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The Nazca Lines are a set of ancient gyoglyphs carved into the desert of southern Peru.
From the ground, they look like scratched white lines that stretch for miles. Some are straight and some are bendy.
From the air, they are revealed as giant drawings of animals, including a monkey, a spider and a hummingbird.
Today's Google doodle honours a woman who spent her life trying to unlock the mysteries of the shapes.
Maria Reiche was an astronomer, mathematician and expert in geography who was first introduced to the Nazca Lines in 1941.
She was selected from a slew of applicants to work with historian Paul Kosok to try and figure out what the symbols meant and who had created them.
She became the staunch guardian of the Nazca lines, which is now a UN World Heritage site.
Who was Maria Reiche?
Reiche was born in Dresden on May 15th, 1903, and went on to study mathematics, astronomy, and geography.
After travelling to Peru, she became fascinated by the lines and devoted her life to studying them.
Using a measuring tape, sextant, and compass, she measured almost 1000 lines, investigating their astronomical orientation. Reiche discovered that many of the lines function as markers for the summer solstice, and theorized their builders used the figures as an astronomical calendar. However, today they are believed to have served a more ceremonial purpose.
Upon mapping the area (with the help of the Peruvian Air Force), she discovered the figures represent 18 different kinds of animals and birds, in addition to hundreds of geometric shapes.
Reiche was was also devoted to the lines’ protection. With only a household broom, she physically shielded the figures from people and vehicles, in addition to raising money for their overall preservation. Gradually, the “woman who swept the desert” became known worldwide as the “Lady of the Lines.”
Reiche’s immense dedication deeply endeared her to the people of Peru, so much that in 1992 she was granted Peruvian citizenship, and the Nazca airport is named after her.
She died in Peru's capital Lima in 1998 aged 95. Today would have been her 115th birthday.
What are the Nazca lines?
(Image: Reuters)
The Nazca Lines are some 1,500 years old. The giant images depict plants and animals, including the hummingbird, a spider and a monkey.
They are so large they can only be appreciated fully from a high altitude, prompting many theories about how the creators made them.
The Peruvian government tightly controls visits to the site, which is considered vulnerable.
Where are the Nazca lines?
Located in the Nazca desert in southern Peru, the Nazca lines are a designated world heritage site.
Although Maria Reiche was famous for chasing away vandals, the lines have been subjected to publicity stunts in the past.
In 2014, Greenpeace was forced to apologise after protesters damaged the historic site while using it for a demonstration.
Activists placed giant letters in the soil saying "time for change, the future is renewable" - just metres from the figure of a hummingbird.
The message was intended to put pressure on those attending climate talks in the capital Lima, but there have been claims the ground was damaged by protesters leaving long-lasting footprints.
(Image: Reuters)
Greenpeace worked with the authorities to help restore the site, and confirmed that it would no longer use photos it took as part of any of its campaigns.
The organisation also said it was sorry that the demonstration caused "moral offense" to the Peruvian people.
German mathematician Maria Reiche (1903-98), known for her pioneering work into Peru's ancient Nazca Lines, was born in Dresden 115 years ago today.
Honoured in today's Google Doodle, Reiche became obsessed with solving one of Latin America's greatest mysteries: why did the land's ancient people carve giant bird and animal geoglyphs into the desert plains?
She had first arrived in Peru in 1932 after completing her studies, having accepted a job as governess to the children of the German consul in Cuzco.
She quickly became enraptured by the country - despite losing a finger to gangrene after being pricked by a cactus - visiting the Andes and the high plains of southern Peru before relocating to Lima in 1934.
Here she worked as teacher of German and befriended American ex-pat Amy Meredith, who would become her partner and who ran a fashionable local coffee shop where she first encountered New York academic Paul Kosok.
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It was Kosok who introduced her to the strange line drawings of creatures in the sands of Nazca, 248 miles from the capital. First discovered by Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejia Xesspe a decade earlier, Kosok had photographed them from the air and realised their true form.
Reiche was transfixed by his account and, after visiting the 140 square mile site, committed herself to their study as Kosok's side, describing the landscape as "a huge blackboard where giant hands have drawn clear and precise geometric designs".
Spending many nights camping in the desert, Maria became an object of curiosity herself: "The locals either thought I was a spy or completely mad. Once a drunk threatened me with a stone, so I took out my sextant and pointed it at him. He ran off screaming, and the next day the local papers ran the story of a mad and armed German spy in their midst."
