Peruvian mystery in danger

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NAZCA, Peru -- Standing inside the maze of mysterious lines and figures that put this arid region on the tourist map, state archaeologist Alberto Urbano surveyed a football field-size spread of ankle-deep trash.

"Farther down this road there are illegal gold mines, too," he said, noting that the path is the side of a gigantic trapezoid. "See how straight it is."

But it is not only trash and small-time gold diggers that threaten Peru's fragile Nazca Lines. Grave robbers, tractor-trailers and tourists have left their mark on the vast designs carved more than a millennium ago along a 35-mile stretch of desert.

In many ways, the damage reflects Peru's inability to protect its myriad of pre-Columbian archaeological gems.

Mr. Urbano blew the whistle on the municipality of Nazca in October for briefly dumping trash inside the 175-square-mile protected zone that has been a United Nations World Heritage site since 1994.

Three months earlier, highway officials had to move a weighing station 10 miles north of the zone to stop cargo trucks from cutting across the lines to avoid paying tolls.

Located 250 miles south of Lima, the lines have puzzled scientists, drawn mystics and even inspired an eccentric German mathematician to devote the last five decades of her life to studying and protecting them. Each year, about 80,000 tourists fly over the pictographs.

Loosely guarded by day, the site is wide open by night.

Since German mathematician Maria Reich died in 1998 at age 95, the task of watching over the site has fallen to a handful of men she once employed and Mr. Urbano -- the only state archaeologist.

Miss Reich's remaining guards finance their operations by charging tourists 6 nuevo soles, or less than $2, to climb up a metal observation tower beside the Pan-American Highway, which itself cuts through the site -- and an unlucky lizard figure.