Stone spheres (balls) Costa Rica. Stone balls of costa rica in photo

The world contributes to this passion. The mysteries of nature, space, history - you can choose any and dedicate a single human life to its study. Perhaps one of the most mysterious and unusual mysteries modern world are stone balls discovered in Costa Rica.

Scientists cannot determine either the age of these structures, or who they were created by: man or nature. Only one thing is clear - the balls have existed for more than one thousand years. Their antiquity is also evidenced by the fact that when the conquistadors came to the land of America, the stones at local population no more legends, no more memories.

In favor natural origin says only that the balls are composed of igneous rocks. In addition, it is quite possible that on the site of modern Costa Rica in ancient times several volcanoes could wake up and erupt. However, the way these balls look suggests that they are most likely man-made creations.

Firstly, all the balls are of different sizes: from small ones that can fit in the palm of your hand, to huge ones, the mass of which is one and a half dozen tons.

Secondly, on many balls traces of grinding and alignment are noticeable. Only a person or a creature endowed with reason 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 this is how nature arranged them are extremely small. 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 barbarously destroyed by workers who decided that gold was in the center of the sphere.

Nevertheless, the fact that they were located in a certain way and carried a certain information load is confirmed by images from space. Various geometric shapes and lines are clearly traced on them.

It might have been the biggest calendar ever. ancient world, indicating the most important holidays and dates, as well as sacrifices. And perhaps they were signs for travelers and designated certain borders and state territories.

There is a version that the balls repeat the star map of antiquity. Or maybe these were certain sources of energy power? Who knows…

There is a possibility that they marked 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, Stonehenge stones, dolmens and others mysterious structures antiquity, are these parts of one large system and mechanism? This mystery has yet to be unraveled by humanity.

In any case, their purpose and use currently remains unknown. No less a mystery is who created them. However, there is no doubt about one thing: if these were people, then their civilization possessed much knowledge and great technologies.

Stone spheres (balls) are one of the mysteries that no one has yet been able to solve ....

What is it and why are they talked about so much?

These are stone balls scattered all over the world. But the largest number of them - in Costa Rica. And it is in Costa Rica that many stone balls have been preserved in excellent condition.

Their uniqueness is thatthey have an almost perfect shape and are made according to GOST, or rather GOSTs - of different diameters.

Many stone balls are made of hard lava rocks, there are specimens from sedimentary rocks. Here's another mystery - on the coast, where they were found, there is no lava and could not be, but in the center of the country there is - how were they transported? After all, some weigh neither more nor less, but more than ten tons.What kind of forces moved these multi-ton "babies"?

There are suggestions that the age of these balls is 12 thousand years. Similar balls have also been found in America, in mines in Mexico, in Romania, off the coast of New Zealand, in Brazil, Kazakhstan, and even in Russia, on Franz Josef Land.

The largest number of them - about 300 - was found in the South-East of Costa Rica, in the town of Palmares.

We found them almost by accident - an American fruit company cleared the jungle for banana plantations in the 1940s. Cleared, cleared ... and here - THEY. The largest reached three meters in diameter and weighed under sixteen tons, while the smallest were no larger than a children's ball, having only ten centimeters in cross section.

The balls were located singly and in groups of three to fifty pieces, sometimes they were lined up in a straight line or formed geometric shapes. Of course, they immediately stopped clearing, tried to do archaeological research but the budget was not enough .... Some of the balls were scattered around the country, some were blown up by treasure hunters, some were in museums, and some still rest in the ground - in order to avoid complete destruction of everything that they could, they buried it back.

Archaeologists and geologists from all over the world put forward various hypotheses about the origin of stone balls.

Our article is still tourist, not popular science, so we will omit the hypotheses :))

Here's where to find them.

Oddly enough, they practically do not carry excursions, and the vast majority of local travel agencies have a very vague idea of their location.

How to find yourself:

GPS N 08"54.482" W 083"28.825"

We find on Pacific coast large tourist centre JACO (before reaching famous beaches Manuel Antonio).

