Uffington White Horse, Oxfordshire (England)

The Uffington White Horse shapes the oldest chalk-cut hill figure across England and is situated on the upper slopes of Whitehorse Hill slightly south of the village of Uffington, hence its name, in southwest Oxfordshire (England).

It measures about 110m (360ft) long and is dated sometime between 1380 and 550 BC during the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age whilst it is best visible either from the air or across the Vale around the nearby villages of Longcot, Fernham and Great Coxwell.

What purpose and function it served, as well as who carved it out, remains the subject of debate and far from certain.

The Nazca Lines, Peru

The Nazca Lines, or Nasca Lines, are sets of geoglyphs engraved into the surface over an area of roughly 190 square miles (500 square km) in the coastal Sechura (or Nazca) Desert, southern Peru.

Their name comes from the ancient Nazca Culture (c. 200 BC – 500 AD), or people, as they were the main contributors (Nazca Phase) to this earthly artwork although some date even earlier and are attributed to the immediately preceding Paracas Culture, forming the so-called Paracas Phase (c.400 – 200 BC).

Strikingly enough, the combined length of all known lines drawn in the ground across the landscape is estimated around 800 miles (1,300 km) whilst they are usually about 10-15cm deep and 33cm or more wide.

Some of the shapes formed are best seen from the air but can also be visible over surrounding foothills or other elevated spots, with some as good as around 370m long, where they have been mostly naturally preserved due to the isolated, dry and windless plateau.

It is of interest that while the earlier designs (Paracas Phase) are often humanlike and slightly resemble even earlier nearby petroglyphs the main subject of the succeeding Nazca people is plants and animals, such as a 265m long pelican, a 135m long condoresque bird and a 110m long monkey.

The Atacama Giant (Chile)

The Atacama Giant (Gigante de Atacama) is a huge geoglyph carved on the southwest slope of Cerro Unita (1266m) in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile.

It measures no less than 119m long and the figure, surrounded by many other geoglyphs, shapes the largest prehistoric athropomorphic known in the world.

It is thought to have served as a form of astronomical calendar as it would indicate with excellent precision where the moon would set.

Furthermore, the extended points on the top and the sides of the head would read what season it was turning on the alignment of the moon.

That said, it is not clear what it represents and it is interesting that it has got a northeast direction.