Geoglyph
A large design or figure made on the ground by arranging stones or altering the landscape, often most visible from above.
Petroglyph: An image or inscription carved, pecked, or scratched into a rock surface. Unlike a geoglyph, it is made directly on rock rather than across the ground.
Nazca Lines: A group of large ground drawings and lines made in Peru’s Nazca Desert. Their cleared-line technique and animal figures are among the best-known geoglyphs.
Desert pavement removal: The removal of dark surface stones to expose lighter soil beneath. This process creates the contrasting lines of many desert geoglyphs.
Nazca culture: An ancient society that flourished on Peru’s southern coast, especially from about 100 BCE to 800 CE. Nazca communities made many of the desert’s famous ground drawings.
Nazca Lines purpose: The unresolved question of why Nazca communities made and used the desert lines and figures. Ritual, water, and social explanations compete, with no single account explaining every feature.
Earthwork: A human-made structure or alteration formed primarily from soil, stone, or other natural materials. Geoglyphs are one kind of large-scale alteration of the ground.
Paracas Candelabra: A large prehistoric hillside geoglyph on Peru’s Paracas Peninsula. Its deep-cut outline shows how a geoglyph can use a slope as a display surface.
Chalk figure: A hillside figure created by exposing pale chalk beneath turf or soil. Cutting into a slope produces bright outlines that require periodic maintenance.
Paracas culture: An ancient society of Peru’s south coast that flourished before the Nazca culture. The Paracas Peninsula geoglyph is set within a landscape shaped by this earlier culture.
Archaeoastronomy: The study of how past societies understood and used celestial phenomena. Some proposed readings connect geoglyph alignments with the sky, though interpretations remain contested.