Costa balls. Stone balls. Stone balls are not the work of human hands
One of which was the discovery of mystical stones. The giant stone balls of Costa Rica became famous throughout the world after the release of the Indiana Jones film. For science, however, the origin of these strange structures remains a mystery.
Discovery history
The archaeological site was found relatively recently - about 50 years ago. For a long time mysterious spheres were hidden in the wild impenetrable jungle. While cutting down trees for plantations in 1948, workers came across round stone sculptures. Scientists immediately became interested in the findings. Several hundred balls had various sizes: the largest ones reached 3 m in diameter and weighed almost 16 tons, the smallest ones did not exceed 10 cm. Having decided to look at the find from a helicopter height, the researchers were amazed: the balls were located in groups of 3 to 45 pieces in the form of geometric shapes. These were circles, squares, triangles, stretching for several kilometers. It immediately became clear that the balls had been placed by people, but it was unclear for what purpose, and how the stone sculptures got to this area.
Stone balls of Costa Rica. Origin theories
All balls have a precise round shape, which can only be created by using measuring technology, and, therefore, the spheres are the work of man. According to analyses, the age of the balls is 1500 years. During this period, Costa Rica was inhabited by Mayan tribes. Scientists are confident that the Indians used stone processing technology that is unknown to modern humanity. Excavations in the area of the finds showed that the balls were brought here through impenetrable swamps and jungles from quarries, since no tools were found nearby. Scientists have put forward a number of hypotheses trying to explain how the stone balls of Costa Rica appeared among the wild forests.
Theories of the origin of the spheres are different:
- Stone balls are arranged in the form of someone constellations . This combination was necessary for astronomical observations, helping to calculate the time of the beginning and end of agricultural work.
- Ancient civilizations had the most powerful military equipment . The balls could serve as cannonballs for throwing weapons. The geometric arrangement of the spheres may have been necessary for training activities at the training ground.
- Some scientists believe that the stone spheres represent connection with alien beings . The demarcations in which the stones are laid out are a kind of landing strips intended for space objects.
Manufacturing process
Scientists believe that the stone balls of Costa Rica, theories of origin of which have not yet been proven, were made from stone blocks by processing and polishing. The stone easily chips with a sudden change in temperature. To do this, the workpieces were heated with coals and then sharply cooled with water. Excess pieces were broken off by striking the stone with harder materials. When the boulders were close to completion, they were polished using sand or leather. The result is a perfect round shape. Inaccuracies were not detected even when measured using a tape measure and a plumb line. This once again proves that the Indians had good mathematical and physical knowledge in the field of stone processing.
Transportation
And the method of moving the stone spheres to the place where they were found. According to researchers, this distance was tens of kilometers through impassable swamps, rivers and forests. Without special transport, it is almost impossible to move the giant stone balls of Costa Rica weighing 16 tons. Analysis of some of the spheres showed that they were made of shell rock and limestone, which are found on the banks of the Dikvis River. This meant that heavy boulders were transported deep into the jungle upstream at a distance of 50 km. Unfortunately, the answer to these questions has not yet been found.
Scientists who made presentations to UNESCO after careful research did not come to a common opinion and could not give an exact answer as to where the giant stone balls of Costa Rica came from. Therefore, to the registry world heritage finds have not yet been entered.
The world around us contributes to this passion. Mysteries of nature, space, history - you can choose any one and devote a single human life to its study. Perhaps one of the most mysterious and unusual mysteries of the modern world are stone balls discovered in Costa Rica.
Scientists cannot determine the age of these structures, nor who created them: man or nature. Only one thing is clear - balls have existed for thousands of years. Their antiquity is also evidenced by the fact that when the conquistadors came to America, the local population no longer had any legends or memories about the stones.
The only thing that speaks in favor of a natural origin is that the balls consist of igneous rocks. In addition, it is quite possible that in ancient times, on the site of modern Costa Rica, several volcanoes could have awakened and erupted. However, the way these balls look suggests that they are most likely man-made creations.
First of all, all the balls different sizes: from small ones that can fit in the palm of your hand to huge ones, whose mass is one and a half dozen tons.
Secondly, many balls show signs of grinding and leveling. Only a person or a creature endowed with intelligence can engage in such actions. Modern analyzes show that the stones were subjected to repeated heating and cooling during processing.
