Nazca

The Grolier Codex (Codice Maya de Mexico, CMM) is discussed in the context of the archaeoastronomy of the ancient Americas on pages 98-99 of the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson. One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of the planet Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. A numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depictes the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Other photos: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

RESUMEN Tras las líneas y geoglifos de la desértica pampa peruana de Nasca se esconde la mayor obra de ingeniería hidráulica y astronómicamente alineada de todos los tiempos. Herramientas informáticas especializadas han revelado una impresionante orientación astronómica en el descomunal lienzo del desierto nasqueño. La constelación de Orión y el cúmulo estelar de las Pléyades aparecen representados con un nivel de fidelidad asombroso y una ejecución técnica difícil de explicar. El enorme sistema de recolección de agua sirvió además como calendario agrícola, así como de método de predicción del evento del Niño, instrumento que permitió anticiparse a su llegada para realizar los preparativos oportunos. La única manera de distinguir el orden descrito es escudriñarlo a cierta altura. El medio lógico y racional para atalayar en la antigüedad era subir a los cerros cercanos o a alguna estructura construida verticalmente. Las imágenes del hombre-pájaro y el simbolismo de la pluma, así como la variedad de representaciones avícolas en los geoglifos expresan metafóricamente la capacidad del chamán para elevarse por los cielos. Se ha comprobado que el nivel de rectitud de las líneas trazadas y el grado de precisión del acoplamiento terrestre respecto al celeste son increíblemente altos. Teniendo en cuenta que los antiguos nasquenses no disponían de tecnología topográfica para su ejecución es incomprensible cómo pudieron representar más de diez coordenadas en una superficie de 100 Km2 con una precisión del 95%. Una gran parte de la iconografía simbólica recogida en los geoglifos Nascas y Paracas coincide con la empleada por otras civilizaciones que aparentemente no tuvieron contacto entre sí. Este hecho llamativo indica que las creencias, las costumbres y la cosmovisión particular de cada pueblo se nutren de un tronco común de donde surge el saber ancestral. Los arquetipos frecuentes representados en la cultura universal dan a entender que existe un sustrato común y arraigado en nuestra psique desde tiempos inmemoriales. El acceso al árbol del conocimiento estaba reservado al chamán o sacerdote astrónomo, el hombre sabio por el cual se manifestaba lo numinoso. La recta ecuatorial que enlaza con suma precisión varios emplazamientos sagrados del planeta confirma la ligazón de estas culturas. En todos estos lugares predomina un pensamiento científico-religioso que se manifiesta en los asombrosos conocimientos astronómicos, en técnicas de construcción de muros perfectos y en un sistema de creencias mítico-mágicas asentadas en técnicas de acceso a estados alterados de conciencia. Aunque la mitología comparada insinúe la existencia de una cultura madre original, expansiva y maestra del saber primordial, no podremos incorporarla a nuestra historia hasta que hallazgos arqueológicos venideros lo demuestren. El origen de la Tradición Sagrada (cuerpo de creencias y prácticas que llevan al otro lado de la conciencia) pudo ser adquirida de forma aislada por cada cultura en particular. Aunque también cabe la posibilidad de que un contacto mutuo intercultural favoreciera su desarrollo y difusión. Es imprescindible una investigación directa basada en la cooperación entre la ciencia moderna y la tradición indígena para ahondar en las técnicas que dan acceso al saber ancestral. En la actualidad, religión y ciencia aparecen como dos visiones del mundo contrapuestas, pero en el estadio original del pensamiento humano, el ámbito espiritual y el material formaban una misma entidad cognoscitiva. Para evidenciar que las prácticas chamánicas abren el camino hacia el Conocimiento Sagrado (sustrato cargado de simbología e ideas universales) cabría potenciar los estudios experimentales centrados en la conciencia y los estados subjetivos. LA MITOLOGÍA COMO FUENTE DE CONOCIMIENTO La abundancia de literatura escrita sobre el legado arquitectónico dejado por nuestros antepasados es abrumadora. Investigadores de todos los ámbitos han expuesto sus ideas acerca del motivo y los métodos de construcción de monumentos de complicada ejecución, incluso con nuestra tecnología moderna. La lista de enigmas arqueológicos que no logran un consenso sólido acerca de su metodología y funcionalidad es extensa...