From it we drive along highway 34 to Palmar Sur. Right there in central park there is an old steam locomotive, the houses of plantation workers and a few balls that have been perfectly preserved.

In order to orientate - hammer in google maps"finca 6 costa rica" and look "on the satellite" for the road.

More Orbs can be found on the island Cano. It is also known for excellent diving. The island is located 20 km from the coast in the Drake area. bay peninsula Peninsula Osa.

You can get there by boat from several places: Puerto Jimenez, Drake Bay and the easiest with boat station in the town of Sierpe.

SAD!!!

In 2018, while riding with the film crew of the Eagle and Tails program, we stopped at these balls. Now they have made a museum there, the entrance is $ 5 and, most importantly, they simply destroyed the primitiveness that was. Part of the balls moved to a pile. In general, the "reserve" is interesting only if the guide will go over the ears with all sorts of legends ...

Although - the balls are real and still worth a look!

Stone balls of Costa Rica

Another megalithic mystery, which, in a number of similar ones, again turned out to be completely unsolvable for modern adherents of academic science, was the mystery of the stone balls of Costa Rica. And in front of me - how many of them have already been: the ancient aircraft, and the pyramids of Egypt, and Stonehenge, and Karnak, and Mitla, and the labyrinths of the North - you can’t list everything, again and again the eternal question arises - can I cope with this task , will I solve this ancient crossword puzzle? And as it happened with others: at first - as if everything is in darkness, and then more and more appear, and more at first small, and then - larger details of clarity ... And there, you see, - that's the result!

But, everything is in order.

At the end of the 30s of the last century, a report appeared in one of the local newspapers about an unexpected find in the jungles of Costa Rica, this small Central American republic. It turns out that while cutting through the clearing, the workers of the fruit company stumbled upon a scattering of stone balls that had come from nowhere. Among them were the huge ones, reaching 3 m in diameter and almost 16 tons in weight, and there were also very small ones, having a diameter of no more than 10 cm. It was not without a curiosity: the workers who discovered these objects remembered the local legend about the spheres covering the golden cores, and tried to split them with dynamite, hoping to find, like Balaganov and Panikovsky, the gold hidden inside. But, for some reason, their expectations were not justified, nothing foreign was found in the core, everything was just a solid stone.

The original location of the discovery of stone balls

Initially, stone balls were found in the delta of the Terraba River near the cities of Palmar Sur and Palmar Norte. Subsequently, it turned out that they are scattered throughout Costa Rica from the north (Estrella Valley) to the south (Coto Colorado River).

Several balls were found in the Diquis River Delta, others were found in the Jalisco region near the city of Aulaluco de Mercazo in Mexico, near the city of Los Alamos and in the state of New Mexico (USA). It should be noted that all these areas are characterized by rather active volcanic activity ...

In 1967, an engineer who worked in the silver mines of Western Mexico and was fond of history and archeology, told scientists from the United States that he had found the same balls in the mines as in Costa Rica, but significantly large sizes. According to him, they were made by the Aztecs. This sensational statement had the effect of an exploding bomb. Then in Guatemala, on the Aqua Blanca plateau, located at an altitude of 2000 m above sea level, near the village of Guadalajara, an archaeological expedition discovered hundreds of balls that were an exact copy of the Costa Rican ones.

Stone sphere in the courtyard of the National Museum of Costa Rica

Scientists managed to find similar stone balls in completely different places on our planet - in the Kashkadarya region of Kazakhstan, Egypt (Kharga oasis), Romania (Costeshti), Germany (Eifel), Brazil (Korupa deposit), Chile, New Zealand and even on Franz Josef Land (Fr. Champ). And in 2008-2009 they began to be found on the territory of Russia - in Siberia, Krasnodar Territory and Volgograd region.

As you can see, there are many stone spheres on Earth. But still, the balls of Costa Rica are considered the most unique of such products. Their quality is admirable: some have such an absolutely regular shape and smooth surface that the question involuntarily arises: how were they made? And what is their purpose?

