm going to do?
16:04Two. You do know that 10 is the best that I could possibly do. One is the worst.
16:10And he's down to a one.
16:15Boy, this is not as easy as it looks.
16:20Move away the dark, iron-rich sand on top, and you reveal lighter-colored sand below.
16:25But since every single footprint and scrape here is permanent, there's little room for error.
16:29The replica I'm attempting is large, but the real Nazca lines are downright huge.
16:36I usually feel tall at 6'2", but next to the larger shape, the 935-foot heron, I'd be the size of an ant.
16:44That is wrong. That's wrong.
16:46You really can't make a mistake because once you kick more sand over it, it just makes more white spots.
16:54This needs to be a mistake-free endeavor.
16:59Kind of looking like a spider or a menorah.
17:05Here's why this doesn't work. It doesn't work because I'm terrible at it, but it also doesn't work because if you look at the drawing, you see that it's for the most part very symmetrical, very even spacing in between the legs.
17:16These glyphs are hundreds of feet long.
17:20There's no way freehand they could possibly make it this exact and have it turn out well.
17:25I kind of don't get it. I don't know how they're doing it.
17:28There has to be something else in play here.
17:30I'm in the Peruvian desert chasing answers to the mystery of the world-famous Nazca lines.
17:44After trying my hand at drawing my own version, it's obvious I need some professional help.
17:50I'm enlisting one of the world's foremost experts on the lines, Mario Oleachea, the head archaeologist at the Ministry of Nazca, and his researcher, Alejandro.
17:58Hey, how are you guys?
17:59I'm Josh.
18:00Hey, I'm Ale.
18:01Our plan is to recreate the famous hummingbird glyph, though I have no idea how.
18:06So we have a paddle of some kind, a stick.
18:08Right.
18:09And it looks like some…
18:10String.
18:11Some string and some stakes.
18:12Yup.
18:13Okay, show me the way. Let's do it.
18:15I'm not sure if we're going to build a sandcastle, fly a kite or stake a desert vampire, but at this point, I'll try anything.
18:22Keep walking straight until he tells you to stop.
18:24In the past, archaeologists theorized that the Nazca must have built platforms to oversee their work.
18:31One historian even built a hot air balloon out of ancient materials to pull it off.
18:35However, the only physical evidence are small wooden stakes discovered in the sand, which might just lead us to the answer.
18:42Okay, the tail has to be a little bit more to the left.
18:46Despite the flat desert, there are actually lots of hills on the edges.
18:50The Nazca could have used a foreman on high ground who relayed instructions to workers below.
18:55Mario believes the Nazca staked out the ends of the shapes and then, using string, scaled up smaller drawings using mathematical precision.
19:03Go ahead.
19:04Hold on, hold on.
19:05To draw a line, we use wide paddles and start to connect the dots.
19:16Finally, we connect the last line in our shape.
19:31Perfecto.
19:32No, no, no.
19:33Perfecto.
19:34Está bien ahÃ.
19:35From this view, it's perfect.
19:36It's perfect.
19:37Yes.
19:38Great.
19:39Awesome.
19:40Great work.
19:41Great work, buddy.
19:42We made a Nazca line.
19:44I'm astonished to see that our hummingbird is actually really accurate, and we managed to make it with a diagram and just a few simple tools.
19:52Take that, UFOs.
19:57Okay, we've debunked the theory that the lines were made by aliens or with the use of complex tools, and the astronomical theory only works on a small portion of the lines.
20:07So I'm driving on to explore the third option, that these lines were purely religious, made for worshipping the gods.
20:13These roads, if you can call them that, are a crisscrossed maze of trails.
20:20But finally, I arrive at what seems like just another set of dunes.
20:24But beneath the sand, there are secrets.
20:27This is Kahuachi, the heart of the Nazca civilization and the only architectural remains of their empire.
20:40Founded around 100 BC, its mud structures are buried under mounds of windblown sand.
20:46Hear that?
20:58That is the sound of absolutely nothing.
21:01It's completely still out here.
21:03Nearby is a sprawling Nazca cemetery, and it's not for the faint of heart.
21:09Archaeologists have excavated bodies wrapped in embroidered cotton and painted with resin.
21:15The mummification process and dry climate have kept the remains eerily intact.
21:21The burials are very ceremonial.