Many ancient cultures around the world have legends of the Birdman, which describe in various forms some sort of half-human, half-avian creature. These tales are possibly connected to our universal psychological yearnings for flight. In liturgical literature and visual art, for instance, the appearance of angels, or simply humans with wings, may be the result of our innate desire to soar above the Earth into the realm of God. The soul itself is sometimes portrayed as winging up to heaven. More archaic traditions conceptualize the bird as a psychopomp, carrying the soul to the underworld.

Centros ceremoniales y ciudades en arqueología prehispánica son dos conceptos ligados pero
igualmente distanciados y muchas veces opuestos por la teoría. No cabe duda, que dichas
posiciones teóricas responden esencialmente a esquemas ideológicos en gran parte alimentado por la visión evolucionista del viejo mundo (occidentalización) y no fundados en base a contextos o coyunturas prehispánicas de corta o larga duración. Por ejemplo, la semántica del
centro ceremonial nos orienta a pensar en términos de asentamientos dedicados exclusivamente a ritos y ceremonias, obviamente este término en su connotación semántica no tiene
asidero en lo real, ya que eventos de ritos y ceremonias son determinados por estrategias
mayores ligadas al orden de lo político. Es por ello, que más adecuado sería utilizar la noción
de “centro político” en cuyo contexto de espacio y tiempo se establecen intrínsecamente
eventos ceremoniales. Desde este punto de vista dilucidando la noción del centro político
prehispánico y analizándolo dentro de esta perspectiva, dichos centros cumplieron funciones
muy similares al de las ciudades del viejo mundo.

Maritime resources played a significant economic role in the prehistoric coastal communities of Central and Northern Peru, and, prior to the current study, it was reasonable to assume they were equally important on the South Coast. In the 1980s, researchers postulated that the Nasca culture of the Early Intermediate Period was a state-level society based on inland agriculture, heavily augmented by aquatic foodstuffs gathered and processed at coastal settlements. Carmichael calls this the Nasca Maritime Hypothesis. It envisioned permanent, ocean front towns providing massive amounts of marine resources to inland centers, in exchange for agricultural produce. The research reported here was designed to test this hypothesis by means of a systematic ground survey covering a fifteen kilometer wide strip back from the shores, stretching from the north end of the Bahía de la Independencia to the southern boundary of the Bahía San Nicolás, a two hundred kilometer straight-line distance more than doubled by the winding coastline, and covering all of the coastlands opposite the inland valleys of Ica and Nazca. In the process, sites from all time periods were recorded, and all ecological zones within the study area were sampled, providing the first comprehensive overview of human exploitation in this region through time.

Also included is a report by Alana Cordy-Collins on her visit to the site of Carhua where Chavín style painted textiles were reportedly found.

In 1996, the team of the Centro Italiano Studi e Ricerche Archeologiche Precolombiane (CISRAP), headed by Giuseppe Orefici, discovered a small cache of elaborate Nasca textiles at Cahuachi that provides new bases for identifying Nasca-style textiles in other regions, including those excavated on the Paracas Peninsula by Julio C. Tello. In the late 1920s, Tello's team excavated 429 mummy bundles, some of them very large and elaborate, within the walls of earlier buildings at the site that he called the Necropolis of Wari Kayan. Although some authors persist in calling the Wari Kayan textiles "Paracas" textiles, similarities with the Cahuachi textiles indicate that a significant proportion of the embroidered textiles from the Necropolis of Wari Kayan are Nasca style. To support this contention, I will first present a detailed description of the techniques and imagery of the three Nasca textiles excavated at Cahuachi in 1996, and will then select a small number of distinctive features. The distinctive features will be used to correlate textiles from the Necropolis of Wari Kayan with similar clusters of features, which identify them as Nasca style. The expanded sample of Nasca-style textiles, including those from the Necropolis of Wari Kayan, contains strong indications that the Nasca people embedded extensive bodies of systematic numerical data into their textiles, which will be briefly described here. Finally, issues of the style and chronology at the Necropolis of Wari Kayan will be reviewed and updated.