The National Museum of Costa Rica has a catalog that includes about 130 spherical stones that have survived to this day. But there are many more balls not included in the lists. In general, more than 300 stone spheres have been found in Costa Rica. Undoubtedly, many are yet to be found: they are hidden underground and in the dense jungle.

The calculation of these ancient monuments caused a number of difficulties: many of them were removed from their former place and are now one by one in gardens and temples. Other similar stone artifacts adorn official buildings in Costa Rica, such as the Legislative Assembly, or hospitals and schools. They can be found in museums, as well as in the estates of rich residents of the republic. Two balls are also on display in the US: one of them is in the Museum of the National Geographic Society in Washington, the other - in the courtyard of the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography at Harvard University.

Location geometry

The very first studies showed that the balls were located, as a rule, in groups of three to forty-five pieces. Many of the balls, some of them in groups, were found at the top of the mounds. But the most amazing thing happened next. Costa Rican scientists, interested in stone balls, decided to look at the find site from above, from the air. The helicopter rose above the jungle - and under it suddenly, as if a page from a geometry textbook floated, stretching for tens of kilometers. Strings of balls folded into giant triangles, squares, parallelograms, circles... Lined up in straight lines, some precisely oriented along the north-south axis...

These geometric constructions were then used to put forward some functional hypotheses.

Hypothesis 1. Balls in groups are arranged like models of some constellations. It is possible that these bizarre stone mosaics from balls were intended for astronomical observations related to calendar calculations and determining the timing of agricultural work. In this case, it is quite appropriate to assume that somewhere nearby there was a highly developed civilization - the forerunner of all the ancient civilizations of Central America.

Hypothesis 2. As already mentioned, one group of four balls was aligned along a line oriented to magnetic north. This has led some scholars to speculate that they may have been placed by people familiar with the use of magnetic compasses or astronomical orientation.

In general, there have been plenty of versions of the functional purpose of stone balls. I am not going to comment on them, simply, in addition to the indicated 2 hypotheses, I will list others:

spaced balls are like constellations, they are symbols heavenly bodies, a reflection of the entire solar system;

balls served to mark the boundaries between the lands of different tribes;

these are navigational instruments of a highly developed ancient civilization - Atlantis;

stone spheres are symbols of social position;

or maybe these are the balls of the gods when they played their game?

guests from other space worlds chose this place of accumulation of balls as their permanent cosmodrome, and the huge spheres are located in the form of restrictive lines because they performed a function similar to the current runways airfields;

some archaeologists believed that under the balls there may be original capsules with messages from our alien brothers in mind, left by them when they finally decided to leave our planet;

most likely for more than thousand years of history the existence of the sphere performed many functions that changed over time;

interesting is the version that the labor-intensive production of balls in itself could be an important ritual process. Moreover, it played the same role (and perhaps even more significant) as, in fact, its result;

the ancient inhabitants of Costa Rica were surprisingly warlike, possessing powerful technical military means. For example, they could have thrown weapons of exceptional power. stone balls- these are just "projectiles" scattered on the battlefield. Maybe it was not even a battle, but military exercises (maneuvers) took place here, a huge field is a kind of range for throwing weapons.

Difficulties. By now, almost all groups have already been destroyed, so measurements taken about fifty years ago cannot be verified for accuracy. Virtually all known balls have been moved from their original location in the course of agricultural work, destroying information about their archaeological contexts and possible groups. Some of the balls were blown up and destroyed by local treasure hunters who believed the fables that the balls contained gold. Balls rolled into ravines and gorges or even under water for sea coast.

The question is where did they come from?

Scientists are still fiercely arguing about the balls, there are many versions of their appearance, but none of them has yet been confirmed. But, there are 2 main versions - natural and artificial origin.

