Culture
More than 50 geoglyphs of various shapes and sizes, including a huge swastika, have been discovered in northern Kazakhstan.
These sweeping structures, representing earthen hills, create an amazing landscape work of art, similar to Peru's famous Nazca lines.
Geoglyphs
The geoglyphs discovered by Google Earth come in the form of various geometric shapes, including squares, rings, crosses, and a swastika that was commonly used in ancient times.
They range in size from 90 to 400 meters in diameter, and some are longer than modern aircraft carriers. Geoglyphs cannot be seen from the ground; they can only be viewed from the air.
Over the past year, an archaeological expedition from Kostanay University in Kazakhstan, together with Vilnius University of Lithuania, studied geoglyphs.
Excavations have discovered the remains of structures and furnaces on geoglyphs, which suggests that rituals took place here. It is possible that ancient tribes used geoglyphs to identify their possessions.
Researchers say that it is possible to say for sure that they were built by ancient people, but by whom and for what purpose remains a mystery.
It is also unclear why builders used geometric shapes, even though the swastika is an ancient symbol that can be found throughout Europe and Asia.
Pictures of the Nazca Desert
The most famous geoglyphs in the world are the Nazca lines, located in Peru's coastal region, covering an area of about 450 square kilometers.
There are thousands of Nazca geoglyphs depicting real and imaginary creatures, plants, flowers, geometric motifs and intricate fantasy figures.
Most of them are between 200 g and older. BC to 500 AD, which means they were built at a time when the area was inhabited by the Nazca people.
Geoglyphs can also be found in other places around the world. For example, in the Middle East, archaeologists have found thousands of wheel-shaped structures that are easy to see from the air but not from the ground.
See also: A giant geoglyph in the shape of an elk was discovered in the Urals
Also recently in Russia, archaeologists have discovered an elk-shaped geoglyph that is even older than the Nazca lines.
Ancient geoglyphs can also be found in other countries, including the UK, Brazil, and the United States.