Perou Decouverte
Perou Decouverte
The Maria Reiche House-Museum is located at km 425 of the South Pan-American Highway, in the locality of San José, in the heart of the Nazca Desert. This historic site is 27 km from the city of Nazca and offers direct access to the famous lines she dedicated her life to studying.
Inaugurated in 1994, this house-museum is set in the authentic home where Maria Reiche lived for over 50 years. It was in this modest desert hut that she conducted her revolutionary research on the Nazca geoglyphs.
The museum perpetuates Maria Reiche's educational legacy, as she wished to share her knowledge about "the great enigma of the Nazca Lines" with future generations.
Maria Reiche (1903-1998) was a German mathematician who dedicated 50 years of her life to studying and protecting the Nazca Lines. A graduate of Dresden Technical University, she arrived in Peru in 1932 and discovered her vocation there.
The museum presents all of Maria Reiche's research through:
The tomb of Maria Reiche is located in the museum garden, facing the desert she so loved and protected. She has rested in this sanctuary since her death in 1998.
Maria Reiche transformed the world's perception of the Nazca Lines:
Although her "astronomical calendar" theory has been nuanced by subsequent research, Maria Reiche laid the scientific foundations for the study of geoglyphs and demonstrated their mathematical sophistication.
💡 Did You Know? Maria Reiche cleaned the lines herself with a broom and shovel to protect them from sand accumulation, traveling through the desert for decades in her legendary Volkswagen Beetle.