Version - geological natural formations

In accordance with it, it is believed that several dozen volcanoes suddenly woke up in Central America 25-40 million years ago. Their eruptions caused catastrophic earthquakes. Lava and hot ash covered vast areas. It was then that the vitreous particles ejected from the vents of volcanoes began to cool. They, they say, were the embryos of giant spheres. Surrounding particles of eruption products gradually began to crystallize around these nucleoli. Moreover, crystallization went evenly in all directions, so that a ball with an ideal shape gradually formed.

And then nature already acted - through such factors as water, wind and rain, which washed the ashes and soil from day to day. Thanks to this, over time, the "whitened" stone balls appeared on the surface. For example, it has been established that in areas of the Earth with large daily temperature differences (fluctuations), ordinary weathering, called exopholization, "works" very effectively. In this case, the rocks are destroyed spontaneously according to the type of "falling husk", that is, the outer layers of the stone formation are gradually separated, like the husk of an onion, which, in the end, allows only the solid spherical core to remain "alone".

If the centers of the balls were located close to each other, then the stone spheres could even grow together with one another. And in confirmation of this conjecture, several fused such balls were found.

Thus, not some unfounded assumption appeared, explaining the origin of stone balls, but a well-founded hypothesis. It would seem that the mystery of the origin of the stone spheres has ceased to exist, but not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance...

And all this is due to the fact that this - geological - version does not fit the fact that the balls clearly have traces of grinding, and, moreover, they are clearly laid according to some system. And one more objection - balls are also found in places where no volcanic activity is observed at all. And the main thing here is that the version is not able to explain the emergence of balls from a material such as granite through volcanic activity.

In addition, many balls are made of granodiorite, a hard coarse-grained rock of igneous origin, which mineral composition is intermediate between granite and quartz diorite. The granodiorite deposit is located in the foothills of the Talamanca mountain range. But, this factor plays just against the geological version: in the area where the balls were found, there is no such material, and deposits of granodiorite are found no closer than 50 miles from the place where the megaliths were found.

There are several balls made of shell rock, a hard material similar to limestone, which is formed in coastal sediments from shells and sand. Perhaps these balls were brought inland from the delta of the Terraba River.

The spherical formations of the Urals are natural geological objects

And these are also natural objects

Version - handmade

Archaeologists, unlike geologists, recognize that the balls were not made by nature, but by people. And they believe that these balls were made and laid by very skilled people. But, what tools did the ancient masters work with, who managed to give the stone the correct spherical shape? Suddenly stood before the scientists incredible fact: except for stone spheres in this area there was not a single object indicating the presence of a person here ever. No tools for working stone, no shards, no bones were found. Nothing!

And, developing the version, they believe that the balls were made from huge boulders, which were processed to a spherical shape by chipping off parts and grinding. Granodiorite exfoliates with sudden changes in temperature. To remove a thick layer of material, the workpiece must be heated, for example with hot coals, and then rapidly cooled with water. When the boulder already has a shape close to spherical, the material is removed by hitting it with the same hard material. Finally, the last stage of processing is polishing to a shine. This process is similar to that used in the manufacture of stone axes and stone statues and is believed to have been achieved without the use of metal tools, laser meters, and alien assistants. To top it off, the ball could be polished with sand or leather.

As one serious scientist explained, I will not promote his name, the balls are larger " created by the most skilled craftsmen, and their shape is so close to perfection that measuring the diameters with a tape measure and a plumb line did not reveal any inaccuracies". He also says that the natives had mathematical abilities, extensive knowledge in the field of stone processing and knew how to use tools. But since those tribes, apparently, did not have a written language, there are no records of the technology for making balls, and information about the manufacturing method, of course, did not reach us.

The question is when?

In addition to all other unsolved mysteries, remains unclear when the balls were made. For such products, radiocarbon analysis is not applicable, which is used to date only biological remains. Therefore, the determination of the age of stone spheres was carried out on the basis of accompanying objects that were found along with them in the archaeological layers. Stone balls have been found in pottery beds from the Aguas Buenas culture, which dates from approximately 200 BC to 800 AD. Stone balls have been found in tombs with gold ornaments dating back to around 1000 AD. They were also found in layers with shards of pottery from the Chiriqui period, dating from 800 BC. before 800 AD This type of pottery was found along with iron tools from the colonial period until the 16th century. Thus, the balls could be made at any time and for any foreseeable period.

