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Description

Before I talk to you about this drawing, I have to talk to you about what I think of Nazca lines generally.

I already told you that the location of lots of ancient sites was under water until 65 million years. Nazca is one of those sites, and maybe it could explain things. Nazca lines are fore one part long straight lines scratched in the ground, and for other part zoomorphic silhouettes also scratched in the ground. Those lines seem to be made to be seen from the sky, because you can really see the drawing only from high.

If those drawings were made at a time this place was under water it would maybe make more sense, because if a being floating into water made it, he could see it clearly in completely normal conditions.

So I give interest to those lines and tried to imagine how cephalopods could have produced them. An interesting possibility appeared. Could cephalopods have used light to project their shadow making some kind of Chinese shadows?

I think about it because of further reasons. First cephalopod have very good vision of contrasts, so it would need them way less light than for a human to do it. Second, cephalopods are naturally at ease with mimicking things, so if a cephalopods specie is able to do art, Chinese shadows could maybe come to their mind. Third, (bio)light is a thing that an intelligent squid could had the need to master. Fourth, if you look those lines from far you can see that a lot of them are convergent, and is the same at a smaller scale with animal drawings, so it works pretty well with big shadows projected around some punctual light sources. It would explain why those lines are so straight whereas they go across relief, it would be because a kind of light calk was projected on the ground, so squids could see this shadow very because of their exceptional eyes and scratch a line.

Now let’s talk the condor up there. I chose to begin by drawing this one because there is a lot of geometric clues that helps to find the position of a lot of thing (this is not that easy to draw a squid from its shadow).

First I had to find the position of the light source. In this drawing, lines of the bird’s tail cross around on point into the body of the bird. So the light source had to be vertically above this point. Most of cephalopods have tentacle almost as long as their head. So using the information I had I tried to place the cephalopod and the light to find a position that works?

The cephalopod’s head makes the body of the bird. Tentacles make head, wings, legs, and tail.

The head, neck and beak are made by two tentacles zipped to each other, on the “head” part tentacles are not zipped and an eye appear that will not stay.

For the wings you can see that plumes are shorter but larger when they close up to the light source. It could be because in fact each wing is made from just one tentacle, for example the longer plumes are made first, the shadow is drawn on the floor, then the shadow move and is drawn again, until the last plume very large and short because the base of the tentacle is almost under the light, and the tentacle is pointing at the light.

Plume of the tail are interesting too, they are so long because they go high to catch light ray almost parallel to the ground.

I draw this only bleu because the scene is supposed to be seen by another cephalopod, in fact it would not be enough light for a human eyes. The little things on the floor are human silhouettes, there are here mostly to give an idea of the scale. By the way the squid should probably been smaller, and so closer to the light, but I was afraid it made the drawing unreadable if I made it to small, so you will have to imagine. I didn’t represent it for the same reason, but it should be some other squids scratching the ground.

Description

Before I talk to you about this drawing, I have to talk to you about what I think of Nazca lines generally.

I already told you that the location of lots of ancient sites was under water until 65 million years. Nazca is one of those sites, and maybe it could explain things. Nazca lines are fore one part long straight lines scratched in the ground, and for other part zoomorphic silhouettes also scratched in the ground. Those lines seem to be made to be seen from the sky, because you can really see the drawing only from high.

If those drawings were made at a time this place was under water it would maybe make more sense, because if a being floating into water made it, he could see it clearly in completely normal conditions.

So I give interest to those lines and tried to imagine how cephalopods could have produced them. An interesting possibility appeared. Could cephalopods have used light to project their shadow making some kind of Chinese shadows?

I think about it because of further reasons. First cephalopod have very good vision of contrasts, so it would need them way less light than for a human to do it. Second, cephalopods are naturally at ease with mimicking things, so if a cephalopods specie is able to do art, Chinese shadows could maybe come to their mind. Third, (bio)light is a thing that an intelligent squid could had the need to master. Fourth, if you look those lines from far you can see that a lot of them are convergent, and is the same at a smaller scale with animal drawings, so it works pretty well with big shadows projected around some punctual light sources. It would explain why those lines are so straight whereas they go across relief, it would be because a kind of light calk was projected on the ground, so squids could see this shadow very because of their exceptional eyes and scratch a line.

Now let’s talk the condor up there. I chose to begin by drawing this one because there is a lot of geometric clues that helps to find the position of a lot of thing (this is not that easy to draw a squid from its shadow).

First I had to find the position of the light source. In this drawing, lines of the bird’s tail cross around on point into the body of the bird. So the light source had to be vertically above this point. Most of cephalopods have tentacle almost as long as their head. So using the information I had I tried to place the cephalopod and the light to find a position that works?

The cephalopod’s head makes the body of the bird. Tentacles make head, wings, legs, and tail.

The head, neck and beak are made by two tentacles zipped to each other, on the “head” part tentacles are not zipped and an eye appear that will not stay.

For the wings you can see that plumes are shorter but larger when they close up to the light source. It could be because in fact each wing is made from just one tentacle, for example the longer plumes are made first, the shadow is drawn on the floor, then the shadow move and is drawn again, until the last plume very large and short because the base of the tentacle is almost under the light, and the tentacle is pointing at the light.

Plume of the tail are interesting too, they are so long because they go high to catch light ray almost parallel to the ground.

I draw this only bleu because the scene is supposed to be seen by another cephalopod, in fact it would not be enough light for a human eyes. The little things on the floor are human silhouettes, there are here mostly to give an idea of the scale. By the way the squid should probably been smaller, and so closer to the light, but I was afraid it made the drawing unreadable if I made it to small, so you will have to imagine. I didn’t represent it for the same reason, but it should be some other squids scratching the ground.