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The Monkey geoglyph, Nazca Lines, Peru (aerial view)
The Monkey geoglyph, Nazca Lines, Peru (aerial view). Photo: Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Unexplained mysteries · Southern Peru · c. 400 BCE – 500 CE

The Nazca Lines

Established400 BCE – 500 CENazca and Palpa, Peru

Giant figures scratched into the desert, still being discovered with AI.

Research draft · editor review pending. Every claim below is linked to a checked source, but this dossier has not yet been reviewed by a human editor. Spot an error? Corrections are logged.

Across the arid pampas of southern Peru, ancient people removed the dark surface stones to expose lighter ground beneath, creating straight lines, geometric shapes and figures — a hummingbird, a monkey, a spider — some hundreds of meters across. They were made over nearly a thousand years by the Paracas and Nazca cultures.

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Connected dossiers

The Moai of Rapa NuiComparable case · Monumental works by societies without writing.StonehengeSame open question · Landscape monuments with debated astronomical purposes.

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How to read the labels

EstablishedSupported by strong, converging evidence.
ContestedEvidence exists but qualified scholars disagree.
UnresolvedThe question is open; evidence does not settle it.
LegendComes from myth, literature or tradition, not physical evidence.
SpeculativeA hypothesis with little direct evidence so far.

Hero image: The Monkey geoglyph, Nazca Lines, Peru (aerial view). Photo: Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons. Evidence labels describe the written claims, not the image. Version 1 · updated 2026-10-22.