The age of the stone balls is unknown.

However, many of the researchers are sure that they were made much earlier - in the most ancient times. US scientist D. Erickson claims that the balls appeared more than 12 thousand years ago. This, allegedly, is also proved by the finds of balls on seabed, where they were installed at a time when there was still dry land ...

Who made?

The balls are thought to have most likely been made by the ancestors of the peoples who lived here before the Spanish conquest. These people spoke the Chibchan language and lived in an area from modern eastern Honduras to northern Colombia. Their current descendants include the Boruca, Teribe and Guaymi peoples. These people lived in isolated settlements, which rarely consisted of more than 2,000 people. They fished, hunted and farmed. Among the crops grown were corn, cassava (a shrub whose roots are a nutritious flour), beans, squash (a type of summer gourd), papaya, pineapple, avocado, chili, cocoa, and many other fruits, root vegetables, and medicinal plants. They lived in mostly rounded houses with a foundation made of river cobblestones.

And in order to assert that it was they who created these mysterious spheres, one must have more evidence than there is, and therefore the answer to this question remains an unsolvable task.

Transport method

Another mystery is how the balls are transported from the place of manufacture to the place of installation. According to scientists, sometimes this distance was tens of kilometers, and the balls had to be delivered through the jungle, swamps, rivers...

How were such blocks transported? With the help of what devices were the balls "rolled" from place to place, making up exact geometric shapes from them? Unfortunately, there were no satisfactory answers to these questions at all.

If blanks for balls were obtained at quarries, stone craftsmen, it is believed, had to carefully monitor their descent. How to move such a heavy load over such a long distance without modern technology? If granite was mined at a quarry and then transported, then almost a three-meter cube, which was required for a ball with a diameter of 2.4 meters, weighed 24 tons! Probably, the natives had to lay a wide, smooth road necessary for transporting blocks through the dense jungle, which, again, is not an easy task! Other balls are made of shell rock, a material similar to limestone, which is found on the sea coast near the mouth of the Dikvis River. Then it turns out that the rock was rafted 50 kilometers upstream. Balls have also been found on Canyo Island, located about 20 kilometers from the Pacific coast, etc.

Researchers

The first to study the balls was an archaeologist from the USA D. Stone, who arrived in Costa Rica immediately after the discovery stone artifacts. And in 1943, in an academic journal of archeology, he published his observations and conclusions, which, as will be characteristic of all future studies and researchers, end with the words: " We must attribute the perfect spheres of Costa Rica to the incomprehensible megalithic mysteries". Everything is exactly the same as was expressed a little later on other stone products and another of the authorities of archeology, now the Frenchman P. Gio: " ... megaliths are a nightmare for archaeologists". And it is impossible not to agree with them.

Then there were many followers and continuers of the studies of stone balls, and an inquisitive reader, ready to delve deeper into the topic, can always find reports of their expeditions and materials of work in print. For the same article, it is enough to say that apart from updating the statistics of finds, describing the locations of these stone products, and studying the accompanying cultural layers, no solid scientific conclusions have been made. Just as before, the main questions remained unanswered: who?, when? and for what? made these stones.

So, attempts to make a scientific analysis of the stone balls of Costa Rica have been going on for more than 60 years. But, as they say, things are still there ...

Not so long ago, the question of assigning the status of a world heritage site to these ancient artifacts was raised before UNESCO. It was entrusted to D. Hupes, Associate Professor of the Department of Anthropology from the University of Kansas and head ofGlobal Indigenous Nations Studies Program.

scientist D. Khupes next to the ancient stone riddle

And he, having conducted the necessary research with his colleagues, upon returning from a trip to Costa Rica, made a report to UNESCO, excerpts from which are given below.