21:24You know, you have these very fine textiles and bits of pottery.
21:27And you see that the pots are filled with things like corn and we have shells and we have offerings.
21:32And so much of it is about food and sustenance and the earth.
21:36Definitely a culture that was religious.
21:39I'm meeting historian David Rivas to unlock more mysteries here.
21:46What a spot.
21:47If you had blindfolded me and brought me here, I would say that I was in like ancient Sumeria or Egypt.
21:52It's just 4% of the 24 square kilometers they still have to dig. This is just the beginning.
21:58This is the 4%?
21:59Yes.
22:0296% of it is unexcavated.
22:04It will go all the way down there, and you see those hills over there?
22:07Yeah.
22:08It probably will go over there.
22:10Archaeological evidence now suggests that Kahuachi was a sacred pilgrimage site used for religious ceremonies and offerings.
22:17It overlooks many of the lines, strengthening the theory that the shapes in the sand were highly ceremonial.
22:25And while the Nazca who built this site are long gone, their rituals have endured.
22:30This shaman traces his heritage back to the Nazca people,
22:35and I'm being invited to participate in an age-old ceremony in the heart of this ruined temple.
22:41It's an honor. Thank you very much.
22:42Nazca are depicted on pottery in a drug-induced trance, which was likely the result of ingesting the local San Pedro cactus.
22:56Two thousand years ago, our ancestors used all these hallucinogens in order to be in touch with the spirits,
23:04in order to find how the future is going to become for them.
23:07Since I have to work in the morning, I'm drinking a less potent brew, hoping to avoid a psychedelic journey to the Nazca spirit world.
23:14The ritual is a window to the past, and a clear indication that the Nazca did use hallucinogenic plants to induce visions.
23:31He's saying that your future looks amazing, and you can walk in peace.
23:37Gracias.
23:38Thank him again so much for sharing this with us.
23:42Between the highly ceremonial burials and this spiritual temple that overlooks the lines,
23:47there's no question in my mind that the Nazca built their symbols in the sand, in part, to reach out to the gods.
23:53But the question is, what were the lines trying to say?
23:58The answers may be found in never-before-seen lines that were spotted recently by a pilot after a sandstorm.
24:04Can these new shapes help decode the puzzle of the Nazca lines once and for all?
24:14Hey guys, how are you?
24:15At dawn, I head over to Nazca's tiny airport to meet with historian Antonio San Cristobal and get a bird's eye view of ancient history.
24:23Hey.
24:24Okay, let's do it.
24:30As our plane soars over the arid desert, the sand seems to stretch out like a blank canvas.
24:35But then, rising from the dunes, shapes appear. Everywhere.
24:40Look at all those, like, that giant wide shape and all these intersecting lines and triangles.
24:47It's insane how many lines and shapes of the animals are down there.
24:53We soar over several of the massive animal glyphs, including the spider and the condor.
24:59I also have a newfound respect for the soaring hummingbird we attempted to copy.
25:03It's incredible.
25:05Absolutely.
25:06But I'm also here to see something else.
25:11A few months ago, a pilot spotted previously unknown shapes revealed by the shifting sands.
25:18We bank the plane toward the coordinates for one of the first looks at these mysterious lines.
25:23I'm in southern Peru, circling massive, 1500-year-old drawings in the desert known as the Nazca Lines.
25:40We're also hoping to get a look at a set of never-before-seen lines that have just been revealed by a recent sandstorm.
25:46The lines appear to show a 200-foot snake, a bird, and strange zigzag lines.
26:07The Paracas were the tribe who ruled the desert before the Nazca.
26:20And archaeologists believe these lines may be some of the oldest ever discovered.
26:25The Paracel.
26:27Seeing it from up here, it gives me a better perspective.
26:30But it just makes me more confused.
26:33You know, I mean it's mind-blowing.
26:36What does it mean?
26:38What does it mean, Antonio?
26:40What does it mean, Antonio?
26:41That's a real question.
26:42Question why.
26:43That's indignant.
26:44Back on the ground, and I'm back in my 4x4 on the Trail of Answers.
26:53So to understand the Nazca people, we have to understand the Paracas people.
26:57To do that, we're going to head to the city of Paracas, which is about four hours north.
27:02From Nazca, it's a few hundred miles through the desert to the small port town of Paracas.
