Summary of the discovery, just published in *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:*
In the desert of southern Peru, a mystery has been unfolding over decades.
Hundreds of years ago, the people who lived nearby carved the ground with giant lines to create pictures and symbols that can only be fully appreciated from the sky. These are the Nazca glyphs, mysterious designs whose purpose has baffled archaeologists ever since.
Since their first discovery in the 1940s, around 430 glyphs have been discovered on the arid plateau known as the Nazca Pampa.
Now, using drones and AI, a team led by archaeologist and anthropologist Masato Sakai of Yamagata University in Japan has discovered a jaw-dropping 303 more in just six months – nearly doubling the known number.
With the discovery comes new insight regarding the function of the mysterious symbols.
“The reason why the purpose of the geoglyphs’ creation remained unknown for so long is that previous researchers lacked basic information about the distribution and types of geoglyphs,” Sakai told ScienceAlert.
Woah, that’s quite the leap in discovered glyphs. With ~700 discovered, there are undoubtedly many more out there. But why? Art for the gods, I guess? You’d think they’d get bored and move on after, at most, the first 100 or so.Â
 **edit**: ~~was there a giraffe-like species in Peru at the time?~~ llamas (see replies)
Pilot0350 on
One of those is straight up a three nippled tentacle alien monster and they knew it.
discostupid on
“We don’t have permission to make this data accessible in a public database, but legitimate users may request it from the Peruvian Ministry of Culture.”
that’s unfortunate
alizayback on
Somebody’s gonna discover a trollface geoglyph…
5 Comments
Summary of the discovery, just published in *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:*
In the desert of southern Peru, a mystery has been unfolding over decades.
Hundreds of years ago, the people who lived nearby carved the ground with giant lines to create pictures and symbols that can only be fully appreciated from the sky. These are the Nazca glyphs, mysterious designs whose purpose has baffled archaeologists ever since.
Since their first discovery in the 1940s, around 430 glyphs have been discovered on the arid plateau known as the Nazca Pampa.
Now, using drones and AI, a team led by archaeologist and anthropologist Masato Sakai of Yamagata University in Japan has discovered a jaw-dropping 303 more in just six months – nearly doubling the known number.
With the discovery comes new insight regarding the function of the mysterious symbols.
“The reason why the purpose of the geoglyphs’ creation remained unknown for so long is that previous researchers lacked basic information about the distribution and types of geoglyphs,” Sakai told ScienceAlert.
Read the peer-reviewed research here: [https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2407652121](https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2407652121)
Woah, that’s quite the leap in discovered glyphs. With ~700 discovered, there are undoubtedly many more out there. But why? Art for the gods, I guess? You’d think they’d get bored and move on after, at most, the first 100 or so.Â
 **edit**: ~~was there a giraffe-like species in Peru at the time?~~ llamas (see replies)
One of those is straight up a three nippled tentacle alien monster and they knew it.
“We don’t have permission to make this data accessible in a public database, but legitimate users may request it from the Peruvian Ministry of Culture.”
that’s unfortunate
Somebody’s gonna discover a trollface geoglyph…