Reiche and Kosok's study of the Nazca Lines in the 1940s led to the dramatic conclusion that the beasts were actually roughly equivalent to the signs of the zodiac and that they together comprised an early astronomical calendar, mapping out the celestial bodies in the heavens.
The geoglyph of a monkey is seen on the plains of the Nazca desert in southern Peru (Reuters)
Her book The Mystery of the Pampas (1949) detailed the theory that the giant monkey geoglyph was the Nazca interpretation of the Great Bear constellation, whose movement across the night sky was used to mark time and predict the onset of the rainy season. Her work debunked a myth popularised by Swiss conspiracy theorist Erich von Daniken that they were made by extraterrestrials.
Although Reiche's conclusion has now been largely sidelined in favour of the idea that the geoglyphs served a more earth-bound ceremonial purpose, she nevertheless played a vital role in preserving them, sweeping the lines, preventing vehicles from driving over them and ensuring they received Unesco protected status in 1994.
"The Lady of the Lines" spent her days living in a Nazca tourist hotel, was granted Peruvian citizenship in 1992 and published her complete scientific findings Contributions to Geometry and Astronomy in Ancient Peru in 1993 at the age of 90. She died of ovarian cancer in June 1998, a beloved figure in her adopted homeland.
Fly high over the Peruvian desert and you will see giant drawings on the ground. Some of them are straight lines, some are spirals and rectangles and trapezoids, and some are animals: whales, ducks, hummingbirds. Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 115th birthday of Maria Reiche, a German mathematician who became known as the “Lady of the Lines,” the scientist known for studying these so-called Nazca Lines.
Reiche was emigrated to Peru in 1932 to be a governess for children of the German consulate there. Soon after, she learned about the giant line drawings in the desert, built by the ancient Nazcan people, and dedicated the rest of her life to studying them. (Because of the dry desert’s stable climate, the lines were well-preserved.) Over the next half-century, Reiche helped the Peruvian government map the lines, measuring over 1,000 of them. She discovered that some of them were marked for the summer solstice, proposing that the lines were some sort of astronomical calendar.
And she was dedicated to preserving them, too, fighting the government when it wanted to dig canals across them. “I used to live on a flat roof or sleep out in a tent in the desert,” she recalled. “The locals either thought I was a spy or completely mad. Once a drunk threatened me with a stone, so I took out my sextant and pointed it at him. He ran off screaming, and the next day the local papers ran the story of a mad and armed German spy in their midst.”
We still don’t fully understand the Nazca lines or know for sure what they mean, but today they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Reiche became a Peruvian citizen in 1992, and died in 1998.
Maria Reiche (* 15. Mai 1903 in Dresden; † 8. Juni 1998 in Lima, Peru) war eine deutsche Mathematikerin. Sie wurde durch die systematische Untersuchung der Nazca-Linien bekannt.
Maria Reiche hat etwa 50 Figuren und 1000 Linien in der Pampa (Ebene) von Nazca (auch Nasca geschrieben) entdeckt und vermessen und war eine „Avantgardistin der Wissenschaft“.
Im Museum „Maria Reiche“ bei Nazca
Maria Reiche wurde in Dresden als ältestes von drei Kindern des Amtsgerichtsrates Felix Reiche-Grosse und seiner Frau Elisabeth geboren. Nach dem Besuch der Städtischen Studienanstalt für Mädchen in Dresden studierte sie Mathematik, Physik und Geographie an der Technischen Universität Dresden und schloss 1928 mit dem Staatsexamen ab. 1932 nahm sie eine Stelle als Hauslehrerin beim Deutschen Konsul in Cusco, Peru, an. Vor Ablauf der Vertragszeit ging sie in die Hauptstadt Lima. Dort lebte sie von Gelegenheitsjobs, Sprachunterricht und Übersetzungen.