27:08Situated in a wide bay on the Pacific, this town has been inhabited for thousands of years.
27:12The prehistoric tribe that once ruled here has made quite an impression on the current population, though they aren't very talkative.
27:21Sir, don't mean to bother you. I was hoping to learn the secrets of the Nazca people.
27:26Very grumpy.
27:30A few blocks down the street is the Paracas History Museum.
27:34As I browse the collection, the story of the Paracas comes into view.
27:37They lived in these deserts at least a thousand years prior to the Nazca, who invaded them from the north.
27:49After the Nazca conquered the Paracas, they absorbed their culture, and continued the animal glyphs and lines that began centuries earlier.
27:57But what really jumps out at me is their shared fascination with heads.
28:07This is incredible.
28:09The Paracas people engaged in this really strange ritual of binding and elongating their skulls.
28:16No, these are not alien artifacts.
28:20The elongation was accomplished by tying rocks and rope to infants and deforming the skulls while they're still soft.
28:26Why the Paracas did this, we don't fully know.
28:29But it is believed to have been something reserved for nobility.
28:32Why the long face?
28:35Come on.
28:37Too soon?
28:38It's 2,000 years ago.
28:39Since the newly discovered lines were made by the Paracas people, it stands to reason that the Nazca lines were inspired by this older culture.
28:53In fact, the oldest and strangest of the Paracas lines can only be seen from the ocean.
28:58I'm hitching a ride with local archaeologist Rolando Ibar to see where the lines began.
29:04This is our boat.
29:05This is it?
29:05Yes.
29:05Our vessel has seen better days, but I'm sure she's seaworthy.
29:10The engine is new.
29:11The engine's new.
29:12That's all that matters.
29:12Yeah.
29:17The term new is being thrown around pretty loosely here.
29:22We got it.
29:22Here we go.
29:29Despite the lethally dry deserts inland, offshore feels like a Peruvian Galapagos.
29:35Humboldt penguins, sea lions, and flocks of beautiful Peruvian boobies.
29:44Those are birds, by the way.
29:45The sea here is utterly alive.
29:48Dolphins.
29:48Yes.
29:49Beautiful.
29:49Beautiful.
29:50The Paracas and the Nazca were desert cultures, but the links to the sea are hard to ignore.
30:08The marine wildlife is mirrored in the desert, with glyphs like the killer whale, and even
30:14the famed astronaut, which archaeologists now believe could represent a fisherman.
30:21You know, down in Nazca, I kept thinking, how could the ancient people survive here?
30:25But now that I see this, I realize how dependent they must have been on the sea.
30:29Yes, because those people that came to live here or to stay here, they mainly were fishermen.
30:37The Paracas and the Nazca are starting to come into focus for me.
30:41Their lines are deeply tied to their environment and their dependence on water.
30:45Then, as our boat rounds the peninsula, I see something that leaves me speechless.
30:54Josh, this is what I wanted to show you.
30:56Look at that sign.
30:57Oh, my God.
30:59That is incredible.
31:02It's huge.
31:03I'm in Peru trying to understand the purpose behind the Nazca lines, and my guide has just
31:19shown me a big piece of the puzzle.
31:21Josh, this is what I wanted to show you.
31:23Look at that sign.
31:24Oh, my God.
31:26That is incredible.
31:29It's huge.
31:33This is what we call the candelabra, huh?
31:37Candelabra.
31:38Candelabra.
31:39The candelabra glyph can be seen from 12 miles out to sea.
31:43It was made by the Paracas people.
31:47How old is it?
31:49It's about 2,200 years old.
31:51The Paracas is not candelabra.
31:53It was born by the Spanish.
31:54Sure.
31:54But this could be a cactus.
31:56A cactus.
31:57The big branch, the big column in the middle, if you elongate that column,
32:02it is linked into the hummingbird of Nazca lines.
32:07Really?
32:07Which that one represents the beginning of the rainy season there in Nazca.
32:11They point to the same direction?
32:12Same direction, exactly.
32:14Wow, that's incredible.
32:15It all comes down to water.
32:16Yes, exactly.
32:18Hearing that the Paracas candelabra is aligned to the Nazca hummingbird bolsters the theory
32:23that the shapes are tied to water.
32:26One historian who believes he can prove that has a bold new theory about the lines.
