Tierra Sajama:
Questions and Answers:

What is Sajama?

Sajama is the place name of the highest mountain in Bolivia, a major, glacier-covered volcano in west-central Bolivia. Sajama is also the name of a town located at the base of the volcano, as well as the name of the National Park that encompasses the volcano. The Tierra Sajama Studio-Seminar focuses on the cultural landscapes of the Sajama region, roughly the area immediately around the volcano and high plain (altiplano) towards the east, southeast, and south. The Sajama region is located in the Department of Oruro (a department in Bolivia is similar to a state in the US). In the past, the region and its people were referred to as Carangas.

What is the Tierra Sajama?

Tierra Sajama is the outgrowth of a team-taught course made up of faculty and graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Anthropology and Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. The goals of the studio-seminar, taught in the Spring of 2003, were to describe, analyze, interpret, appreciate, and promote the cultural landscape of the Sajama region by focusing on the Sajama Lines and their associated structures.

What are the Sajama Lines?

The Sajama Lines are cleared areas of between 1m and 3m wide and upwards of 15km long. From the air or high vantage points, the lines appear as straight pathways upon a darker background. The majority of the lines are nearly straight, although some have slight twists or zig-zag changes of direction. Most lines are associated with radial line centers, upon which they converge (or from which they diverge). Many lines terminate at high points on the local landscape. Lines often cross natural topographic and optical barriers such as ridge crests, hills, valleys, and dry canyons. Some scholars have referred to cultural features that ignore natural topography such as the Sajama Lines as “landscape oblivious.”

Why are they called “lines?”

Similar phenomena found on the pre-Columbian cultural landscapes of Nazca on the desert coast of Peru are called “lines” in the scholarly and popular literature. Most, but not all, are incredibly straight over long distances and have clear beginnings and endings. The use of the term lines implies that the landscape features were intentionally designed and laid out with considerable concern for accuracy and alignment. The lines could also be called paths, pathways, roads, or alignments.

How were the Sajama Lines made?

The lines were created by removing natural vegetation to expose the bare ground. In other cases, the construction may have involved scraping away the dark soil and oxidized rocks from the surface to expose the lighter subsurface. Local peoples must have periodically maintained the lines that are clearly visible from the ground and on the aerial photographs and satellite images (otherwise they would be covered with vegetation). This suggests that the lines are still in use (or were until recently) in the Sajama region. Some have a slight U-shaped cross section from erosion, probably through repeated use. Compression of the soils through frequent passage of humans may help to maintain them and also prevent vegetation from growing over them. The lines are clearly part of the designed, built environment.

How are the Sajama Lines studied?

Tierra Sajama is creating a Geographic Information System (GIS) of the Sajama region for use in mapping and analyzing this cultural landscape. The team is utilizing topographic maps, aerial and satellite imagery, published GIS datasets, and original research to create a spatial database of the Sajama region. Included in this database are a detailed digital elevation model (DEM), several ‘layers’ of archaeological and historic sites, vegetative land cover grids, natural features such as rivers and lakes, towns and man-made structures, and, of course, the Sajama Lines themselves. It is the team’s hope that this data will one day be field verified, and that new data will be added, by using a Global Positioning System (GPS).

In addition to mapping and spatial analysis, the Tierra Sajama team has also done extensive searches of the archaeological, historical, ethnographic and natural history literature of the region. The team has found valuable information relevant to the study because the area has been very well-studied by Bolivian and international scholars.

Where are the lines found? How much area do the lines cover in Bolivia?

The Sajama Lines are found between 3800 and 4300 meters above sea level. Using aerial photographs and CORONA satellite imagery, the team has determined that the lines cover most of the high altiplano between Lake Poopo to the east, the Bolivian-Chilean border to the west, Lake Coipasa to the south and the border between the departments of La Paz and Oruro to the north. This 22,000km area includes most of the department of Oruro.

How many lines are there in the Sajama region?

There are hundreds, possibly thousands of lines in western Bolivia. The lines range in density from a few lines to hundreds of lines per 10 square kilometers in the sample areas. While the total number of lines is not yet known, early sampling estimates indicate that the total linear kilometers of lines in ‘Tierra Sajama’ may be upwards of 16,000 kilometers (or roughly three times the east-west breadth of the United States).