Thirdly, these structures were located in a certain way. For example, a line of these balls was found, located strictly from north to south. The chances that nature placed them this way are extremely low. And some balls stood on pedestals.
Unfortunately, at present it is difficult to establish how, where exactly and in what order all the balls were located, it is very difficult. Many were dismantled by local residents to decorate their territory, some ended up in museums, and some were barbarically destroyed by workers who decided that there was gold in the center of the sphere.
However, the fact that they were located in a certain way and carried a certain information load is confirmed by photographs from space. Various geometric shapes and lines are clearly visible on them.
Perhaps it was a huge calendar ancient world, indicating the most important holidays and dates, as well as sacrifices. Or perhaps they were signs for travelers and indicated defined boundaries and state territories.
There is a version that the balls repeat the star map of antiquity. Or maybe these were certain sources of energy force? Who knows…
There is a possibility that they designated certain points on the planet. Since later similar structures were found all over the world, and even on the coast of the Arctic Ocean.
Or maybe the balls of Costa Rica, Egyptian pyramids, stones of Stonehenge, dolmens and other mysterious structures of antiquity are parts of one large system and mechanism? Humanity has yet to unravel this mystery.
In any case, their purpose and use remains unknown at present. No less a mystery is who created them. However, there is no doubt about one thing: if these were people, then their civilization had a lot of knowledge and great technology.
In the 40s of the twentieth century, an interesting discovery was made in the tropical thickets of Costa Rica. Workers of the United Fruit Company, who were cutting down dense thickets of tropical jungle for banana plantations, suddenly came across giant stone sculptures of the correct spherical shape.
The largest ones reached three meters in diameter and weighed about 16 tons. And the smallest ones were no larger than a child’s ball, having only ten centimeters in diameter. The balls were located singly and in groups of three to fifty pieces, sometimes forming geometric shapes.
In 1967, an engineer and lover of history and archeology, who worked in silver mines in Mexico, told American scientists that he had discovered the same balls in the mines, but much larger in size.
Some time later, on the Acqua Blanca plateau near the village of Guadalajara (Guatemala), at an altitude of 2000 m above sea level, an archaeological expedition found hundreds more stone balls.
Similar stone balls were also found near the city of Aulaluco (Mexico), in Palma Sur (Costa Rica), Los Alamos and the state of New Mexico (USA), on the coast of New Zealand, in Egypt, Romania, Germany, Brazil, Kashkadarya region Kazakhstan and Franz Josef Land.
With the light hand of Erich von Däniken, the balls were dubbed “the balls that the gods played with.”
Some geologists attributed their appearance to volcanic activity. A ball of ideal shape can be formed if the crystallization of volcanic magma occurs evenly in all directions.
According to the leading researcher at the Central Research Institute of Geology of Rare Earth and Non-Ferrous Metals, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences Elena Matveeva, the balls could come to the surface as a result of the so-called exofolization - weathering, which operates in areas with large daily differences. In the same place where the temperature is more stable, similar balls are found, but already underground.
However, no matter how convincing these assumptions may sound, there is still no final solution to the phenomenon. First of all, they are not able to explain the appearance of granite balls.
In addition, the ancient volcanoes could not correctly arrange in the form of figures many balls, which, moreover, had traces of grinding! And although a significant part of such balls indeed seem to be of purely natural origin, some specimens, for example the Costa Rican balls, do not fit into the framework of this theory, since they show obvious traces of leveling and polishing. More than 300 stone spheres have now been found in Costa Rica.
First Scientific research balls was undertaken by Doris Stone directly upon their discovery by workers United Fruit Company. The results of her research were published in 1943 "American Antiquity", the leading academic journal of archeology in the United States.
Samuel Lothrop, a staff archaeologist at the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnography at Harvard University, conducted the major fieldwork on the balls in 1948. A final report on the results of his research was published by the Museum in 1963.
It contains maps of the areas where the balls were found, detailed descriptions pottery and metal objects found near the balls, and many photographs, measurements and drawings of the balls, their relative positions and stratigraphic contexts.
Additional research into the balls by archaeologist Matthew Stirling was reported on National Geographic in 1969.
