Wiktionary

geoglyph

English edit

WOTD – 22 July 2020

Etymology edit

 
The Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire, England, U.K., a well-known geoglyph.
 
A crop circle in Switzerland, which can be regarded as a type of geoglyph.

From geo- (“the Earth; geography”) +‎ glyph (“figure carved in relief or incised”), modelled after petroglyph.[1]

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

geoglyph (plural geoglyphs)

  1. (chiefly archaeology) A large-scale drawing or image made on the ground by arranging lines of stones, scratching the earth, etc., and often only fully visible from a distance or the air.
    Hyponym: crop circle
    Coordinate term: petroglyph
    • 1982, “6,000 Years Ago: Blythe, California: Giants of the Desert”, in Your Fragile Legacy: Cultural and Fossil Resources on the Public Lands, [Washington, D.C.]: Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of the Interior, →OCLC, columns 2–3:
      These, and almost 100 others stretched along the Colorado River in the California and Arizona deserts, are called geoglyphs or earth carvings by scientists. [...] Although their exact purpose and meaning are still a mystery, we do know these large and delicate geoglyphs are easily damaged by vehicles breaking through the desert surface and obliterating the figures.
    • 1987, Ken Hedges, editor, Rock Art Papers (San Diego Museum Papers; number 23), volume 5, San Diego, Calif.: San Diego Museum of Man, →ISBN, page 38:
      Geoglyphs usually are found on fans sparse of rock, but what seems the oldest of the scraped designs are on cobbled terraces at Denning Springs, Ocotillo, Death Valley, and above the Mojave River.
    • 1989 May, “Affected Environment”, in Proposed 1988 Plan Amendments to the California Desert Conservation Area Plan of 1980: Environmental Assessment, Riverside, Calif.: California Desert District, Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of the Interior, →OCLC, page 3-3:
      Two of the prehistoric sites, a quarry and a special task area, are common in the region, but the other site, a geoglyph, is rare and unique.
    • 1999, Izumi Shimada, “The Evolution of Andean Diversity: Regional Formations (500 b.c.e.–c.e. 600)”, in Frank Salomon, Stuart B. Schwartz, editors, The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas, volume III (South America, Part 1), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 421–422:
      Another important form of artistic expression during the ERD period, particularly on the south coast of Peru, was gigantic geoglyphs or man-made desert markings. The idea is ancient. [...] Large geoglyphs are found as far south as the far north coast of Chile. However, by far the largest and best-known concentration occur on the stony desert plains around the Río Grande de Nazca drainage (in a roughly 200-km2 area). They are popularly known as the "Nazca Lines."
    • 2003, Andrew Rogers, “The Making of a Geoglyph”, in Ken Scarlett, Rhythms of Life: The Art of Andrew Rogers, South Yarra, Vic.: Macmillan Art Publishing, →ISBN, page 226:
      What a wonderful adventure, the making of a geoglyph. Geoglyphs include the largest images ever produced by prehistoric man. [...] A geoglyph [To Life (1999), a sculpture by Andrew Rogers] is unusual in the world and even more unusual in Israel where it is located in the wonderful and spectacular desert wilderness near the Dead Sea next to the Jordanian border.
    • 2005, Christopher Partridge, “The Sacralization of the Extraterrestrial”, in The Re-enchantment of the West, volumes II (Alternative Spiritualities, Sacralization, Popular Culture, and Occulture), London, New York, N.Y.: T&T Clark International, →ISBN, page 203:
      Initially crop circles were just that, circles. However, over the years they have evolved into complex and elaborate pictograms – such as the recent ‘Mayan’ circle at West Kennet Long Barrow. Hence, some prefer to speak of them as ‘geoglyphs’. This shift from ‘crop circle’ to ‘geoglyph’ follows a change in their interpretation. Whereas the circle was understood simply to indicate alien presence, the pictogram has led to a belief in explicit communication.
    • 2015, Elsa Tomasto-Cagigao, Markus Reindel, Johny Isla, “Paracas Funerary Practices in Palpa, South Coast of Perú”, in Peter Eeckhout, Lawrence S. Owens, editors, Funerary Practices and Models in the Ancient Andes: The Return of the Living Dead, New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 69:
      The Palpa Valleys have also yielded petroglyphs and geoglyphs, which comprise the direct antecedents of the famous Nasca Lines.
    • 2020 July 1, Carly Minsky, “How AI helps historians solve ancient puzzles”, in Financial Times‎[1], retrieved 2021-04-12:
      IBM Japan and Yamagata University last year presented the first geoglyph — a large human-made ancient formation or design on the ground — identified by AI.

Derived terms edit

Translations edit

References edit

  1. ^ “geoglyph, n.”, in OED Online  ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2011; “geoglyph, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading edit

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