LIMA, Peru, — A coastal town set up a garbage dump inside Peru’s mysterious Nazca Lines, sending trucks rumbling across the markings etched into the desert sands more than a millennium ago, authorities said Tuesday



THE LINES cover a 35-mile stretch of desert 250 miles (400 kilometers) south of Lima and are among Peru’s top tourist attractions. They have mystified scientists…

They have mystified scientists and were added to the United Nation’s Cultural Heritage list in 1994. Nazca Mayor Daniel Mantilla explained that the town decided to use the area as a dump in frustration after failing to get the Peru’s National Institute of Culture to approve a site.



He said that the town stopped using the dump — which has refuse reaching about knee-high and spread across an area 200 yards (meters) long and 60 yards wide — a week ago and is now using another one on the outskirts of town.



Alberto Urbano, a site archaeologist with the culture institute, said a landfill location, 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Nazca, was approved in 2001, but Mantilla said the distance made it too expensive for the cash-strapped municipality to use.



While from the ground the site seems to be a maze of lines…



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