I recently visited one of my Bucket List museums (yes, that is the kind of nerd that I am). I wanted to share a few of my pictures from the Chicago Field Museum featuring feline artifacts in their collections.
For more information about cat mummies in ancient Egypt, see my article on the goddess Bastet. The lions of Tsavo are on my shortlist for future articles. If you don’t know, it is a gruesome and fascinating tale.
On October 15, 2020, Peru’s Ministry of Culture announced that a new carving, called a geoglyph, had been discovered at the Nazca lines site (5). The surprise addition was a cat–a very, very old one. The Nazca lines as a whole are an archeological wonder and a mystery. Yet the cat on the hill is a unique specimen among the titanic works of human ingenuity on display.
What Are the Nazca Lines?
The Nazca lines are a series of designs carved into the ground of the Peruvian coastal plain. Each design is called a geoglyph. Although other places around the world have geoglyphs, the Nazca lines site is among the most famous, and possibly the largest. The geoglyphs are scattered over approximately 450 square km (174 square miles) of desert (7). The geoglyphs include straight lines, over 800 of them, some of which are 48 km (30 miles) long; simple shapes and designs such as triangles and spirals; and a smaller number of animal, plant, human, and fantastical figures (1, 2, 4, 7)
Aerial View of Some of the Nazca Lines
Three groups of people are believed to have made the Nazca lines: the Chavin, Paracas, and Nazca cultures (6). Archeologists think the Nazca made most of the geoglyphs around 200 B.C. to 700 A.D. (1-3, 7). The Chavin and Paracas were earlier contributors (2, 7). There is no consensus as to why they made these massive works of art, but it must have been important to them, because it wasn’t easy.
To make these geoglyphs, the ancient artists removed 12 to 15 inches of reddish, iron oxide-coated pebbles to uncover the layer of sand below (2, 6). The designs are so big, they can’t be seen in their entirety from the ground, so the project required a lot of planning and cooperation. It must have taken a long time, but their work had staying power. Because the Nazca lines were carved into one of the driest places on the planet, they have held up for 2000 years (2).
As to the possible motive for such an undertaking, there are plenty of theories. An early theory proposed that the geoglyphs served an astronomical and calendrical function (1, 2, 7). Later researchers moved toward other theories, i.e. that the geoglyphs were part of a religious rite to bring water or fertility (2). Alternatively, the designs may have been signposts and ritual sites for pilgrims (1, 2). Experts in other fields have offered different explanations. I’ve heard it said that the Nazca lines were made as landing strips for alien spacecraft. Archeologists reject such claims.
A New Discovery
Although the Nazca lines have been under study since they were found almost 100 years ago, new geoglyphs are still discovered all the time (1, 4, 6). Usually, it is due to the efforts of the site’s researchers, but happy accidents happen, too. A crew was remodeling El Mirador Natural viewpoint when something on the hillside caught the eye of the supervising archeologists (5). With careful cleaning, the figure emerged. The 37 m (120 ft) long cat appears to be either laying on its side or standing in profile (1, 3, 5, 6). It has large, round eyes and a striped tail (1, 4).
Image from Peru Ministry of Culture
Unlike most of the geoglyphs, the cat on the hill is not thought to have been carved by the Nazca people (3, 5). It dates to between 200 and 100 B.C., making it to oldest geoglyph yet discovered at the Nazca lines (1, 4, 6)! That also makes it older than the Nazca people. Rather, the cat appears to be the handiwork of the Paracas culture (1, 3). They were around right before the Nazca, and the geoglyph matches the style of cats depicted on Paracas textiles and ceramics (1, 3).
We nearly lost this unique geoglyph before it was even found. According to Peru’s Ministry of Culture, “The figure was scarcely visible and was about to disappear, because it’s situated on quite a steep slope that’s prone to the effects of natural erosion” (5). And geoglyphs are extremely delicate. The reason the Nazca lines site has viewpoints in the first place is because a single footprint can irreparably damage a geoglyph (1, 4). Visitors are only allowed to view the designs from the designated viewpoints or from the air. Fortunately, no one accidentally destroyed this incredibly cool cat before it could be found and conserved.
What Cat is That?
There were no domestic cats in South America at the time the cat on the hill was etched into the earth. Which cat were the Paracas people commemorating, then? There’s no way to know for sure. It isn’t exactly a true-to-life representation. But I fell down a bit of a rabbit hole anyway. According to the International Society for Endangered Cats, there are nine small wild cats and two big cats. That’s according to size, not taxonomy. Much to my amusement, the top comment on the ISEC page for South America was somebody asking exactly this question. They didn’t get a clear answer, though, which meant I had to keep digging.
The geoglyph cat’s proportions and tall, pointy ears don’t seem much like either of the big cats, jaguar or puma. Besides, pumas don’t really have stripe-y tails. So, on to the small cats. Range and habitat can exclude a few. Andean cats live high in the Andean mountains. The kodkod only lives in forests in Chile. Margays and northern tiger cats are found in the interior forests. Southern tiger cats are too far south, oddly enough. That leaves the ocelot, Geoffrey’s cat, jaguarundi, and pampas cat.
Jaguarundis have short, round ears, no stripes, and kind of squinty eyes. Seems improbable. The other three are all reasonable candidates. I lean toward the pampas cat. The body shape looks a lot like the geoglyph, not just the eyes, ears, and stripes. So that’s my best guess, if anyone was wondering other than me. I think the Paracas people inscribed a 37-m pampas cat into a hillside. No one knows exactly why, but if you were going to put all that work into drawing something, it might as well be a cat.
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. (n.d.). Lines and geoglyphs of Nazca and Palpa. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/700/