The earliest reports of these stones date back to the late 19th century, but these reports were scientifically confirmed only in the 1930s, so they can be considered a relatively recent discovery, Hoopes said. - official science dates the stones to 600-1000 AD, but they all predate the Spanish Colonization of the Americas. We determine the age of the balls by the style of manufacture and radiocarbon analysis of objects that are found with the balls. One of the problems with this technique is that it reports the date the balls were last used, but not the date they were created. These objects could have been used for centuries and are still in the same places for thousands of years. Therefore, it is very difficult to determine the exact date of creation.

According to Hoopes, pseudoscientists have distorted the general idea of stone balls. For example, some publications have claimed that the stones refer to the "disappeared" continent of Atlantis. Others have suggested that the orbs are navigational instruments, or that they are associated with Stonehenge, or with giant heads from Easter Island.

Myths, based on many incredible theories about imaginary ancient civilizations or alien visits, Hoopes categorically rejected. However, in return - he did not present any of his versions, shedding at least some light on the solution of the balls of Costa Rica.

We don't really know why they were made,” Hoopes admitted. “The people who made them left no written records. We can only speculate based on historical dates and reconstruction of the environment. The culture of the people who made them disappeared shortly after the Spanish conquest. Therefore, there are no myths or legends left about why these balls were made.

The only mystery that the scientist allegedly could explain was the way they were made.

Most likely, the main techniques were hammering, drilling and grinding stones, - explained Hoopes. - Found some balls on which there were traces of hammer blows. We believe that this is how they were created: with the help of hammer blows on big stones and cutting spherical shape.

So, this one, so to speak - “the head of the balls”, under the pressure of the questions of the members of the UNESCO commission, but not forgetting to throw a handful of dirt at ufologists, both himself and his science signed in complete professional failure and helplessness. So who should be called false and pseudo-scientists, if not such khupes?

So, the answer is modern researchers- Not yet. Therefore, the question of assigning object status to balls world heritage also remained open.

The enigma of the stone balls of Costa Rica

Stone balls of Costa Rica are strange stone formations perfectly round, discovered in the 1930s, one of the greatest mysteries pre-Columbian America. Hundreds of such stone balls, ranging in size from a few centimeters to 7 feet in diameter, the largest of which weighs 16 tons, have been discovered in the Dikvisa region of Palma Sur, off the Pacific coast in southern Costa Rica. Most of them are made of granodiorite, an igneous rock similar to granite. But several copies are carved from shell rock - a kind of limestone, consisting mainly of shells and their fragments.

How were the stone balls found?

The balls were first talked about in the 1930s, when the United Fruit Company was clearing the jungle for banana plantations and other fruit plants. The workers of the company found the balls and, remembering the local legend about the spheres covering the golden cores, tried to split them with dynamite, hoping to find the gold hidden inside.

Ball research

1948 - Dr. Samuel Lothrop of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University and his wife undertook a comprehensive study of the 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 45 more balls somewhere in the Yalaki region, where they were, but they were transported somewhere.

Several spheres have been found in pacific ocean on the island of Kano, which is 12.5 miles to the southwest. This may serve as confirmation of the version that several hundred such stones were once created. Starting in the 1940s, stone spheres began to be transported - often they were moved 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 stone balls from Costa Rica are known to have remained where they were found.

Scientific analysis of the stone balls of Costa Rica has been going on for decades. The 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. 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 publication in 1963 also included maps of the places where the spheres were found, given comparative analysis found nearby pottery and metal artifacts related to stone balls, as well as many photographs and drawings depicting balls, data on their sizes and notes on the location of the spheres.

Archaeological excavations

Later, in the 50s. XX century, were held archaeological excavations, 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 have been carried out by the archaeologist Iphigenia Quintanilla from the National Museum of Costa Rica in the 90-95s of the 20th century.

Versions of the origin of stone balls

For many years, archaeologists have been trying to find out the origin of these strange balls. Whether they are natural objects or handmade. Some of the geologists claim that the spheres have 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 down and form spheres.

