Continuing on our journey through the Pre-Inca cultures,
we are flying over the mysterious ‘Pampa del Ingenio’.
The first person to fly over this land was the American scientist Paul Kosok, in 1939
He discovered enigmatic lines stretching out into the distance,
and pointing towards where the sun sets.
This could not be a natural phenomenon, these lines must have been drawn and etched into the pampa by the hand of man.
He believed it to be the largest book of astronomy in the world.
And there were not just lines,
but also enormous drawings which could only be seen from the air, and at a considerable height.
The German mathematician María Reiche continued the investigations.
She spent 40 years of her life studying the lines and drawings.
In effect, many of them coincided with solar solstices and the exact place where the moon rises.
But, according to this investigator, these lines across the pampas
were made during the first millenium of our era,
by the Nasca and Paraca peoples. In her studies, she makes the following observation:
“How and why were they made, by a supposedly primitive culture, who could not fly?
They must have first planned and drawn them on a smaller scale.
But how they were then able to place them precisely,
and in the right direction remains a mystery which will take many years to solve.”.
“We have before us one of the most important tasks in the study of our history,
which will help us understood the peoples of the past, and their way of thinking.”.
The fragile lines have been conserved due to the almost total lack of rainfall.
But there are parts where car tracks have destroyed them,
and the Pan-American highway cuts right across this plain.
The collection of over 16,000 skulls in the Archaeological museum in Lima
makes it possible to study the pathology of these ancient cultures.
These Paraca and Nasca skulls were subjected to a traumatic deformation,
apparently simply for aesthetic reasons. A long, thin skull was a symbol of the upper class.
The deformations were achieved by means of two splints,
one at the frontal bone, and one at the occipital bone.
Then, increasing pressure was applied and, over the years,
this gave a flat forehead and a high cranial vault.
Many cultures, both before and after the Paracas, even the Incas,
carried out brain surgery, using rudimentary surgical instruments made of obsidian.
The only anaesthetic used during these trepanning operations were the hallucinatory effects of chicha.
Normally, they operated on fractures and blows to the skull received in battle,
and, to a lesser extent, migraines and other pathologies.
The percentage of patients who recovered following the operation was very small.
In these samples, we can clearly see how the bone grew in those who survived the operation.
It is also evident which are those who did not survive.
The basic weapons of these peoples were clubs and maces, striated to cause even greater injury.
Blows were mainly directed at the head of the enemy, and that is why skull fractures,
and the subsequent trepanning to treat them, were so common.
Battles were frequent and cruel in these ancient civilisations.
One proof of this is given to us by the Sechín culture, which developed around 1,500 years BC,
in what is now the coastal province of Casma.
The stele which surround a rectangular stone building tell us of a battle,
in which victors and vanquished are depicted in a remarkable bas-relief technique.
Mutilations of limbs, faces of dead warriors with closed eyes, blood streaming from their heads, back bones…
the Sechín had surprisingly detailed knowledge of the human body.
This stela represents the eyes of the defeated.
On another, we see intestines, parts of a pelvis, bones.
Later than the Sechín, the Chavín de Huantar civilisation arose and flourished from 1,000 BC to 300 AD.
It was the most influential in Peru. At the Raymondi stele, one of the most important finds from this period,
we see the anthropomorphic figure of their god of creation, with feline and bird-like features.