In the 1980s, the areas with the balls were explored and described by Robert Drolet during his excavations.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Claude Baudez and his students from the University of Paris returned to Lothrop's excavations to undertake a more thorough analysis of the pottery and obtain more precise dating of the stratigraphic contexts of the balls. This study was published in Spanish in 1993, with an abstract in English language, which appeared in 1996.
Also in the early 1990s, John Hopes carried out field work around Golfito, documenting the easternmost known examples of these balls. At the same time, Enrico Dala Lagoa, a student at Kansas State University, defended his dissertation on the topic of balls.
The most thorough study of the balls after Lothrop, however, was field work undertaken in 1990-1995 by archaeologist Ifigenia Quintanilla under the auspices of the National Museum of Costa Rica.
She was able to unearth several balls in their original state. As of 2001, much of the information she had collected had not yet been published, although it was the subject of her graduate research at the University of Barcelona.
The results of archaeological research are presented in the following publications:
Lothrop, Samuel K. Archeology of the Diquis Delta, Costa Rica. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology, Vol. 51. Harvard University, Cambridge. 1963
Stone, Doris Z. A Preliminary Investigation of the Flood Plain of the Rio Grande de Terraba, Costa Rica. American Antiquity 9(1):74-88. 1943
Stone, Doris Z. Precolumbian Man Finds Costa Rica. Peabody Museum Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1977
Baudez, Claude F., Nathalie Borgnino, Sophie Laligant & Valerie Lauthelin Investigaciones Arqueologicas en el Delta del Diquis. Centro de Estudios Mexicanos y Centroamericanos, Mexico, D.F. 1993
Lange, Frederick W. (ed.) Paths Through Central American Prehistory: Essays in Honor of Wolfgang Haberland. University of Colorado Press, Boulder. 1996
Unlike geologists, archaeologists recognize the artificial origin of the Costa Rican balls.
Almost all balls are made from granodiorite, a hard lava rock, outcrops of which are located in the foothills of the outskirts Talamanca. There are several examples made from coquina, a hard material like limestone that forms from shells and sand in coastal sediments. According to archaeologists, the balls were made by processing round boulders into a spherical shape in several stages. In the first stage, the boulders were subjected to alternately intense heating and cooling, causing the top of the boulders to peel off like the leaves of an onion.
Granodiorite, from which they are made, as it was revealed, still retains traces of strong temperature changes. When they approached the shape of a sphere, they were further processed with stone tools made of a material of the same hardness. At the final stage, the balls were placed on the base and polished to a shine.
Often in funds mass media There are claims that these balls have a perfect spherical shape with an accuracy of 2 millimeters. In reality, there is no basis for such categorical statements.
The fact is that no one has ever measured Costa Rica's balls with this level of accuracy. Lothrop wrote:
“To measure the circumference, we used two methods, neither of which is completely satisfactory. When large balls were buried deep in the ground, it might take several days to dig a trench around them. Consequently, we examined only the top half and then measured two or three more diameters using a tape and a plumb line. Measurements have shown that small specimens, typically 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) in diameter, have differences of 1 or 2 inches (2.5 to 5.1 centimeters) in diameter."
Lothrop also measured balls that were completely out of the ground by applying a piece of tape around five circles. He's writing:
“Evidently the large balls were of the highest quality, and they were so nearly perfect that measuring the diameters with a tape and a plumb bob showed no difference. Therefore, we measured the circles horizontally and, as far as possible, at an angle of 45 degrees to the four main points.
We usually did not measure the vertical circumference because the large balls were too heavy to move. This procedure was not as easy as it sounds because several people had to hold the tape and all measurements had to be checked. Since the difference in diameters was too small to be detected by the eye even with a plumb line, the diameters were calculated mathematically."
Obviously, differences "too small to be detected by the eye" cannot be translated into a claim of accuracy "within 2 millimeters."
In fact, the surface of the balls is not completely smooth and has irregularities clearly exceeding 2 millimeters in height. In addition, the balls often show significant surface damage. Therefore, it is impossible to determine how smooth they may have been at the time of manufacture.
In fact, no one knows for sure what exactly these balls were made for.
By the time of the first Spanish conquests, the balls were no longer being made, and they remained completely forgotten until they were rediscovered in the 1940s.