According to another version, the granite blocks were in specially dug pits, at the bottom huge waterfall and under the influence of the flow of falling water over time acquired an almost perfect spherical shape.

However, the version that the stones were created by a person is more likely, especially considering that granodiorite, from which the balls are mainly made, is not found in these places. The deposits of this rock are found in the Talamanca mountain range, approximately 50 miles from the find site.

Archaeologist Iphigenia Quintanilla, during field research, was able to establish the source of raw materials: she discovered boulders that can be called unfinished copies of stone balls. During the excavations of Quintanilla, fragments of balls were also found, which made it possible to restore the method of their creation. To give the stones a rounded shape, most likely they did this: at first, an approximately rounded boulder was alternately affected by heat and cold, until rock cracks did not begin to appear, then the surface was leveled with heavy stone sledgehammers, possibly made of 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 inch ±0.2%". The version could have been flawless if the spheres had not been carved with such precision. However, the surface of the boulders is not absolutely perfect: 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 right places. Such skills indicate a highly developed culture and a well-organized community (although if the stones were cut right in the quarry, in the mountains, it was not difficult to roll the balls down).

So who created these balls?

The question of who could create these mysterious spheres and why is more difficult task. According to archaeological data, the spheres were carved over 2 periods. The earlier of these, the aguas-buenas period (100-500 AD), only a few balls belong. Most of the stone balls in the lowlands of the Terraba River were created in the second period - Chirikui (800-1500). But this cannot help to clarify the purpose of the spheres.

Let's bypass 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 of the ancient world electrical network. But without concrete evidence, such a theory is baseless and seems as mythical as the legend that local residents there was a potion that was able to soften rocks.

Why were the stone balls of Costa Rica created?

It is not exactly established what these spheres were created for. It is especially difficult to find out because most of the balls have been transported to other places. This problem is important because the arrangement of the balls seems to have played an important role in the lives of the people who created them. It should be noted that initially many balls were arranged so that each place corresponded to the position of the Sun, the 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 from the nearby hills, which once contained dwellings. Probably, the spheres at one time were located in the center of the settlements, on the tops of the hills. In this case, they could not be used in astronomy and, of course, in navigation. Most likely, for more than a thousand years of existence, stone balls performed many functions that changed over time. Curious is the version that the labor-intensive production of balls in itself could 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 organizations National Museum Costa Rica has begun transportation through the high mountain range balls from San Jose to the places where they were found. Nowadays, they are under protection in the store, but when it is built Cultural Center, 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 deposits of the Dikvis River delta. Nowadays, stone balls can be seen in the museums of Costa Rica, they decorate the lawns in front of various official buildings, hospitals and schools. Two of them were taken to the USA: one is exhibited in the Museum of the National geographical society(Washington, DC), and the other is in the courtyard of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnography, Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts). Stone balls from Costa Rica also decorate the gardens of the rich, as symbols of their position in society.

1930s, Costa Rica. A group of workers from the famous United Fruit Company clear away dense thickets tropical plants to start another banana plantation.

And suddenly... Among wild jungle people stumble upon something unimaginable - huge stone balls of perfectly regular shape.

The diameter of these "balls" was about three meters, and the weight was approximately 16 tons. True, it later turned out that there are medium and small specimens nearby - up to the size of a children's ball.

And then another mystery arose. It turns out that the spheres are not arranged randomly, but in a certain order. Some rows formed straight lines, others triangles and parallelograms.

In 1967, such balls were found in Mexico in silver mines - only these artifacts were even larger. And in Guatemala, on the high plateau of Aqua Blanca, for the time being, hundreds of huge stone statues perfect shape.

In the future, something similar began to be found almost everywhere: in the USA, New Zealand, Egypt, Romania, Germany, Brazil, Kazakhstan, on Franz Josef Land. And more recently - on the territory of Russia: in Siberia, the Krasnodar Territory and the Volgograd Region.

