Maria Reiche

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Maria Reiche, wax figure in the Maria Reiche Museum near Nazca

Maria Reiche (born May 15, 1903 in Dresden , † June 8, 1998 in Lima , Peru ) was a German teacher and private scholar. It became known through the systematic investigation of the Nazca lines , the so-called scratch images. She devoted more than 40 years to the task of fathoming the meaning of the mysterious floor drawings and protecting them from damage. Maria Reiche discovered about 50 figures in the plain of Nazca and measured a total of about 1000 lines.

Life

Maria Reiche was born in Dresden as the eldest of three children of the District Court Councilor Felix Reiche-Grosse and his wife Elisabeth. After attending the municipal college for girls in Dresden, she studied mathematics , physics and geography at the Technical University of Dresden and graduated in 1928 with the state examination. In 1932 she accepted a position as tutor at the German consul in Cusco , Peru . Before the contract expired, she went to the capital, Lima . There she lived off odd jobs, language classes and translations.

Since 1937, she has helped restore historical fabrics at the National Museum in Lima. In 1939 she heard for the first time from the American scientist Paul Kosok about the so-called Nazca Lines , which had been discovered in 1924. He asked her to take some measurements for him. In 1946 she began, alone and without support, to examine the enigmatic drawings in the desert floor near Nazca . Reiche was convinced: "... if it is possible to translate all dimensions into dates, we can read in the pampas like in a huge history book."

At the age of 52 Maria Reiche had herself tied to the runners of a helicopter outside the pulpit in order to be able to take better aerial photos of the giant pictures. The close-ups made her world famous. In 1960 Maria Reiche met 21-year-old Yonah Ibn Aharon. He lived in the USA and had founded a committee in New York to protect the Nazca Lines. Between 1962 and 1964 he helped out on the pampas. He brought countless ideas into Reich's work, among other things he developed a card system in which the lines with their measuring points and characteristics were entered. Until the 1960s, Maria Reiche had measured an area of ​​around 150 square kilometers on foot. She lived spartanically in a small hut on the edge of the Pampa Colorada or together with her friend and partner Amy Meredith in a house in Lima. Even the wheelchair did not prevent her from continuing her studies into old age.

Tomb of Maria Reiche in Nazca

In the early 1970s, the Nazca Lines became a tourist attraction. Maria Reiche was committed to the protection and preservation of the drawings and in 1994 brought about the inclusion of the lines and floor drawings of Nazca and Pampa de Jumana on the UNESCO World Heritage List .

Maria Reiche died on June 8, 1998 at the age of 95. The funeral took place on June 10, 1998 in the National Museum of Peru . She was buried in Nazca next to the hut where she had lived for over 25 years.

Honors and aftermath

Reiche received the Federal Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Order of the Sages of the Inca and the highest honor of the Republic of Peru , the Order of the Sun , the honorary doctorate from the Peruvian San Marcos University (among other things, she received a total of five honorary doctorates) and as a 90 -Year-olds acquired Peruvian citizenship in recognition of their services to the country . In addition, the airport of Nazca, the Aeropuerto Maria Reiche Neuman , was named after her.

After her death, a museum was set up in the simple hut in which she had lived for over 25 years without water or electricity. In the Maria Reiche Museum near Nazca, her living situation at that time is realistically reproduced, with a wax figure of Maria Reiche to depict her work on the typewriter. Among other things, visitors can see drawings and their measuring tape, as well as archaeological finds that had come into their possession: some skulls, a mummy and a sculpture of a woman giving birth. Her grave is right next to the museum.

In Dresden, Maria Reich's hometown, an association was founded in 1994, while she was still alive, which bears her name. The association honors Reich's life's work, tries to convey her achievements to the public and continues her scientific work, the research of the Nazca lines with a view to the possible connection with astronomical constellations.

In the daily newspaper Dresdner Latest Nachrichten she was chosen among the "100 Dresdeners of the 20th Century".

In October 2005, a street in the Dresden- Klotzsche industrial area was named after Maria Reiche.

With the Maria Reiche program , Reiches Alma Mater , TU Dresden, has been promoting young female scientists since 2011 and is trying to increase the proportion of women in the academic staff.

On her 115th birthday, she was honored by the search engine Google with a doodle that recognizes her research on the Nazca Lines.

Publications

  • Prehistoric scratching patterns in Peru. In: Photography and Research. ZEISS-IKON company newspaper. Vol. 6, Issue 4, 1954.
  • Prehistoric soil drawings in Peru. In: Looking around in science and technology. 55th year (1955), issue 11.
  • Secret of the desert. Mystery on the Desert. Secreto de la Pampa. Self-published by Maria Reiche, Stuttgart-Vaihingen 1968.
  • Peruvian Ground Drawings. Ed .: Kunstraum München eV Munich 1974.

literature

  • Tony Morrison: The Secret of the Nazca Lines. Maria Reiches life's work. Wiese, Basel / Stuttgart 1987, ISBN 3-909158-02-1 .
  • Christiane Richter: The legacy of the Maria Reiche. In: Peru News. Special issue: The Costa. Ed .: Perubüro Heidelberg. Archdiocese of Freiburg, 2004
  • Joachim Born (Ed.): Peru at the turn of the millennium. Contributions to a colloquium on the occasion of Maria Reiche's 100th birthday. Thelem, Dresden 2004, ISBN 3-935712-95-2 .
  • Viola Zetzsche: remote controlled archeology. In: Adventure archeology . 2005, H. 4, pp. 14-19 (October 14, 2005).
  • Dietrich Schulze, Viola Zetzsche: Picture book of the desert: Maria Reiche and the floor drawings of Nasca. Mitteldeutscher Verlag Halle, Halle 2005, ISBN 3-89812-298-0 .
  • Matthias Lauerer: How a German saved the Nazca lines. Spiegel Online, June 8, 2018, accessed June 8, 2018 .

Biographical articles in compilations

Movie

Web links

Commons : Maria Reiche  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Photo of Maria Reiche in the archive of the Otto Lilienthal Museum
  2. ↑ See the pictures: Maria Reiche Museum. From AtlasObscura.com, accessed November 15, 2019.
  3. ^ Chronicle of the association "Dr. Maria Reiche - Lines and Figures of the Nasca Culture in Peru “e. V.
  4. ↑ Bernd Teichert: The Geoglyphs of Nasca: Is the astronomical theory of the lines and figures of Nasca still relevant? archaeologie-online.de, October 11, 2007.
  5. ↑ 100 Dresden residents of the 20th century . In: Dresdner Latest News . Dresdner Nachrichten GmbH & Co. KG, Dresden December 31, 1999, p. 22 .
  6. ↑ Activities ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Association "Dr. Maria Reiche - Lines and Figures of the Nasca Culture in Peru “e. V. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.htw-dresden.de
  7. ↑ Regulations for the Maria Reiche funding program for postdoctoral researchers at TU Dresden from July 19, 2011 (PDF).
  8. ↑ Sylvi Bianchin: Maria Reiche program to promote academic career paths for young female academics with a doctorate. In: Research & Transfer. April 18, 2018. Technical University of Dresden. At TU-Dresden.de, accessed on November 15, 2019.
  9. ↑ Jens Minor: Maria Reiche: Animated Google Doodle for the 115th birthday of the German Nazca Lines researcher - GWB. In: googlewatchblog.de. May 15, 2018, accessed November 15, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Rich, Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Peruvian American scholar, was the first to examine the Nazca Lines
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1998
Place of death Lima , Peru