The new insight, published in the December issue of the journal Antiquity, came because two archaeologists decided to use a decidedly low-tech method to understand the sand drawing's ancient secrets: by walking it.

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The Nazca Lines have been a mystery since they were first discovered in the 1920s by Peruvian archaeologist Toribio Mejía Xesspe. Long-forgotten people from the Nasca culture created the drawings between 200 B.C. and A.D. 500 by brushing away the dark top layer of barren desert to reveal the light, sandy soil underneath, wrote Clive Ruggles, an archaeologist from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, in an email. The dry, windless climate has preserved most of the carvings — hundreds of depictions of animal shapes such as jaguars and monkeys, as well as geometric designs — to this day.

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Many labyrinths have a spiritual purpose, so one possibility is that the paths weren't walked at all, but instead were intended for the passage of gods or spirits, Ruggles wrote. For instance, in the 5th century B.C. Herodotus mentions a vast Egyptian labyrinth that served as a mortuary temple, while the Hopi indians saw labyrinths as symbols of Mother Earth.

Mysterious Nazca Lines Desert Drawings Form Labyrinth