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241 inches, and were executed with a unicursal line—a continu- ous line that curves and twists without crossing over itself. Anyone flying over the area (there are small planes at the service of tourists there) invariably concludes that “someone” airborne has used a soil-blasting device to doodle on the ground below. Directly relevant to the subject of the Departure, however, is another even more puzzling feature of the Nazca Lines— actual “lines” that look like wide runways (Fig. 110). Straight without fault, these flat stretches—sometimes nar- row, sometimes wide, sometimes short, sometimes long— run straight over hills and vales, no matter the shape of the terrain. There are some 740 straight “lines,” sometimes When the Gods Left Earth FIGURE 109