32:30Back on shore and a few miles inland, I'm meeting with the director of the Paracas History Museum,
32:41Brian Forrester.
32:42Brian, I hear you're the man to talk to about the Paracas people.
32:46Well, I guess I'm one of them, but sure, I'll take the job.
32:49Quickly learning that to understand the Nazca, you've got to understand the Paracas.
32:52It's essential.
32:53Okay, so how do I do that?
32:55Well, I've got a couple of special places I want to show you.
32:58All right, 4x4?
33:00No.
33:01Why not?
33:03Sand.
33:04More sand.
33:05Yeah.
33:12Brian is taking me deep into Paracas territory, where exactly I'm not sure,
33:17but I'm anxious to see what he has in store.
33:19The Paracas thrived in one of the most inhospitable deserts on Earth,
33:23and ultimately, they died here too.
33:25Is that bone?
33:27Yep.
33:30This is a recently dug up grave of someone at least 500, maybe 1,000, maybe even 2,000 years old.
33:38Brian has led me to a massive Paracas cemetery,
33:41a necropolis that's a mile wide and five miles long.
33:46Rough estimate, how many people do you think are buried here?
33:48I would say at minimum 10,000.
33:51Unbelievable.
33:51But this site is completely unattended, and at the mercy of any looter with enough gas to get out here.
33:57Many of the graves have been totally destroyed.
34:00These trenches that I see along the way here, those are looted graves?
34:03Yes.
34:03And underneath here, still preserved burials as well, I assume.
34:07Oh, many, many more.
34:09This is someone's skull.
34:15Unbelievable.
34:16That is incredible.
34:20I'm looking face to face at a Paracan, probably.
34:24Yeah.
34:26I've never had the experience before of stopping in a place and picking up a human skull out of the ground.
34:34We carefully return the skull to the ground and recover it with sand.
34:40After hundreds of years of being in peace, put them back in a state of peace like that.
34:49Back on the ATVs, we head deeper into the desert.
34:52Brian has researched the glyphs and lines in the area
34:55and calculated that a number of the lines intersect at a location several miles to the east.
35:00I'm anxious to find out why.
35:04As we round the bend, a buried Paracas temple looms before us.
35:12Wow.
35:16Much like the Nazca Temple of Kahuachi, this Paracan pyramid was a gathering place for religious ceremonies.
35:22That's incredible.
35:23Yeah.
35:24Just unexcavated.
35:26Yeah.
35:27Trapped in the dunes.
35:28Yeah.
35:29A pyramid.
35:30How many of these do you think there are here?
35:32In this area, there are hundreds.
35:34The foundation of it, at least, would be 2,000 plus years old.
35:40The Paracas were the first established culture of this area.
35:43So the Paracas were responsible for at least 50% of the geoglyphs and lines,
35:48and then the Nazca, the second 50%.
35:51When you look at the Nazca lines, when you look at the glyphs and the geometric shapes and the Paracas shapes,
35:56what do you think they're for?
35:58There's no real cohesion or basic pattern.
36:01I think some of them are for solar and lunar alignment.
36:05Some of them are ceremonial pathways.
36:07Some of them are for tracking underground water systems.
36:10This is a bombshell.
36:14Brian believes that not only were the lines used for ceremonial purposes to pray for water,
36:19but that many of them may actually lead to water,
36:22a sort of physical map overlaying underground rivers and pointing to natural wells.
36:27You think there's ancient water sources here?
36:30It's possible that slightly under the ground of that area, we can find water, you know, today.
36:38Looking for water in the desert?
36:40Yep.
36:41Sounds like a challenge.
36:42The lines that led us to this pyramid likely guided the Paracas on ceremonial processions,
36:53but might also have functioned as directions to water.
36:56What do we think these depressions are?
36:58It could actually be accesses, like little wells for water.
37:02Really?
37:03Yeah.
37:04So you're saying that there may be water under this?
37:06I'm saying it's possible, yeah.
37:10Well, let's give it a whirl. Let's see if there's anything here.
37:11Okay.
37:12Brian's theory strikes me as impossible,
37:18mostly because this is an absolutely lifeless desert.
37:21But he's convinced, so I've got little choice but to start digging.
37:25This is a ridiculous way to spend an afternoon.
37:30Update, I'm parched, I'm sweating, and it's 8,000 degrees out.
