Maria Reiche was born in Dresden on May 15, 1903. She was the oldest of three brothers and, after a happy childhood, was able to study mathematics, physics and geography at the Technical University of Dresden and Hamburg, where she graduated in 1928 .
Her illusion to live outside of her country for a time led her in 1932 to accept a position as private tutor of the sons of the German Consul in Cuzco, Peru. Before the expiration of the four-year contract period, she traveled to the capital, Lima, where she worked as a teacher of English and German and translating texts, before obtaining a position in the capital as a restorer of pre-Columbian textiles in the National Museum of Peru. .
María Reiche, the guardian of the mystery of the Nazca desert
These last two events, the translations and the restoration work, changed her life and aroused interest in Peruvian archeology in the young María Reiche when she translated for Julio C. Tello and, later, for Paul Kosok. In one of the articles that he translated to the archaeologist Kosok, he learned about the existence of gigantic lines and figures, located on a plain between Nazca and Palpa, which covered an area of 450 square kilometers from the coast to the foothills of the mountain range.
She traveled there for the first time in December 1941. Almost recently graduated from the University of Hamburg, the American archaeologist Paul Kosok invited her to be his assistant and to observe those figures that could only be seen in full from the air. After that first visit, the young German woman fell in love with the place, and although she left it shortly afterwards due to the restrictions of the war, she returned again in 1945 and would no longer leave the desert until her death; in fact, Kosok left Peru in 1948, but María Reiche, alone, continued with the investigations and maps of the Nazca figure
María Reiche fell in love with the nothingness of the desert and gave her life in it. He devoted his life to himself: to investigate, to discover, to discover, to clean, to take care of and to preserve something that went from an indescribable mystery unknown by most to a tourist attraction too visited. In the immensity of the Peruvian plain there were geometric lines impossible to understand and to which the German scientist insisted on giving meaning.
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Sitting on a ladder and with a tape measure, a compass, a broom, a handbook and her mathematical mind, María Reiche measured almost 50 figures and a thousand of these lines and investigated their astronomical orientation. He discovered that many of those named Nazca Lines are related to the summer solstice and elaborated theories about the meaning of the figures as an astronomical calendar. He came to the conclusion that they were destined to fix the cycles and climate changes in the agrarian societies of the Nazca civilization. Today, however, and despite the still existing debate, the majority belief indicates that the lines had a more ceremonial and cultural purpose than scientific
Maria Reiche was born in Dresden on May 15, 1903. She was the oldest of three brothers and, after a happy childhood, was able to study mathematics, physics and geography at the Technical University of Dresden and Hamburg, where she graduated in 1928 .
Her illusion to live outside of her country for a time led her in 1932 to accept a position as private tutor of the sons of the German Consul in Cuzco, Peru. Before the expiration of the four-year contract period, she traveled to the capital, Lima, where she worked as a teacher of English and German and translating texts, before obtaining a position in the capital as a restorer of pre-Columbian textiles in the National Museum of Peru. .
María Reiche, the guardian of the mystery of the Nazca desert
These last two events, the translations and the restoration work, changed her life and aroused interest in Peruvian archeology in the young María Reiche when she translated for Julio C. Tello and, later, for Paul Kosok. In one of the articles that he translated to the archaeologist Kosok, he learned about the existence of gigantic lines and figures, located on a plain between Nazca and Palpa, which covered an area of 450 square kilometers from the coast to the foothills of the mountain range.
She traveled there for the first time in December 1941. Almost recently graduated from the University of Hamburg, the American archaeologist Paul Kosok invited her to be his assistant and to observe those figures that could only be seen in full from the air. After that first visit, the young German woman fell in love with the place, and although she left it shortly afterwards due to the restrictions of the war, she returned again in 1945 and would no longer leave the desert until her death; in fact, Kosok left Peru in 1948, but María Reiche, alone, continued with the investigations and maps of the Nazca figures.
ARCHEOLOGY
María Reiche, the guardian of the mystery of the Nazca desert
The German mathematician dedicated his life to the investigation and conservation of geometric shapes and animals impossible to understand in the Peruvian plains of Jumana and San José