How can the Sajama Lines be distinguished from modern roadways?

The lines are easily distinguished from modern roads by several criteria. Most modern roads are wide enough for vehicle traffic (either single or double lane) while the lines are much narrower. Roads and regular pathways tend to: a) wind across the landscape following topographic contours rather than climb steep hills or canyons; 2) have more rutted surfaces if unpaved; 3) connect rural and urban population centers of the past and present. Some colonial and modern roads were probably built on the lines.

Who discovered the Sajama Lines?

Of course the local people of the region have known about the lines since they were built. The earliest account of the Sajama Lines in English is a brief reference by traveler Aimé Felix Tschiffely in 1932 which states: “They [the native peoples] are very fond of building little chapels on the very tops of hills or mountains that happen to overlook their villages and settlements, and the trails that lead up to these shrines are invariably absolutely straight and very steep, so steep in fact that a white man would find it difficult to reach the top” (1932:440).

Anthropologist Alfred Metraux brought the lines and associated alignments of shrines to the attention of scholars when he published ethnographic fieldwork done in 1931 of the Chipaya and Aymara of the Carangas region. He described local cone shaped earth shrines called “mallku” and small chapels distributed across the landscape up to 10 km from the settlements. He added that the shrines were connected by “roads that lead in absolutely straight lines, regardless of the irregularities and slope of the ground” (Metraux cited and translated in Hadingham 1987:241). He also described the radial line centers stating that:

“…five-, or six-meter wide roads that lead in a straight line to every point on the horizon. These great, perfectly straight distinct avenues did not seem to have been used for a long time. I never found the opportunity to follow them to their ends…[nor did] the Indians ever volunteer any information on the purpose of these chapels. The priest of Huachacalla whom I interviewed told me that they served ‘superstitious’ ends, and that he wanted to know nothing of cults and pagan practices that were secretly held there” (Metraux cited and translated in Hadingham 1987:241).

The Sajama Lines were forgotten until filmmaker-writer Tony Morrison wrote about them in detail in 1978. Morrison showed that the local Aymara were still using the lines as ritual paths radiating from line centers to shrines and altars distributed across the landscape. He photographed, measured and mapped lines in several locations and highlighted the incredible straightness of the lines over long distances and rough terrain. Morrison’s book Pathways to the Gods (1978; republished in 1988) remains the most authoritative treatment of the Sajama Lines.

More recently, anthropologists Giles Rivierre, Gabriel Martinez, Nathan Wachtel, Johan Reinhard, and Thomas Abercrombie, art historian Teresa Gisbert, and archaeologists Brian Bauer and Marcos Michel Lopez have studied the Sajama Lines, related shrines, and historical and archaeological sites.

Were the lines difficult to design, construct, and maintain?

Evidence shows that the Sajama Lines were relatively easy to construct. As mentioned above, the most basic lines were made by simply removing vegetation along straight pathways. Lines created by removing loose stones and other surface debris probably involved more work, but were not technically difficult to build. Because of the extreme altitude and cold of the region, vegetation grows slowing; thus, maintenance of the lines was minimal. On the other hand, the design and layout of precise alignments over long distances involved more effort and planning. Based on experiments in which lines and figures replicating the Nazca Lines were built by schoolchildren, we know that a variety of string markers, wooden stakes, and poles can be used to create relatively precise alignments. The longer lines may have been laid out at night using fires or torches for alignment.

Do the lines form patterns? What are radial line centers?