37:34The more we dig, the more I feel like the only thing I'm going to find beneath the sand is sand.
37:39How far down do you think it really is?
37:40I wouldn't think even 10 feet below.
37:43Really?
37:43Yeah.
37:44Well, we're hitting a lot of roots.
37:45Yeah, that's a good sign.
37:46These roots are dead, and if Brian and I don't get back to the road before dark, we might be too.
37:51But if there is an underground stream here, we might also answer the riddle of the Nazca lines.
37:56I can't help but notice that I'm down in the pit shoveling and you're supervising.
38:05Well, I'm a local.
38:06Right.
38:06It's your right as a visitor to explore.
38:10I appreciate you letting me do that.
38:12My honor.
38:16The soil is getting harder.
38:18Yeah.
38:18I've come to Peru to investigate the mystery of the Nazca lines.
38:36After following these symbols deep into the desert, we're digging to see if they were used
38:40to locate water.
38:41Whoa.
38:42Oh, wait, wait.
38:45Look at that.
38:46Wet soil.
38:48Yeah.
38:48You've hit the water table.
38:51Water.
38:52There is water down here.
38:56In the desert.
38:58Yeah.
38:59This discovery at the convergence of these lines is compelling evidence that the prehistoric tribes of Peru
39:05might have carved their massive symbols to track water.
39:08That is so cool.
39:10Amazing.
39:11You know what?
39:12I don't want to say that I doubted you, but I really doubted you.
39:15Thanks for the hard work.
39:17This is incredible.
39:19It really may be that the shapes in the Nazca lines do point to water.
39:22Some of them at least, yeah.
39:24Yeah.
39:24That's incredible.
39:25It's hard to argue with that.
39:26Wet soil right here.
39:29As we leave the sand-choked ruins of the Paracas civilization and head back to Nazca,
39:34there are other clues that may back this theory up.
39:36With just an inch of rain a year, the Nazca became masters of water management.
39:42Some of the lines, including the newly discovered lines, depict strange spiral shapes.
39:46And on the edge of town, there are similarly shaped holes that actually serve a very real purpose.
39:52So these are called ojos.
39:57It's basically a very elaborate-looking manhole.
40:02It's a check well that goes down to an underground aqueduct system.
40:06This is the very bottom of the system.
40:10And what's so cool about this is there's no cement lining this.
40:12There's no concrete here.
40:14This is just naturally piled rocks.
40:16And they're using the natural sediment of the floor here to allow this water to just pass through.
40:22It doesn't absorb.
40:23It just passes like an underground river.
40:25These wells led to tiny underground streams that flow down from the Andes.
40:302,000 years ago, the Nazca figured out how to tap into them.
40:34And it's so well-built that it still works.
40:36It's a little cold.
40:38And you can see that down here.
40:40This system is working exactly as it did 1,500 years ago,
40:46providing clean, drinkable water for the Nazca people.
40:50But in the past, terrible droughts created constant need for other water sources.
40:57And I now believe we have the answer to the riddle of the lines.
41:05The lines don't have one purpose.
41:07That's why there's so little order to their layout.
41:10They serve several functions, all related to the most precious resource in a desolate world.
41:15Water.
41:16We've seen that some of the lines were astronomical,
41:22a way to track the very brief rainy season and plan for crops.
41:26We've also seen that the lines are clearly ceremonial,
41:29massive glyphs used to pray for water.
41:32The thirsty hummingbird.
41:34The resilient cactus.
41:36The fisherman.
41:37All symbols tied to water.
41:40The newly discovered lines show a snake and wavy lines,
41:44both ancient symbols for water.
41:46And finally, it seems that some of the lines may actually point to,
41:50or overlay subterranean water sources,
41:52a dusty map that evolved over generations.
41:58In time, the Nazca culture was absorbed by other tribes,
42:02just as they absorbed the Paracas.
42:04Their legacy is beneath our feet.
42:06There are still thousands of structures trapped in the dunes,
42:09and there's no doubt that more symbols are destined for discovery.
42:12The Nazca were masters of conservation in a punishing world.
42:17We now know that their lines were a complex system for survival.
42:20But with so much of their culture still unexplored,
42:23who knows what new mysteries will emerge from beneath the sands?
42:27that they did a certain place.
42:27Don't be flooded although non- ere Черnes died.
42:28So limited time,
42:28the
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