Some archaeologists believe that the balls were placed in front of the houses of noble people as a symbol of their power or secret knowledge.
It is also believed that the very creation and movement of the balls had great religious or social significance, no less than their final location.
As already mentioned, a significant part of the stone balls were located in certain groups. Some of these groups formed straight or winding lines, triangles and parallelograms. One group of four balls was determined to be aligned along a line oriented toward magnetic north.
This led Ivar Zappa to speculate that they may have been placed by people familiar with the use of magnetic compasses or celestial orientation.
However, Ivar Zappa's hypothesis that groups of stone balls were navigational devices pointing to Easter Island and Stonehenge appears to be poorly founded.
This group of four balls occupies (according to Lothrop's measurements) only a few meters, which is clearly not enough to avoid errors in planning over such long distances.
In addition, with the exception of the balls located in Isla del Caco, most balloons are too far from the sea to be useful to ocean navigators.
There is also a version that the location of the stone balls resembles some celestial constellations. In accordance with this, the balls of Costa Rica are often considered by some “researchers” to be a kind of “planetarium”, “observatory” or landmarks for spaceships.
However, despite the attractiveness of such versions for the general public, it should be noted that the authors of such versions relied more on their imagination than on the results of field research.
Many of the balls, some of them in groups, were found on top of mounds. This has led to speculation that they may have been preserved inside buildings created on top of mounds, which would have made them difficult to use for observation.
Moreover, all but a few groups have now been destroyed, so measurements taken almost fifty years ago cannot be verified for accuracy.
Virtually all known balls have been moved from their original location by agricultural activities, destroying information about their archaeological contexts and possible groups.
Some of the balls were blown up and destroyed by local treasure hunters who believed fables that the balls contained gold. The balls were rolled into ravines and gorges or even under water on the sea coast (as in Isla del Caco).
Nowadays, a significant part of the balls are used as simple lawn decorations. It is quite possible that at least some of the balls were also once used for similar purposes.
For example, in the center of Izapa, located on the Pacific coast on the border with Guatemala, which existed a little later than the Olmecs, small round balls were discovered next to small stone pillars, which could well have served as stands for them.
The time of production of the balls remains unknown.
Because the reliable methods Dating of stone products does not currently exist; archaeologists are forced to rely only on stratigraphic studies and determine the date of manufacture of the balls from cultural remains found in the same deposits.
Such remains found during excavations are now dated by archaeologists in the range from 200 BC. to even 1500 AD. But even such a wide range cannot be considered definitive.
The fact is that stratigraphic analysis always leaves a lot of doubt about the dating of such artifacts. If only because if the balls are now moving from place to place, then nothing can exclude the possibility of such a movement of the balls at the very time that stratigraphy gives.
Consequently, the balls may well turn out to be much more ancient. Up to hundreds of thousands and millions of years (there are such hypotheses).
In particular, the version expressed by George Erickson and other researchers that the balls are more than 12 thousand years old is absolutely not excluded. Despite all the skepticism of archaeologists regarding such a date, it is by no means without foundation.
In particular, John Hopes mentions balls in Isla del Caco, which are underwater off the coast.
If these balls were not moved there at a later time and were there initially, then they could have been placed there only when the sea level was significantly lower than the modern one. And this gives them an age of at least 10 thousand years...
The method of transporting the balls (or blanks for them) also remains a mystery - from their locations to the places of supposed origin of the material for their manufacture, tens of kilometers, a significant part of which is in swamps and dense thickets of tropical forest...
Archaeologist Doris Z. Stone ended his very first report on the Costa Rican spheres with the words: “We must classify the perfect spheres of Costa Rica as incomprehensible megalithic mysteries.” It’s impossible to disagree with him on this...
Stone balls are actually found not only in Costa Rica. There were reports that sailors of the Murmansk Shipping Company found similar balls on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. And here is a photo of balloons on the coast of one of the islands of New Zealand:
Or here are some more facts:
In 1969, in Germany, in the Eifel, during a quarry explosion, a perfectly round ball with a diameter of five meters and weighing more than 100 tons rolled out of a slope.
In Kazakhstan, during the development of a sand quarry, several large stone balls were dug out from great depths.
Balls of unique beauty were discovered along the sides of the Bukobay ravine in the Sol-Iletsky district of the Orenburg region.