Isolated single lines are rare. Most are grouped in units of 3 to 10, connected to what we have called radial line centers (referred to as “ray centers” in the literature on the Nazca lines). The lines radiate from or converge on a central place like the spokes of a wheel. The patterns associated with each radial line center are relatively simple and repetitive, although the number, length of lines, and azimuths (angles) vary. Most of the radial line centers are on valley floors or on gentle slopes at the base of hills. The radial line centers are often on low circular or oval mounds 50-200 meters in diameter and several meters tall. Most are occupied by small rural hamlets (estancias) of herds and farmers (a cluster houses, corrals, outbuildings). Mounds are covered and surrounded by the resinous thola bush, quenua trees, and ichu grass. Radial line centers are often locations of modern shrines or chapels (capillas, silus, mallkus, pocaras) of the hamlet. A number of the radial line centers are modern villages with the lines pointing to the center of the town plaza or church (iglesia). In other cases, single lines connect neighboring radial line centers. In areas of dense lines, radial line centers are distributed evenly across the landscape. Many of the radial line centers around the Sajama Volcano are located on the edges of large bofedales (irrigated artificial wetlands for grazing of llamas and alpacas).

The lines emanating from the radial centers often extend up the steep sides of hills and mountains. Some of the terminations of the lines marked on government topographic maps end as named stations of the cross (calvarios). Others end at chapels (capillas, silus), oratories, shrines and field altars (apachetas), rock piles or cairns, dome-shaped clay markers (mallcus), and/or pre-Columbian burial towers (chullpas) on hills or ridge crests. These are often locations of offerings, broken pottery and bottles, coca leaf, and burning. Metraux, Wachtel, and Reinhard report series of shrines, oratories and chapels up to 6km apart along straight lines for Carangas.

The lines from different radial line centers often cross each other. Tony Morrison also documented long double and triple parallel lines.

Why were the Sajama Lines built? What were the Sajama Lines used for?

The concern with straightness over long distances strongly supports the idea that the lines were intentional, planned landscape features. They were laid out with considerable forethought and skill. The lines probably served multiple functions and these functions may have changed over time.

The use of the Sajama Lines for various rituals is well-documented in the ethnographic literature on the Aymara and Chipaya of the region (Alfred Metraux, Tony Morrison, Teresa Gisbert, Nathan Wachtel, Gilles Riviere, Ana Maria Mariscotti, Gabriel Martinez, Thomas Abercrombie, Penelope Dransert, and Johan Reinhard). Most of these rituals are performed on set days of the year (but the dates vary by community, shrine, and line). The rituals involve processions along the lines and worship and placement of offerings at the shrines along the lines. Most of the rituals invoke the mountain and place spirits (mallku), mythical culture heroes, and Catholic saints.

One of the tasks of Tierra Sajama is to explore the fundamental questions of who, when, why, and how in relation to the Sajama Lines. Most scholars agree that the main function of the Sajama Lines was ritual and that the lines and associated shrines are sacred landscape features (although we do not rule out possible utilitarian uses such as lines as paths or roads for communication and transport between communities). There is a vast literature on the use of sacred alignments in the architecture, settlements, and landscapes of the pre-Columbian and Colonial period through the present. From historical documentation and Spanish eyewitness accounts, we know that the Inka organized their capital and important regional administrative sites according to ceques, radial sight lines that divided the landscape into pie-shaped wedges for administrative, political, social, astronomical, and ritual purposes. At the Inka capital of Cuzco, 41 of these radial lines serve to organize some 328 important Inka huacas, sacred places or structures including buildings, springs, rock outcrops, and caves. It is well known that Andean peoples often used constructed landscapes and temples as physical representations of sacred ideals, and recent studies suggest that ceques may well have been used as vast landscape calendars indicating solstices and equinoxes. Scholars have also linked this ceque system in the southern Andes to the Nazca lines that were built by Andean cultures of the Peruvian coast some 1,000 years earlier.

The Tierra Sajama team has posed and is evaluating a number of hypotheses about the function of the lines and the radial line centers through the analysis and interpretation of their locations, patterning, and associations.

1) The radial line centers and lines reference celestial events (rising and setting of the Pleiades, Solstices, Equinoxes, zenith/nadar; and possibly lunar events). These alignments may or may not be marked by cultural features in the built environment such as shrines (calvarios; huacas), hill-top fortresses pukaras, archaeological sites (ruinas), settlements (estancias, pueblos), churches (iglesias), chapels (capillas), burial towers (chullpas) or significant toponyms.