The article surveys textiles of the Nasca style, an ancient style of the South Coast of Peru, c. 0 - 650 C.E. Everyday clothing is described, as well as the highly decorated elite textiles. Techniques, imagery and pattern repetitions, as well as processes that include the use of samplers, are described. Text in Spanish and English. Well-illustrated with color photographs.

http://www.dimensionantropologica.inah.gob.mx/?p=3732
This paper does not address the issue of social organization in Nazca, since that would imply analyzing a number of archaeological materials of major importance. The material culture the Cahuachi of Nazca is not limited to the valley of Nazca, but includes several valleys. However, it is possible to anticipate that the “Nazca” managed to establish a dynamic state, with Cahuachi as the headquarters, during the first four centuries AD.4 The notion of the Nazca State founded in archaeological items that have been identified in the region, including the handling of a planned public architecture, a hierarchy of facilities with residential architecture, the socially differentiated burial treatment, the movement of luxury goods and a system institutionalized symbolic communication through an iconic code

In this article, twenty mostly intact burial contexts, including their complete inventory of artifacts, found at the site of Hanaq Pacha at Palpa, Peru, are presented. Only very few intact burial contexts from the Nasca culture (200 B.C. – 650 A.D.) have been documented and published so far. On the basis of the ceramic vessels, the burials of Hanaq Pacha can stylistically be dated into the Middle Nasca Period (Phase 5, approx. 330 – 430 A.D.). According to the ceramic offering of one of the funerary contexts, this tomb dates to the Middle Horizon (650 – 1000 A.D.). Of particular interest are the re-openings of some Nasca burials during the Middle Horizon, obviously for the purpose of introducing additional offerings as well as human bodies. A more detailed cultural and historical discussion of these fi ndings is intended to be delivered in future publications.

Paul Devereux (29th March, 2011) - Ancient mindscapes. The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness Salon, The Institute of Ecotechnics, October Gallery, Bloomsbury, London. (Host and compère)

An audio-visual presentation on the nature of ancient sacred geographies in which we learn how ancient cultures worldwide invested their territories with spiritual and mythical meaning – from the Nazca Lines in Peru to Buddhist soundscapes in Asia, from effigy mounds in the Americas to a new explanation for Stonehenge, and a great deal more.

Durante el Horizonte Antiguo las poblaciones de la cuenca del Río Grande de Nazca establecen contactos indirectos con la esfera de desarrollo Cupisnique y Chavín a través de los paracas. Tales contactos condicionarán en el área nazca una progresiva asimilación de aportes culturales foráneos, favoreciendo la emergencia paulatina de sus primeras élites que instaurarán progresivamente un mayor grado de integración y consecutivamente una cohesión política estatal. Dentro de este contexto emerge Cahuachi, como la materialización de un poder local que luego será regional. Cahuachi puede ser considerado el primer foco histórico de la homogenización político-cultural de la costa sur del Perú.

During the ancient horizon the populations of the basin of the Rio Grande of Nazca established indirect contacts with the sphere of development Cupinisque and Chavín across the Paracas. Such contacts determined in the area Nazca a progressive assimilation of cultural foreign contributions, favouring the gradual emergence of its first elites that restore progressively a major degree of integration and consecutively a political state cohesion. This context is observed in Cahuachi's gradual emergence, as the materialization of a local power which became regional. Cahuachi can be considered to be the first historical area of the political-cultural homogenization of the south coast of Peru.