As soon as the workers opened the stones in Costa Rica, the American archaeologist Doris Stone arrived there. In 1943, her observations and conclusions were published in the US academic journal of archeology.

And Samuel Lothrop, an archaeologist at Harvard University, began studying stone spheres in 1948. In 1963, the results of his research were published: maps of the areas where the balls were located, descriptions of pottery and metal objects found next to them, as well as many photographs and drawings.

Modern scientists have continued this research work, but there is still no clear answer to the most elementary questions: what are the balls, where did they come from and what did they serve?

Multi-ton "balls" played by the gods

The famous Swiss writer and ufologist Erich von Daniken called the balls “balls played by the gods”, and perhaps this fantastic formula is the closest to the truth, because it is almost impossible to explain their origin from the point of view of science and common sense.

Geologists attribute the appearance of "balls" to volcanic activity, arguing that a ball of such an ideal shape can form if the crystallization of volcanic magma during an eruption occurs evenly. But this version does not fit the fact that the balls clearly have grinding marks, and, moreover, they are not stacked randomly, but according to some system. And one more objection - "kruglyashi" are also found in places where no volcanic activity is observed at all.

Archaeologists, unlike geologists, recognize that the stone spheres were produced not by nature, but by people. According to scientists, the "balls" were made from round boulders in several stages. First, they were heated, then processed with stone tools, and finally polished to a shine, removing all roughness.

Archaeologist Samuel Lothrop said: “Obviously, the balls are products of the highest quality. They are so perfect that measurements of the diameters showed no difference.”

Cosmodrome or "cash"?

Researchers are wondering: what were these mysterious formations? Some believe that they were installed in front of the houses of noble people as a symbol of their power, or that stone balls were related to certain cults and sacrifices.

Interestingly, in Costa Rica, one group of four balls was aligned on a line pointing due north. A number of archaeologists suggest that this is proof that the creators of the spheres were familiar with such a science as astronomy, and that the spheres themselves somehow interacted with the cosmos. This version is confirmed by the fact that the Maya Indians, who once lived in Costa Rica, were outstanding astronomers. They precisely divided the year into seasonal cycles, observed the movement of the planets, and compiled maps of the starry sky with more or less fixed coordinates of celestial objects.

Some even believe that the stone spheres represent a map of the starry sky and, accordingly, serve as "beacons" for spaceships. There is also an opinion that the balls had a topographical function - they played the role of landmarks for travelers and marked the boundaries of certain territories.

There is an exotic version that the balls were used as money - after all, some tribes still have stone "cash". Spheres of different sizes are just "coins" of different denominations - from the most expensive to small "pennies".

In search of gold

Nowadays, it is very difficult to refute or confirm this or that version. In the course of research, agricultural work and just for the sake of pampering, almost all the balls were moved from their original places. Numerous connoisseurs of antiquities stole smaller "balls" to decorate their gardens and yards.

Great damage was done to science after someone started a rumor that there was gold inside the balls. Of course, no one “dug up” the precious metals inside them, but a huge part of the unique objects was irretrievably lost.

In addition to all other unsolved mysteries, it remains unclear when the balls "came into the world." Archaeologists often determine the date of origin of artifacts by the cultural layer in which they were discovered. But the balls are found in completely different layers, which date from 200 BC. before 1500 AD

However, many researchers are sure that the "balls" were made much earlier. American scientist George Erickson claims that ancient craftsmen produced them more than 12 thousand years ago. This is also proved by artifacts raised from the seabed, where they could appear, most likely, only at a time when there was land.

Another mystery is the method of transporting the balls from the place of manufacture to the place of installation. According to scientists, this distance sometimes amounted to tens of kilometers, and heavy stone products had to be transported through the jungle, swamps and rivers.

It is not known whether the mysteries of the "balls of the gods" will ever be solved. The researchers themselves doubt this. Archaeologist Doris Stone once said: "We must attribute the stone balls to the incomprehensible megalithic mysteries."