The Blythe Intaglios are huge geoglyphs - ground drawings of humans, animals, and geometric shapes. The largest human figure is 176 feet in length. They were not discovered until the 1930's by airplane because it is difficult to see them from the ground or the nearby hills, unless you know what you are looking for.

The Intaglios were made by scraping darker material away from the lighter material below. Archaeologists can't agree on how old they may be. Perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Reportedly, there are over 600 geoglyphs in these deserts, but these are the largest and most visible.

There has been some distruction and vandalism by motorcycles and ATVs, as well as army training exercises elsewhere in the desert. The fences offer some protection now.

Here is a good article, with more geoglyph pictures and coordinates. And another.



Here's another webpage with information about some of the other geoglyphs in the area . Perhaps we can placemark them too!

Absolutly Fantastic. Thank you for this find.

Great post!! I think i heard something very close to that near the "andes" mountains ar atacama desert...

I read that there are over 300 in the Sonoran Desert, AZ, CA, and MX. Intaglios are also known in South America and New Caledonia.

Blythe Intaglios Photo Gallery



JQ

The only mention of these that I've heard of before are the Nazca Lines in Peru which apparently are some of the most famous and they do look remarkable.