Archaeologists discover 2,000-year-old giant cat geoglyph amid Peru's Nazca Lines

Archaeologists trying to improve access to an overlook onto Peru's ancient Nazca Lines, a UNESCO world heritage site since 1994, discovered a 120-foot-long geoglyph of a cat on the side of a hill, Peru's culture ministry announced this week.

"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," the culture ministry said. "Over the past week, the geoglyph was cleaned and conserved, and shows a feline figure in profile, with its head facing the front." The cat drawing was estimated to have been created between 200 and 100 B.C., during the late Paracas era and before the time of the Nazca culture.

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The Nazca Lines are geometric shapes and animal drawings etched into the Peruvian desert 250 miles south of Lima, the capital. Other figures include a monkey, an orca, a hummingbird, and, The Guardian notes, "a figure some would dearly love to believe is an astronaut."

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"It's quite striking that we're still finding new figures, but we also know that there are more to be found," said Johny Isla, Peru's chief archaeologist for the lines. "Over the past few years, the use of drones has allowed us to take images of hillsides."