Comment by araes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by araes | Hacker News Reader

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Partial agree on the food storage location.

However, I would also suggest the connection to the Amaru myth of the Nazca and Incas (and Andean civilizations in general). [1] Possible reason it was laid out in a snake pattern petroglyph rather than just being a large collection of holes relatively near the valley floor.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaru_(mythology)

"amaru or katari (aymara) is a mythical serpent or dragon ... associated with the vital waters that irrigated the farmlands"

From Google "two-headed snakes mountain snakes symbolizing fertility, rain, and rebirth"

The digging pattern definitely looks like a riff on serpent's scales, and snake geoglyphs show up all over the Andes. May have been put in that shape for the implied crop fertility, rain, and vital water benevolence of the Amaru along with events that may have been held up at the top of the mountain. Looks like there's an old path that got widened into a somewhat modern road up to the top. It both stores food in terms of a granary, and also serves as a religious geoglyph implying a positive connection to Amaru (or similar) snake concepts viewed as beneficial for crops, rain, ect...

Very interesting! This would tie in nicely with the long tradition of geoglyphs across coastal Peru. I agree that the pattern of holes could be interpreted as scales on a snake the way they interlock. I wonder whether the tail end at the valley floor extends into the agricultural fields or whether it simply ends at the pylon and, with that in mind, it seems likely that the engineers could've slid that pylon footing 10 m further east so that it wasn't on the band of holes. There is a road across them now at the pylon. It likely began as a foot trail a long time ago and each generation of farmer used it in turn as the flood plain filled with rich soil from each successive crop.

I considered storage as the most likely use case because it is convenient to the fields at the widest part of the worked area along the river and it is elevated above the flood plain far enough and in an arid area so that the likelihood of seed loss to mold or moisture is minimized. Being there spread along the ridge offers insulation from many of the common problems related to seed storage if you consider that each hole could hold a basket tightly woven from reeds gathered along the river. Each basket could have a colorful lid such that patterns could be made along the ridge that are visible from surrounding countryside so that their snake would appear to be moving up the mountain.

It's hard for us to know how it was used but I like the multi-use possibility that you have described based on incorporation of their own myths. These people had an intimate relationship with their landscape and used durable symbols to help manage their lives and customs. Thanks for that link!

The colorful basket lids idea seems likely. The Amaru had a lot of similarity with Quetzalcōātl. [1] "the wind, the guide and road sweeper of the rain gods, of the masters of the water, of those who brought rain" Lots of symbology with rainbows after the rainstorm. Also look like a colorful serpent across the sky.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcōātl

On the path extending in the field, it's possible, since it looks like there's a slight contrast difference in the fields. With modern archaeology tools like ground penetrating radar [2] it's possible that there would be revealed subsurface path structures or the remnants of holes and prior digging sites. Here's an example from a German Wikipedia (needs translation) that shows fields with contrast features vs what GPR picked up on a survey. [3]

At the top of the path it looks like it used to be wider and either broadened into a large scale feature, or split into two paths near each other. [4]

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar

[3] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kreisgrabenanlage_Velm

[4] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Huella+de+la+Serpiente/@-1...

Agreed that GPR could be a useful tool for tracking the full extent at the valley floor. It is likely that sedimentation and agricultural activity have combined to help bury that end in sediment.

The head of the serpent is interesting as you note. The pattern breaks at the neck and there is the second short line of holes to the east that does not have a matching set on the west side of the line unless it is completely buried. A lidar or GPR survey may help understand that slope.

I found this serpent amulet on Etsy [0] that implies that the word Amaru means serpent in Quechua so I looked that up and found a nice description that may help explain breaking the pattern at the head. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaru_(mythology)

The Amaru serpent could manifest with several different heads so the people who made this example may have used the natural bowl to show their local version of the Amaru that they believed would provide their desired results - rain, crops, etc.

[0] https://www.etsy.com/listing/1487839343/peruvian-hand-carved...

Another thing that I have not seen considered is that these holes may have been used to hold vessels for storing wine or brandy made from grapes that grew in the region. Evidently Pisco is a type of wine produced in the Nazca region in pre-Columbian times. [2] The vessels in the photo which store the wine may be a design passed down since ancient times. If you have a series of holes in the ground of a consistent size and you produce lots of vessels for storing something that you produce locally and those vessels are size to fit the holes in the Band of Holes then maybe this was their wine storage site.

[2] https://www.exploorperu.com/blog/peru/pisco-culture/

As another possible explanation, though it does seem possible it also seems a bit far-fetched and would definitely require some drone study I found this site [3] which claims to see pictograph symbols in the chain of holes when viewing the site from Google Earth satellite view taken on a specific date.

[3] https://www.ancient-origins.net/opinion/mysterious-holes-per...

It's interesting whatever they were doing.

the uniform size suggests each hole contained some device or container, whether wine, food, both. Either storage or factory as in wine. Baskets and maize suggestive of corn storage or corn booze

Very interesting that you suggest corn booze in addition to wine. Chicha was a traditional fermented drink made from corn (maize) and other grain crops. It was fermented in large ceramic vessels according to this source [0]. One of the links I had earlier to the wine making showed ceramic vessels that looked consistently sized and shaped and I think it is possible that they are in a traditional design. I wonder whether anyone has tried fitting a similar modern vessel into one of the holes after excavating to near it's original design.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicha

I did find another recent paper that suggests that the site was part of an Inca tribute collection system where everyone's tributes would be tallied. It is a very interesting paper and offers another plausible use case for the site in the context of what they have already found in the area. [1]

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300501765_The_Stran...

Perhaps tributes were paid in grain, or liquid products. Near the end of the paper they note that:

>In either regard, the line of holes at Monte Sierpe would have provided an ideal place to deposit tribute, where it could be easily recorded by the accountants of the Inca state (quipucamayoc) on site and then transported to Tambo Colorado or wherever the Inca authorities desired.

This valley was an important valley along the ancient Inca road so it makes sense that they would need a place to store things for distribution or to accumulate them for tributes.

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