908 sacred sites: further reading two rivers come together, Chavín is strategically located at the gathering point of natural forces and was visited and celebrated in an effort to maintain a prosperous balance of these forces It was at the center of a pilgrimage network that extended for over 200 miles in every direction The most sacred and secret place at Chavín is an inner chamber where hides the so-called Lanzón, a vertical stone in the shape of a knife depicting a mythical fanged creature Archaeologists have found that openings inside the temple were carefully designed to create sound and light effects produced by water and wind In the southern desert coast of Peru hundreds of earth drawings, or geoglyphs, have been found, created between 200 b.c.e and 600 c.e by the Nazca people These geoglyphs were created by removing the upper layer of pebbles and revealing the underlying darker stones Their designs range from straight lines and geometric shapes to animal representations The giant drawings can been seen only from the air and are located away from residential dwellings Contemporary inheritors of the Nazca region still walk in processions along straight lines in the desert Their pilgrimage is meant to symbolically connect water resources from the sea and mountains in this harsh environment, one of the driest places in the world Drawings of monkeys, fish, and other exotic animals from the ocean and the Amazon forest lead scholars to believe that the Nazca Lines were sacred enclosures celebrating the economic and natural interdependence of the Andean area See also architecture; art; astronomy; calendars and clocks; climate and geography; death and burial practices; education; festivals; health and disease; language; mining, quarrying, and salt making; religion and cosmology; roads and bridges; sports and recreation; war and conquest FURTHER READING Mary Beard, John North, and Simon Price, Religions of Rome, Vol 1, A History (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998) Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992) Jean Bottero, Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia, trans Teresa Lavender Fagan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001) Walter Burkert, Greek Religion: Archaic and Classical, trans John Raffan (Oxford, U.K.: Basil Blackwell, 1985) David Coulson and Alec Campbell, African Rock Art: Paintings and Engravings on Stone (New York: Harry N Abrams, 2001) Matthew Dillon, Pilgrims and Pilgrimage in Ancient Greece (London: Routledge, 1997) Henri Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Interpretation (New York: Dover, 2000) Manfred Lurker, The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Egypt (London: Thames and Hudson, 1995) Siegfried Morenz, Egyptian Religion (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973) John Pedley, Sanctuaries and the Sacred in the Ancient Greek World (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005) Simon Price and Emily Kearns, eds., The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, 3rd ed (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) Stephen Quirke, Ancient Egyptian Religion (London: British Museum Press, 1993) Chris Scarre, Exploring Prehistoric Europe (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1999) John W Stamper, The Architecture of Roman Temples: The Republic to the Middle Empire (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005) Lawrence E Sullivan, ed., Native Religions and Cultures of Central and South America (New York: Continuum, 2002) Richard Townsend, ed., The Ancient Americas: Art from Sacred Landscapes (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1992) Richard Townsend, ed., Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2004) Panos Valavanis, Games and Sanctuaries in Ancient Greece: Olympia, Delphi, Isthmia, Nemea, Athens, trans David Hardy (Los Angeles: Getty, 2004) Greg Woolf, ed., Ancient Civilizations: The Illustrated Guide to Belief, Mythology, and Art (San Diego, Calif.: Thunder Bay Press, 2005) ▶ scandals and corruption introduction Bribery, corruption, and scandal were as much the part of the ancient world as they are of the 21st century—and of the centuries between One problem historians have in reconstructing the nature and effects of corruption and scandal is that written records from the ancient world are often incomplete or nonexistent Without a free press serving as watchdog over the activities of kings and queens, nobles, civil servants, and institutions such as churches, no one chronicled these events objectively The written record in many cases is limited to royal decrees, letters, legal judgments, and similar documents—all written from the viewpoint of those in power or from the viewpoint of their political opponents Court historians and similar figures in the employ of rulers were paid to enhance the reputation of their masters, not to expose scandal and corruption Accounts provided by outsiders and later historians may have been colored by prejudices, oral legend, and incomplete information Bribery was undoubtedly commonplace in the ancient world People struggled to survive and accumulate some measure of wealth that would secure their old age and give them something to leave to their heirs In empires throughout the world, legions of inspectors, civil servants, tax collectors, surveyors, and other public officials were in positions to accept bribes to allow an illegal activity to go unnoticed, to modify records in someone’s favor, to alleviate a tax burden, to extend the boundaries of a person’s property, and so on