If the lines are used for ceremonies, then why so many? The Nazca region is an ancient center of pilgrimage. Archeological excavations made in the ruins of the city of Cahuachi, presumed capital of the Nazca civilization, reveal a series of buried offerings consisting of products native to other valleys and far away lands. People came from a great distance to worship in Nazca. Giusseppe Orefici, head of the Italian archeological mission in Cahuachi and Pampas de San José (principal zone of geogliphics) believes that different groups in their pilgrimage used the lines. His team of scientists has proven that lines were drawn on the desert floor starting in the first century after Christ all the way through the birth of the Incan Empire in the 14th century.
The anthropologist and astronomer, Anthony Aveni, found one of the most important correlations between the Nazca lines and water. He discovered that the thinnest side of all the great trapezoids in the plains pointed towards sources of water. Aveni and Dr. Persis Clarkson further propose a distant connection between the Nazca lines and the "ceque" system employed by the Incan Empire in the 15th century. This system consisted of an imaginary division of the space surrounding the Coricancha, the Supreme Temple of Cuzco. From the Coricancha emanated straight lines in all directions that ended in sanctuaries or religious centers. Each day of the year had its own "ceque" or line that meant that there was a temple or ritual for each day. This in reality was a system based on the Incan agricultural calendar that measured dates in accordance with the point on the horizon in relation to the sun. Here we also find an important connection between time, religion and water since the Incas used their calendar to predict the seasons, which are only two: the dry and rainy seasons. In Nazca there are many small elevations of earth and it is precisely there where the lines intersect. Could these have been observatories to mark the dates on the agricultural calendar? Did they have a "ceque" system even before the Incas?
The Incas had an incredible system of roads. One road ran almost the entire length of the South American Pacific coast! Since the Incas lived in the Andes Mountains, the roads took great engineering and architectural skill to build. On the coast, the roads were not surfaced and were marked only by tree trunks The Incas paved their highland roads with flat stones and built stone walls to prevent travelers from falling off cliffs.