Seit 1937 half sie am Nationalmuseum Lima, historische Stoffe zu restaurieren. 1939 hörte sie von dem US-amerikanischen Wissenschaftler Paul Kosok zum ersten Mal von den sogenannten Nazca-Linien, die 1924 entdeckt worden waren. Er bat sie, einige Messungen für ihn zu machen. 1946 begann sie allein und ohne Unterstützung, die rätselhaften Zeichnungen im Wüstenboden bei Nazca zu untersuchen. Reiche war überzeugt: „...wenn es gelingt, alle Maße in Zeitangaben zu übersetzen, können wir in der Pampa lesen wie in einem riesigen Geschichtsbuch.“
Mit 52 Jahren ließ sich Maria Reiche außerhalb der Kanzel auf den Kufen eines Helikopters festbinden, um bessere Luftaufnahmen von den Riesenbildern machen zu können. Die Großaufnahmen machten sie weltbekannt. 1960 traf Maria Reiche den 21-jährigen Yonah Ibn Aharon. Er lebte in den USA und hatte in New York ein Komitee zum Schutz der Nazca-Linien gegründet. Zwischen 1962 und 1964 half er auf der Pampa. Er brachte zahllose Ideen in Reiches Arbeit ein, unter anderem entwickelte er ein Karteisystem, in das die Linien mit ihren Messpunkten und Eigenarten eingetragen wurden. Bis in die 1960er Jahre hatte Maria Reiche ein Gebiet von rund 150 Quadratkilometern zu Fuß vermessen. Dabei lebte sie spartanisch in einer kleinen Hütte[1] am Rande der Pampa Colorada oder gemeinsam mit ihrer Freundin und Partnerin Amy Meredith in einem Haus in Lima. Selbst der Rollstuhl hinderte sie nicht, ihre Studien bis ins hohe Alter fortzuführen.
Grab von Maria Reiche in Nazca
Anfang der 70er Jahre wurden die Nazca-Linien zu einer Touristenattraktion. Maria Reiche engagierte sich für den Schutz und den Erhalt der Zeichnungen und bewirkte 1994 die Aufnahme der Linien und Bodenzeichnungen von Nazca und Pampa de Jumana in die Liste des UNESCO-Welterbes.
Maria Reiche hat nie geheiratet.
Am 8. Juni 1998 starb sie 95-jährig. Die Trauerfeier fand am 10. Juni 1998 im Nationalmuseum Lima statt. Reiche wurde in Nazca begraben, wo sie über 25 Jahre in einer Hütte ohne Wasser und Strom gelebt hatte und wo sich heute ein Museum befindet. Über 40 Jahre lang hatte Maria Reiche das Geheimnis der Linien und Bodenzeichnungen in Peru studiert.
Ehrungen und Nachwirkung [ Bearbeiten | Quelltext bearbeiten ]
Reiche erhielt das Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, den Orden der Weisen der Inka und die höchste Auszeichnung der Republik Peru, den Sonnenorden, den Ehrendoktortitel der Peruanischen San-Marcos-Universität (unter anderem, insgesamt erhielt sie fünf Ehrendoktorwürden) und als 90-Jährige in Anerkennung ihrer Leistungen für das Land die peruanische Staatsbürgerschaft.
Heute wird ihre Arbeit von einem Verein fortgeführt, der ihren Namen trägt. Dieser Verein existiert sowohl in Lima (Peru) als auch in Deutschland (Dresden). In der Heimatstadt Maria Reiches hat sich der Verein 1994 gegründet und führt die Erforschung der Nazca-Linien weiter.
Mit dem Maria-Reiche-Programm zur „Erhöhung des Anteils von Frauen am wissenschaftlichen Personal“ fördert Reiches „Alma Mater“ seit 2011 „Nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen der TU Dresden auf dem Weg zur Professur“.[2]
In der Tageszeitung „Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten“ wurde sie im Jahre 2000 zu einer der „100 Dresdner des 20. Jahrhunderts“ gewählt.[3]
Zu ihrem 115. Geburtstag wurde sie von der Suchmaschine Google mit einem globalen Doodle geehrt, das ihre Forschungen an den Nazca-Linien würdigt.[4]
Vorgeschichtliche Scharrbilder in Peru. In: Photographie und Forschung. Werkszeitung ZEISS-IKON. Bd. 6, Heft 4, 1954.
In: Bd. 6, Heft 4, 1954. Vorgeschichtliche Bodenzeichnungen in Peru. In: Die Umschau in Wissenschaft und Technik. 55. Jahrgang (1955), Heft 11.
In: 55. Jahrgang (1955), Heft 11. Geheimnis der Wüste. Mystery on the Desert. Secreto de la Pampa. Selbstverlag Maria Reiche, Stuttgart-Vaihingen 1968.
Selbstverlag Maria Reiche, Stuttgart-Vaihingen 1968. Peruanische Erdzeichnungen/Peruvian Ground Drawings. Hrsg.: Kunstraum München e.V. München 1974.
Michael Kaschner: Tatort Peru: Im Bann der Nasca-Linien. Deutschland, ZDF, 2009, 52 Min. (auch zu den Arbeiten des Archäologen Markus Reindel)