1st International Conference on Natural Hazards and Disaster Management - June 1-3, 2017 - Osaka, Japan
Theme: “Significance of Early warning systems and risk management strategies”

Il tema della prevedibilità dei terremoti è oggi oggetto di opinioni contrastanti, per problemi di tipo strettamente scientifico (la difficoltà di correlare strettamente certi precursori al manifestarsi del fenomeno in un certo intervallo di tempo, di spazio e di intensità dello stesso) e sociale (la gestione delle reazioni della popolazione di fronte ad una allerta di cui è difficile predire la durata ed il reale livello di rischio per la stessa).
Tuttavia, l'avanzamento delle conoscenze nel settore geofisico e geochimico, congiuntamente alla disponibilità di strumenti che permettono di rilevare con precisione certi fenomeni, aprono oggi nuove prospettive alla possibilità di conoscere, con una sufficiente precisione, se ci sia o meno la possibilità del verificarsi di un sisma imminente e di quale intensità.
Nel caso specifico del territorio ecuatoriano, interessato sempre da fenomeni sismici e vulcanici, già oggi, per le evenienze di eruzioni vulcaniche e tsunami, è attivo un efficiente sistema di gestione di tali rischi.
Con la recente crisi del vulcano Cotopaxi (iniziata nella primavera 2015 ed a tutt'oggi in corso) si sono attuate, nelle zone nel raggio di una trentina di chilometri da esso, una serie di misure che permettono l'evacuazione o la messa in sicurezza della popolazione direttamente interessata (tra le 100'000 e le 200'000 persone, tra le province del Cotopaxi, del Pichincha, del Napo e del Tungurahua) soprattutto dal rischio della discesa di lahar. Nell'occasione di questa crisi, si sono adeguate anche le infrastrutture sia per renderle idonee ad evacuare masse di 30'000÷40'000 persone in trenta minuti (predisponendo luoghi sicuri in cui ricoverarla), sia per resistere – per quanto possibile – agli effetti di una discesa di lahar dal Cotopaxi. Nella stessa occasione, la popolazione è stata istruita sul da farsi in caso di evacuazione, di pericolo di gas vulcanici, di interruzione della rete stradale, elettrica e telefonica.
Nello stesso modo, le località costiere sono preparate ad organizzare in pochi minuti una evacuazione nel caso del pericolo di tsunami, caso che si è ripetuto alcune volte, negli ultimi tempi, per terremoti che hanno interessato i territori che si affacciano sull'Oceano Pacifico.
La gestione di una allerta sismica è certo più complessa, per la difficoltà di identificare esattamente le zone che potrebbero essere colpite e per i tempi strettissimi di evoluzione del fenomeno ma, sulla scorta delle esperienze maturate, è possibile prendere delle misure che permettano un minore impatto sulle popolazioni di un terremoto. Tra queste, le più attuabili sono - potendo conoscere con un anticipo la possibilità che si manifesti un sisma di una certa intensità – il sospendere le attività che comportino la concentrazione di persone in edifici a rischio e la predisposizione di alloggi temporanei (come già sperimentato in Italia in occasione del terremoto del 2009).

In 1996, the team of the Centro Italiano Studi e Ricerche Archeologiche Precolombiane (CISRAP), headed by Giuseppe Orefici, discovered a small cache of elaborate Nasca textiles at Cahuachi that provides new bases for identifying Nasca-style textiles in other regions, including those excavated on the Paracas Peninsula by Julio C. Tello. In the late 1920s, Tello's team excavated 429 mummy bundles, some of them very large and elaborate, within the walls of earlier buildings at the site that he called the Necropolis of Wari Kayan. Although some authors persist in calling the Wari Kayan textiles "Paracas" textiles, similarities with the Cahuachi textiles indicate that a significant proportion of the embroidered textiles from the Necropolis of Wari Kayan are Nasca style. To support this contention, I will first present a detailed description of the techniques and imagery of the three Nasca textiles excavated at Cahuachi in 1996, and will then select a small number of distinctive features. The distinctive features will be used to correlate textiles from the Necropolis of Wari Kayan with similar clusters of features, which identify them as Nasca style. The expanded sample of Nasca-style textiles, including those from the Necropolis of Wari Kayan, contains strong indications that the Nasca people embedded extensive bodies of systematic numerical data into their textiles, which will be briefly described here. Finally, issues of the style and chronology at the Necropolis of Wari Kayan will be reviewed and updated.