Several dozen more such stones were located in a ravine five kilometers west of Zhirnovsk, Volgograd region. In 2002-2003, unfortunately, the most beautiful and expressive of them were destroyed by local oil industry bulldozers who were laying several pipelines.
Balls in the Volgograd region
Full of balls (up to 2 meters in diameter) on the Arctic island of Champa on Franz Josef Land. However, there are also very tiny ones.
In October 2007, at depths of 10-25 meters on the bottom of the Black Sea near Gelendzhik, the Kosmopoisk expedition found balls with a diameter of 0.7 to 1 meter. The smallest one was lifted and examined on the shore.
Geologists and historians concluded that the ball was artificially carved, and a “side” and an X-shaped cut were visible on its surface. Why they made such balls, which are too large for both the gigantic gunpowder cannons and the largest catapults, is unknown.
Boguchansky balls by no means claim to be the most mysterious. For more than 60 years, scientists have puzzled over their more famous and massive cousins - stone balls from Costa Rica (Central America) and other areas of South America.
Some Boguchan balls lie cut into slices.
In the forties of the last century, they were discovered by workers cutting down thickets for banana plantations. Here you can find scatterings of small balls 10 centimeters in diameter, and giant “statues” three meters long, which weigh up to 20 tons. The material varies from volcanic rock to granite.
Some of the balls at the time of discovery looked as if they had recently been brought to the site. Others were partially buried. Or they barely stuck out from the ground. And several specimens were found at a depth of two meters. Nobody dug deeper. However, it seemed as if the balls were crawling out of the depths.
The Arctic island of Champa is one of the most unique places on Earth - all strewn with strange, perfectly round stones.
Without claiming the final truth, we can draw the following preliminary conclusion. Of course, the stones from Champa can be classified as spherical nodules. Concretions - from the Latin word concretio- accretion, thickening.
These are nodules, rounded mineral formations in sedimentary rocks. The centers of such accumulation can be mineral grains, rock fragments, shells, teeth and bones of fish, and plant remains.
Most of them are formed in porous sedimentary rocks - sands and clays. In terms of structure, concentrically layered ones are most often found - as if composed of several shells.
They usually consist of calcium carbonates, iron oxides and sulfides, calcium phosphates, gypsum, and manganese compounds.
The formation of nodules occurs something like this: growths appear on the walls, which, growing towards each other, close together and form various shapes. On Earth, the predominant nodules are spherical, disc-shaped, less often found in the shape of an ellipse or irregular - fused.
There are as many opinions about the origin of stone balls as there are researchers. According to Viktor Boyarsky, every geologist who has visited Champa at least once has heard his own explanation of this phenomenon.
Viktor Boyarsky does not rule out that there are still places where spherical stones are concentrated on Franz Josef Land: “I wouldn’t be surprised if new expeditions report something similar. Geologically, this corner of the planet is capable of presenting a lot of unexpected surprises.”
The proximity of mysterious civilizations and their religious buildings like pyramids naturally gives rise to supernatural hypotheses. To the point that the balls were made by aliens either from outer space or from Atlantis. Or at least under their leadership.
Indeed, some actually show traces of processing. And inscriptions. And some of the balls from Costa Rica were originally lined with some kind of ornaments - it seemed that their designs corresponded to the location of the constellations.
However, now the finds have been rearranged and taken to personal farmsteads and museums. And it is no longer possible to restore the previous picture.
The famous researcher of the anomalous and great dreamer Erich von Däniken generally dubbed the balls “balls played by the gods.” He hinted at football. Although they are more suitable for playing golf or croquet.
Geologists are not very surprised by the balls. But different hypotheses of their occurrence are put forward.
“Aliens, of course, have nothing to do with it,” says Associate Professor of the Department of Geology and Geophysics of Irkutsk state university Alexey Korolkov. — Most likely, these are so-called glandular nodules. They are formed when sediments compact in coal deposits. In their center, organic remains, mineral or bacterial accumulations are often found, which serve as a “seed” for its growth.
Some scientists emphasize that a concretion becomes a ball and grows uniformly when substances are deposited in rock that is equally permeable in all directions. And the ocean floor is called the ancestral home of the balls. They say they formed around the remains of shells, animal bones, and algae in soft sediments. And they found themselves on land when the seabed rose.