2) The radial line centers and lines reference high mountain peaks or peaks on the distant visible horizon, and/or a local peak or peaks. The lines may also reference other important natural features These alignments may or may not be marked by cultural features in the built environment such as shrines (calvarios; huacas), hill-top fortresses pukaras, archaeological sites (ruinas), settlements (estancias, pueblos), churches (iglesias), chapels (capillas), burial towers (chullpas) or significant toponyms.

3) The radial line centers and lines reference other radial line centers and lines at the local level OR central local shrines, natural features other than mountains, such as springs, caves, river confluences, rock outcrops, or other topographic elements of the landscape, and/or settlements at the local level. Another way of stating this would be that each group or cluster of local radial line centers and lines is unique and, thus, not similar to their neighbors. These alignments may or may not be marked by cultural features in the built environment such as shrines (calvarios; huacas), hill-top fortresses pukaras, archaeological sites (ruinas), settlements (estancias, pueblos), churches (iglesias), chapels (capillas), burial towers (chullpas) or significant toponyms.

4) The radial line centers and lines reference important regional ceremonial centers (the site of Tiwanaku, Cuzco, the Island of the Sun, and/or some other important pre-Columbian Andean cultural location. These alignments may or may not be marked by cultural features in the built environment (calvarios; huacas), hill-top fortresses pukaras, archaeological sites (ruinas), settlements (estancias, pueblos), churches (iglesias), chapels (capillas), burial towers (chullpas) or significant toponyms.

5) The radial line centers and lines do not reference any of the above locations or celestial events, but they have similar patterns shared across the Andes (possibly similar numbers of lines, same azimuths, tendency towards cardinality or intercardinality, etc.).

Of course, a null hypothesis (that the hypothesis is untrue or unverified) is implied for each of the above.

What are the results of the mapping, analysis, and interpretation?

Although the analysis and interpretation of the mapping and GIS of the Sajama Lines is not completed, some tentative results are available. These are discussed in several places on the Tierra Sajama website and CD.

• Some of the alignments of the Sajama Lines show strong correlation with astronomical events (the rising and setting of the Sun and Pleiades on the horizon).
• Some of the radial line centers of the Sajama Lines form straight alignments.
• The radial line centers show considerable local variation in terms of numbers, lengths, widths, and azimuths of lines, suggesting that the designs reflect local concerns.
• Some of the Sajama Lines reference high places (local hills, sacred mountains).
• Few Sajama Lines align with burial tower sites (chullpas) and fortified hilltop sites (pukaras). The density of lines is often high around archaeological sites.
• Because of their clear visibility on the aerial photographs of the 1970s and CORONA images of the 1960s, most of the radial line centers and lines around the Sajama volcano are (or were) still used and maintained. Most of the radial line centers are occupied as rural hamlets or even small villages and towns. Large areas of radial line centers and lines in the south, east and southeast of our study region are located in areas of low population density and may have been abandoned.
• Most radial line centers are located near bodies of water (rivers, wetlands, irrigated pasture, and lakes).
• Most radial line centers and lines are located on the flat plain or lower slopes of hills and mountains. Few lines are located on the upper slopes of hills and mountains (although this may be due to erosion).
• The density and number of lines and radial line centers is variable throughout the region of the Sajama Lines.
• Many neighboring radial line centers are connected by Sajama Lines.
• Many of the Colonial and modern roads were probably built on top of Sajama Lines.
• Some termination points of Sajama lines from radial line centers may be local community boundary markers. Other lines cross the lines from neighboring radial line centers and may have had other functions.

Research into the placement and meaning of the Sajama lines is ongoing, and it is the hope of the Tierra Sajama team that results from this research will be presented and published in the near future.

Can the Sajama Lines be appreciated from the ground or does one have to see them from above?

It is a common belief that the Sajama Lines and Nazca lines can only be seen and appreciated by flying over them. This is untrue. The lines can be seen from any of the radial line centers (which are elevated) or by looking back along the lines towards the radial line centers. The broken terrain of the Sajama region provides numerous vantage points to view multiple lines and line centers. In addition, many of the lines and radial line centers are marked by highly visible standing architecture (hamlets, churches, shrines, altars, rock cairns, crosses, archaeological sites, and other features).

