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You are here: Home / World / What is The Giant of Atacama?

What is The Giant of Atacama?

February 20, 2020 by Karen Hill

A pilot recently flew over the bleak Atacama Desert region of northern Chile in search of a “giant. He was looking for a man much larger than the yeti, or Abominable Snowman, and older than the nation of Chile itself. This-giant isn’t a living creature, though, but the representation of a man carved onto the side of a mountain.

The pilot found the giant on the slopes of a peak known as the “Solitary Mountain.” The figure was made by rubbing away the top layer of the mountain surface to reveal the differently colored soil beneath it.

The outline of the figure was traced with lines of stones. Visible only from the air, the figure is a man with a crown on his head and boots on his feet, standing about 390 feet tall. The Giant of Atacama is the largest representation of a human figure in the world!

Scientists believe the figure was fashioned by Indians who lived in the region from the first century B.C. until the seventh century. The giant is located about 850 miles from the Nazca Plain in Peru, site of the famous Nazca lines.

These lines, some of them miles long, form animals so large that they can be seen only from the air. One figure is a bird 300 feet long! Perhaps the Giant of Atacama was the work of the same people who drew the lines on the Nazca Plain.

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Filed Under: World

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

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