But the properties of the surrounding rock are such that the formations become disks. Or even cylinders up to several tens of meters long. Both of them can easily be mistaken for man-made products. Cylinders, for example, can be considered columns - the remains of structures that are supposedly many millions of years old.
Some people see the reason for “spherical formation” in the crystallization of volcanic magma. Someone - in filling voids - bubbles - with a foreign substance (similar to holes in Swiss cheese). And its appearance on the surface is due to elementary weathering.
Stone for spicy Easter
There is a hypothesis that the balls appear in the holes and folds of the rock beds of mountain rivers. They say that the current there forces the boulders to rotate quickly and over time processes them into a round state.
Archaeologists argue with geologists. Not for all balls. Some of them may actually have been created by nature in some way. But it is unlikely that she can handle huge specimens. Especially from granite or other material with increased hardness, made with precision only accessible to modern technology.
At one time, Samuel Lothrop, a staff archaeologist at the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography at Harvard University, was the first to carefully measure some of the balls from Costa Rica.
“Obviously,” he wrote in the report, “the large balls were products of the highest quality.” And they are so perfect that measuring the diameters with a tape (in five directions) and with a plumb line did not show any difference.
The archaeologist discovered only surface irregularities measuring about 2 millimeters.
Scientists have found ancient household items next to the balls. But they themselves were located far from habitats and possible production. And who and why carried multi-ton stone spheres into the distance? Sometimes to the mountains? Mystery.
By the way, in the chronicles of Costa Rica, which have been kept since 1512, there is not a single mention of stone balls. Even if they once had cult significance much earlier, what kind of cult was it? It's also not clear. So for now these balls remain a mystery to us.
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Initially, the workers thought that there might be a treasure under such blocks. They immediately began to dig up the ground beneath them. The management, seeing such a situation, regarded these actions as vandalism and ordered the work to stop. Several decades later, relatively few balls remained on the meth of the find. Most of them were distributed to museums. Some tourists took small balls as souvenirs or decorations for their own rooms. So, at the moment, balls decorate many archaeological collections, courtyards, playgrounds and parks.
Like all great things, these stone blocks were found absolutely by accident // Photo: yaplakal.com
In total, over 300 round boulders were found in the country of Costa Rica. But this number is far from accurate, because some of them were stolen.
Versions of the origin of stone blocks
Absolutely all balls are round in shape. It could be created exclusively artificially and with the help of a special measuring equipment. According to research, the age of the balls reaches 1500 years. Therefore, most likely, they were created by the Mayan people who once inhabited these lands. Scientists claim that the Indians used independently developed stone processing technology, which sank into oblivion along with the Mayans themselves. Excavations of the areas adjacent to the discovery site revealed that the balls were made somewhere else and sent here through impenetrable forest thicket and swamp. Scientists came to this decision because they did not find any traces of tools.There are several theories on what principle the balls were placed:
- The first theory says that the balls repeat the constellations. The Indians needed a similar combination for astronomical observations. Those, in turn, helped them correctly calculate the time of completion and start of work on the ground.
- The ancient civilization had the most advanced military technology. Some balls could have been cannonballs for throwing weapons. Perhaps these were simply training cores that were not used in battle.
- A third theory claims that humans have been in contact with alien beings. The stones served as landing stations for distant guests.
Archaeologists believe that the balls were made by gradually processing huge boulders. The result was a round product. During the first stage, the Mayans subjected the stone to alternately intense heating and supercooling. As a result of such actions, the upper layers peeled off like the leaves of onions. At the moment when the material was as close as possible to the desired shape, it was processed with a special stone tool. The final stage involved placing the ball on a pedestal and polishing it.
Geologists, unlike archaeologists, recognize the possibility of natural formation of stones // Photo: fishki.net
Some researchers make rather loud claims that the boulders are made in a perfect spherical shape with an accuracy of 2 mm. But they are somewhat wrong, because their surface is not ideal, but has roughness. They exceed the stated figure of 2 mm. Moreover, you can notice flaws and damage on the balls. That is why it is impossible to determine exactly what kind of balls were at the time of construction.