What do the local people call the lines?

The lines are referred to the local peoples as siq’i (line, Aymara; analogous to the Quechua term ceque or zeque), t’aki (path or track; Aymara), caminos (roads; Spanish), and/or callejones (alleys; Spanish). Silu t’aki (or calvari t’aki) is term used for path to or connecting stations of the cross (calvario) (Morrison 1988:206). Morrison’s informant also refers to siq’i as “a row or line of things,” specifically “The rows are usually straight ….when it is a lines of sacred places, like stone piles, chullpas –the old burial towers—or tiny chapels. But… you can have a siq’i of llamas when they are walking over the pampa or a siq’i of boundary markers –chutatas” (1988:221). Morrison highlights that siq’i refers not to the line or path, but rather to the row of objects, in this case shrines, that it connects (ibid.).

Nathan Wachtel, Gilles Riviere, Gabriel Martinez, Thomas Abercrombie provide detailed discussion and analysis of the actual and symbolic use of lines and paths for the Aymara and Chipaya of the region.

How old are the lines? Who built the lines?

The construction and initial use of the Sajama Lines have not been dated, we are certain that the lines were built by the ancestors of the local, indigenous people of the region. Based on the limited archaeological research conducted on settlements, fortifications, and burial towers by Teresa Gisbert and colleagues, Carlos Ponce Sangines, Heinz Walter, Martii Parssinen, Patrice Lecoq, Johan Reinhard, and Marcos Michel, we know that the region has a rich and long culture history extending back in time thousands of years from the Preceramic Period, Wankarani Culture of the Initial Period and Early Horizon, Tiwanaku Culture of the Middle Horizon, the local cultures of the Late Intermediate Period and the Inca and local cultures of the Late Horizon before Spanish Conquest (1532) through the Aymara kingdoms of Carangas in the Colonial period and Aymara and Chipaya of the present day. The Sajama Lines could be associated with any of the archaeologically or historically defined cultures. Although the lines are still used and possibly constructed today, we believe that the majority of the lines and radial centers are pre-Columbian. The radial line centers are usually located on low mounds, probably archaeological sites created through many generations of occupation and reoccupation as settlements and sacred sites. This will have to be verified in the future on the ground through archaeological survey and excavation.

Are there lines similar to those near Sajama located in other parts of the Andes?

The Tierra Sajama team and other scholars have used the term “lines” when referring to these landscape features. The most famous landscape of “lines” is located on the Pampa Colorado of Nasca on the south coast of Peru. The Nasca lines are actually paths or roads probably intended to be walked during ritual processions. They also may have been used as a landscape calendar referencing the rising and setting of the Sun at solstices and equinoxes and other celestial phenomena, sacred mountains, and sources of irrigation water. Similar line features and geoglyphs are still used in parts of the Andes – although these lines are not as dramatic as those of Sajama and Nazca.

Another analogous cultural landscape is the Ceque System of Cuzco. Ceque in Quechua, the official Inca language, means “line.” The Incas organized the regional landscape around their capital Cuzco by imposing a conceptual framework of radial sight lines from important temples and plazas. These sight lines connected a total of 328 sacred shrines (huacas, wak’as) across the landscape. Some of the lines are straight while others have a zig-zag course. Some of the lines may have been actual paths or roads on the landscape. Scholars have proposed that the Ceque System functioned as a solar and lunar-based landscape calendar using astronomical sight lines between observation points and towers on the horizon. Others have suggested that the ceques were a means of organizing irrigation districts, a form of social organization in which the landscape is divided into bounded sections, and structure for assigning social status and duties for worship and maintenance of the most important religious shrines. Several early Spanish chroniclers state that the Incas established Ceque Systems at administrative centers in other parts of the empire. Others state that Ceque Systems were widespread throughout the Andes. Tom Zuidema and Brian Bauer have published excellent summaries of the Ceque System.

Elements of the Inca road network also overlap with the Sajama Lines. Scholars have shown that many segments of Inca road were remarkably straight over long distances. Roads were often designed as parallel dual and triple roads. Some roads radiate from Inca administrative and ceremonial centers, often dividing the geographical space into 4 unequal parts.

