The most damaging theory about the Nazca lines came seven years earlier, when Erik Von Daniken published Chariots of the Gods, in which he proposed that the pampa was part of an extra-terrestrial landing strip – an idea that Reiche discarded impatiently. Von Daniken’s book drew thousands of visitors to the lines, but newcomers in search of the drawings set out across the pampa on motorcycles, four-wheel-drive vehicles and even horses, leaving inerasable marks of their visits. Now it is illegal to drive or even walk on the pampa – Reiche used the profits from her book – Mystery on the Desert to pay four guards to keep a constant watch on the plain.…

Reiche, who died in 1998 at the age of 95, devoted her life to studying the Nazca lines, which she measured, cleaned, analyzed and charted daily from the air and from a 15-meter high platform she built. She developed the most widely accepted theories on the hundreds of drawings that cover a 50km belt between Nazca and Palpa, describing them as an “astronomical calendar”. “This work was done so that gods could see it and from above, help the ancient Peruvians with their farming, fishing and all their other activities, “ said Reiche. For example, she speculated that he drawing of the monkey was the Nazca symbol for the Big Dipper, the…

Until the 1930s, Nazca was like any other small Peruvian town, with no claim to fame except that you had to cross one of the world’s driest deserts to reach from Lima. But that desert has since drawn thousands to this tiny, sun-bleached colonial town, which was devastated by an earthquake in 1996. The pampa or plain, north o the city has become one of the greatest scientific mysteries in the Americas. The Nazca lines are a series of drawings of animals, geometric figures and birds ranging up to 300 meters in size, scratched on to the arid crust of the desert and preserved for about 2000 years, owing to a complete lack of…