Other versions of the existence of balls
When the first conquests of the Spaniards were in full swing, no one was making products anymore. They were completely forgotten until their discovery in the last century. There is a version that the balls were placed noble people in front of their own homes. They served as a symbol of secret knowledge and all-consuming power.There is an opinion that not only the creation, but also the movement of stones had social and religious significance. All balls were placed in small groups. Some of these groups formed a rectangular or triangle shape, some looked like a winding line. The group, made in the shape of a parallelogram, had clear and almost ideal lines oriented towards the north. It was this fact that led scientist Ivar Zappa to the idea that perhaps the balls were placed by people who knew a lot about astronomy or magnetic compasses.
The balls served as a symbol of secret knowledge and all-consuming power // Photo: travelidea.org
A large number of balls were found on the tops of artificial embankments. This gave reason to think that perhaps they were stored inside the buildings. In turn, such a statement refuted the fact that the balls were used to make observations.
Almost all of the round stone blocks were most likely moved from their original location as a result of agricultural work. This destroyed any information about the destination. Most of the stones, before scientists took up them, were destroyed by treasure hunters. They believed that there were jewels inside the unique blocks. Another part of the balls was simply rolled into nearby gorges or the sea water of Isla del Caco.
The fate of stone blocks
At the moment, a huge part of Mayan products is used in the most banal way as decoration for courtyards. It is quite possible that they had a similar fate before. For example, similar round-shaped objects were also found off the Pacific coast. The tribes that lived there used them as supports for pillars.George Erickson and his associates even put forward the theory that balls of stone were “born” 12 thousand years ago. Archaeologists are completely skeptical about this theory, but despite everything it is not without logic. So, the balls lying on the seabed could have been there intentionally back in the days when the water level was much lower. And this fact corresponds to the age of the blocks being at least 10 thousand years.
The mystery of the stone balls of Costa Rica
The Stone Balls of Costa Rica are strange, perfectly round stone formations discovered in the 1930s, one of the great mysteries of pre-Columbian America. Hundreds of these stone balls, ranging in size from a few centimeters to 7 feet in diameter, the largest of which weighs 16 tons, were discovered in the Diquis area of Palma Sur, near the Pacific coast of southern Costa Rica. Most are made from granodiorite, an igneous rock similar to granite. But a few examples are carved from shell rock, a type of limestone consisting mainly of shells and their fragments.
How the stone balls were found
The balls were first talked about in the 1930s, when the United Fruit Company cleared the jungle for banana plantations and other fruit plants. Company workers found the balls and, remembering a local legend about spheres covering golden cores, tried to crack them with dynamite in the hope of finding the gold hidden inside.
Ball Research
1948 - Dr. Samuel Lothrop of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University and his wife began a comprehensive study of stone spheres. 1963 – research results were published. In his report, Lothrop described all 186 known specimens and noted that he had heard that there were another 45 balls somewhere in the Yalaka area, where they were located, but they were transported somewhere.
Several spheres were also discovered in the Pacific Ocean on Cano Island, 12.5 miles to the southwest. This may confirm the version that several hundred such stones were once created. Beginning in the 1940s, stone spheres began to be transported - often moving around railway from one end of the country to the other. Some of them can be seen in the National Museum, others in the parks and gardens of the country's capital, San Jose. To date, only six Costa Rican stone balls are known to remain where they were found.
Scientific analysis of Costa Rican stone balls has been going on for decades. Work began in 1943 by archaeologist Doris Zemurray-Stone, the daughter of Samuel Zemurray, the founder of the United Fruit Company. She conducted research on stones found by fruit company workers, and later became director of the National Museum of Costa Rica and in 1943 her work was published in American Antiquity magazine. There were 5 maps of the area, on which 44 stone balls were placed.
According to Stone, these balls could be cult statues, tombstones, or were elements of some kind of calendar. Lothrop's 1963 publication also included maps of the sites where the spheres were found, a comparative analysis of nearby pottery and metal artifacts related to the stone balls, and many photographs and drawings of the balls, their dimensions, and notes on their locations. spheres
Archaeological excavations
Later, in the 50s. XX century, archaeological excavations were carried out, thanks to which stone balls were discovered in the south of Costa Rica along with pottery and other artifacts related to the cultures of pre-Columbian America. Since that time, research has been carried out regularly, but the most thorough excavations were those carried out by archaeologist Iphigenia Quintanilla from the National Museum of Costa Rica in the years 90–95 of the 20th century.