Andean peoples today and in the recent past often organize their architecture, settlements, and farmed landscapes according to radial, parallel, dual, tripartite, and quadripartite designs and linear alignments to cultural and natural features of the land and sky.

Are the Sajama Lines similar to the Nazca lines?

In addition to lines, Nazca also has cleared areas of triangles, rectangles, trapezoids, and figures of animals and mythical beings made of complex single lines. Thus far, only straight lines and radial centers have been identified in the Sajama region. These features in Sajama are nearly identical to those reported for Nazca. The Sajama Lines cover a much larger geographical area (approximately 16 times larger), but generally occur at a lower density than the Nazca lines.

Are there similar features in other parts of the world?

Sacred roads, paths, and alignments in architecture, settlement plans, ceremonial centers, and landscapes are found throughout the world. Radial, ritual roads are found in the Anasazi Chaco region of the southwestern United States, the Maya region of Mesoamerica, the Llanos de Mojos and Baures regions of the Bolivian Amazon and central Brazil. Excellent summaries can be found Charles Trombold’s edited volume Ancient road networks and settlement hierarchies in the New World (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991).

I would like to visit the Sajama Lines. How can I get there?

Tours of the Sajama Lines can be arranged by tourist agencies in the cities of La Paz and Oruro. The Sajama Lines can also be visited by private vehicle. The new Patacamayo-Tambo Quemada road goes through the heart of the Sajama region in Western Bolivia (eventually connecting to roads in Chile that lead to the Pacific coast). The town of Sajama is located just before reaching the Bolivian Chilean Border. Lines, shrines, chapels and churches can be seen around most of the small towns of the region (Sajama, Lagunas, Cosapa, and Wacolli).

How can I find out more about the Sajama Lines?

The best book about the Sajama Lines is Tony Morrison’s Pathways to the Gods (Academy Chicago Publishers, Chicago, 1988). For an introduction to how the Sajama Lines relate to the Ceque System of the Incas, the Nasca Lines, and general Andean prehistory and ethnography, we recommend Evan Hadingham’s Lines to the Mountain Gods: Nasca and the Mysteries of Peru (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1988). For more technical discussions, see Johan Reinhard’s The Nasca Lines: A New Perspective on their Origins and Meaning (Editorial Los Pinos, Lima, 1985), Anthony Aveni’s The Nasca Lines (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1991) and Between the Lines: the Mystery of the Giant Ground Drawings of Ancient Nasca, Peru. (University of Texas Press, Austin, 2000), Brian Bauer’s The Sacred Landscape of the Incas (University of Texas Press, Austin 1998), John Hyslop’s The Inka Road System (Academic Press, New York, 1984), and Gary Urton’s At the Crossroads of Earth and Sky (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1981).

References Cited

Abercrombie, Thomas
1998 Pathways of Memory and Power. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison.

Aveni, Anthony
1991 The Nasca Lines. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

Aveni, Anthony
2000 Between the Lines: the Mystery of the Giant Ground Drawings of Ancient Nasca, Peru. University of Texas Press, Austin.

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Dransart, Penelope
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Gisbert, Teresa editor
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Martinez, Gabriel
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Martinez, Gabriel
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Martinez, Gabriel
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Métraux, Alfred
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Métraux, Alfred
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Métraux, Alfred
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Michel Lopez, Marcos Rodolfo
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Morrison, Tony
1988 Pathways to the Gods. Academy Chicago Publishers, Chicago.

Reinhard, Johan
1982 Expedición arqueológica al altiplano de Tarapacá y sus cumbres. Revista CODECI pp. 17-42.

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Riviere, Gilles
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Wachtel, Nathan
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Wachtel, Nathan
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Urton, Gary
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Various Authors:
1997 Plan de Manejo del Area Natural de Manejo Integral “Parque Nacional Sajama.” Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, Servicio Nacional de Caminos, Dirección Nacional de Conservación de la Biodiversidad, Ministerio de Desarrollo Sostenible y Medio Ambiente, La Paz.

Zuidema, R. Tom
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Zuidema, R. Tom
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