Indagar una fecha correcta o probable del establecimiento en Sudamérica occidental del sistema de manejo de agua--conocido en el Perú como puquio, y genéricamente llamado galería filtrante o qanat--es importante porque su supuesta existencia a mediados del primer milenio d.C. ha sido un elemento importante en la reconstrucción de ocupaciones humanas prehistóricas en la región Nazca.

This paper takes imagery found on an early Nazca double
spouted ceramic and demonstrates that it is not just an
art form or simple iconography. It was a nearly subliminal
system of non-linear language that was quite capable of
expressing complicated cosmological conceptualizations.
The paper also presents some similar compositions from
other, geographically distant, ancient cultures that
expressed similar cosmological content using the
depicted sign language system. This paper was corrected on 6-02-18 due to mistakes about the (green) Rectangle that formed the body of the headless man. The section should have read the (leftward leaning rectangular sign that means, " the stopping-place."

1st International Conference on Natural Hazards and Disaster Management - June 1-3, 2017 - Osaka, Japan
Theme: “Significance of Early warning systems and risk management strategies”

The predictability of earthquakes is now object of contrasting opinions, for strictly scientific problems type (the difficulty to correlate closely certain precursors to the occurrence of the phenomenon in a certain interval of time, space and intensity) and social (the menagement of the reactions of the population in face of an alert which is difficult predict the duration and the real level of risk).
However, new knowledge in the fields of nuclear physics, geophysics and geochemistry, together with the availability of new technologies that make it possible to accurately detect certain phenomena, have opened new perspectives to the opportunity to know, with sufficient precision, if or not will be an imminent earthquake, the epicentral area and its intensity.
In the specific case of the Ecuadorian territory, always affected by seismic and volcanic phenomena, already today, for occurrences of volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, is operating an efficient system of managing these risks.
With the recent crisis of the Cotopaxi volcano (started in spring 2015 and still in progress), have been implemented, in areas within a distance of some thirty kilometers, a range of measures that allow evacuation or safe-keeping of the population directly affected (between 100,000 and 200,000 people, between the provinces of Cotopaxi, Pichincha, Napo and Tungurahua), especially from the risk of lahar descent. In the event of this crisis, infrastructures have also been adapted to allow them to evacuate 30,000 to 40,000 people in thirty minutes (providing safe places to admit it) and to resist - as far as possible – at effects of a lahar descent from Cotopaxi. On the same occasion, the population was instructed to do in case of evacuation, of danger for volcanic gas, of interruption of the road, electrical and telephone network.
Similarly, for the coastal towns are planning in a few minutes an evacuation in case of tsunami danger; this event has been repeated several times, lately, for the earthquakes that have affected the territories bordering the Pacific Ocean.
The management of a seismic alert is certainly more complex, because of the difficulty of identifying precisely the areas that could be affected, and for the very short times of evolution of the phenomenon; but based on the experiences gained, is possible to take measures that allow a minor Impact on populations of an earthquake. Among these, the most viable ones are - by knowing in advance that an earthquake of some intensity may occur - suspending activities that involve the concentration of people in risky buildings and the provision of temporary housing. (As already experienced in Italy during the earthquake of 2009).

(SLIDES)

Published in Culture and Environment: a fragile coexistence. Proceedings of the twenty-fourth annual conference of the Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary (2003). Edited by Ross W. Jamieson, Syvia Albonyi and Neil Mirau; Pages 363-369. Calgary: The Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary.

Entre los numerosos sitios Nazca que se encuentran dispersos en la cuenca del Rio Grande, sobresale Cahuachi, el cual tuvo una ocupacion continua del ano 400 a. C al 450 d. C. Hoy en dia deshabitado, el sitio de la antigua capital de los Nazca cubre una superficie de 24 km2.