Versions of the origin of stone balls
For many years, archaeologists have been trying to figure out the origin of these strange balls. Whether they are natural objects or man-made remains a matter of debate. Some geologists claim that the spheres are of natural origin. They put forward a theory according to which magma rising into the air after a volcanic eruption settles on a hot, ash-covered valley, then the magma balls cool and form spheres.
According to another version, the granite blocks were located in specially dug holes at the bottom of a huge waterfall and, under the influence of the flow of falling water, over time they acquired an almost ideal spherical shape.
However, a more likely version is that the stones were created by humans, especially considering that granodiorite, from which the balls are mainly made, is not found in these places. Deposits of this rock are found in the Talamanca mountain range, approximately 50 miles from the discovery site.
Archaeologist Iphigenia Quintanilla, during field research, was able to establish the source of the raw materials: she discovered boulders that can be called unfinished specimens of stone balls. During the excavations of Quintanilla, fragments of balls were also discovered, which made it possible to reconstruct the method of their creation. To give the stones a rounded shape, they most likely did this: first, a boulder of approximately round shape was alternately exposed to heat and cold until cracks began to appear in the rock, then the surface was leveled using heavy stone sledgehammers, perhaps made from the same material, and polished with some kind of stone tool.
There is only one objection: the stones have an almost perfect spherical shape. They are hewn to within “0.5 inches ±0.2%.” The version might have been flawless if the spheres had not been carved with such precision. However, the surface of the boulders is not absolutely ideal: the diameters of some of them differ by 5 cm from the parameters of a regular sphere. It is also unclear how the inhabitants of pre-Columbian America could transport and install them in the right places. This kind of skill indicates a highly developed culture and a well-organized community (although if the stones were carved directly from a quarry in the mountains, rolling the balls down would not be particularly difficult).
So who created these balls?
The question of who could create these mysterious spheres and why is more difficult task. According to archaeological data, spheres were carved over 2 periods. The earlier of these, the Aguas Buenas period (AD 100–500), only has a few balls. Most of the stone balls in the lowlands of the Terraba River were created in the second period - Chiriqui (800-1500). But this cannot help in any way to clarify the purpose of the spheres.
Let's ignore such a convenient explanation as the intervention of aliens and Atlanteans. The original theory is that they were created by a highly developed prehistoric culture and served as antennas for the ancient world electrical network. But without concrete evidence, such a theory is groundless and seems as mythical as the legend that local residents there was a potion that was able to soften rocks.
Why were the Costa Rican stone balls created?
It is not precisely established why these spheres were created. This is especially difficult to find out because most of the balls have been transported to other places. This issue is important because the arrangement of the balls appears to have played an important role in the lives of the people who created them. It should be noted that initially many balls were placed so that each place corresponded to the position of the Sun, Moon and all the planets known at that time. There is even a version that they reflected the entire solar system.
In the 1940s, while studying the balls, Lothrop noticed that some of them had rolled down nearby hills where there had once been homes. Probably, the spheres at one time were located in the center of settlements, on the tops of hills. In this case, they could not be used in astronomy and, of course, in navigation. Most likely, over more than a thousand-year history of existence, stone balls performed many functions, which changed over time. An interesting theory is that the labor-intensive production of the balls could itself be an important ritual process. At the same time, it played the same role (and perhaps even more significant) as, in fact, its result.
Nowadays
2001 - With the assistance of various government agencies, the National Museum of Costa Rica began transporting the balls from San Jose through the high mountain range to the places where they were found. Nowadays they are protected in storage, but when the cultural center is built, the spheres will be placed in it and they can be seen in the very places where they were originally located in the Diquis River delta.
Archaeologists still find balls in the muddy sediments of the Diquis River delta. These days, stone balls can be seen in museums in Costa Rica, they decorate the lawns in front of various official buildings, hospitals and schools. Two of them were taken to the United States: one is on display at the National Geographic Society Museum (Washington, DC), and the other is in the courtyard of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnography at Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts). Costa Rican stone balls also decorate the gardens of the rich as symbols of their status in society.
