Stone balls - another mystery of prehistoric civilization? Mysterious stone balls
Perfectly round stone spheres of various sizes were discovered on the territory of the small Latin American state of Costa Rica almost a hundred years ago, and all this time the mystery of their origin and purpose excites the minds of researchers.
Scientists did not come to a single version, discussing both natural processes, as a result of which balls could form, and some highly developed civilization capable of technologically processing stone. True, for what in this case were these round stones, is also unclear.
How were the stone balls found?
Workers stumbled upon a mysterious find while clearing the jungle for planting banana plantations in 1930. More than three hundred stones were united by an obvious similarity - a perfect round shape and a smooth surface. The size of the spheres is different - from a few centimeters to a couple of meters in diameter, respectively, and the weight of the largest is quite impressive - about 20 tons. When flying around the territory on an airplane, it turned out that most of the stones were arranged in a strict order, forming clear geometric shapes.
The workers, assuming that a golden treasure might be hidden inside, immediately began sawing the finds until the company's management stopped the vandalism. However, after a few years in place remained less than ten balls - the rest were taken to museums, public buildings and for souvenirs. Today, stone balls adorn courtyards, archaeological collections, parks and squares.
In total, more than 300 round boulders were found in Costa Rica, but this number is inaccurate, since many of them were taken to various institutes, museums and schools.
Traces of processing or where they came from
The discussion of the origin of round boulders immediately divided into two directions: natural or human hand. The second version is confirmed by clear traces of grinding and polishing on the spheres, as well as their organized arrangement.
In the 60s, it was discovered that the stone spheres of Costa Rica were not unique: similar finds were made not only the American continent(in Mexico, USA), but also in New Zealand, Egypt, Germany and even in the Arctic. But, for example, in Mexico, similar spheres were found not on the ground, but under it - in silver mines. Others have not been processed and are "rounded" by nature.
The natural theory, supported by many scientists, is based on volcanic processes. As a result of uniform crystallization of magma, in principle, the formation of round shapes is possible, and their subsequent rise to the surface is not excluded in areas subject to strong weathering. Where such processes are not observed, the spheres remain underground. A prerequisite is significant temperature differences, and their traces were just found on the surfaces of the balls. But the catch is that the temperature effect could just be artificial - for machining. This again suggests human intervention, especially since the natural version does not explain why the balls were stacked in a strict geometry and how they moved.
Remains of an ancient civilization?
As archaeologists suggest, the boulders were brought to a perfect round shape by mechanical finishing. To facilitate the work with the stone, it was repeatedly heated and cooled, the excess was flaked off, then hewn with a hard tool. The finished sphere was mounted on a base and ground/polished with an abrasive and, probably, with leather.
However, many questions remain unanswered. What tools did the alleged masters use? How were huge stones moved around the area, sometimes for tens of kilometers through the jungle and swamps? Why and on what basis were they placed in groups?
Perhaps it would be easier to solve the riddle if the balls remained in their original places. But by the beginning of the research, they were all moved, information about the exact points of their location is unreliable, the time of their appearance has not been established.
Assumptions that groups of stones were prototypes of astronomical observatories or places of worship, are discussed but lack factuality. From the same area - the idea that these are the nuclei of ancient military weapons, landmarks for starships, or even just architectural decoration.
Thus, the American researcher I. Zapp connected the location of one of the groups of balls with Stonehenge and Easter Island, arguing that it was a kind of geographical indicator. And adherents of alien theories, of course, see here the traces of high-tech guests who equipped spaceports for themselves. But none of the official and semi-official versions is recognized as final and confirmed, so the stone balls of Costa Rica continue to excite the minds and imagination of millions of people.
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 in the 1940s was clearing the jungle for banana plantations. 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
Photograph by Connor Lee (GNU Free Documentation License). Stone ball in the courtyard of the National Museum of the capital
One of the greatest mysteries pre-Columbian America are the amazing stone spheres of Costa Rica. Hundreds of these stone balls ranging in size from a few centimeters to 7 feet in diameter, the largest of which weighs 16 tons, have been found in the Dikvisa region of Palma Sur, near the Pacific coast in southern Costa Rica. They are mostly made of granodiorite, an igneous rock similar to granite. However, several specimens are carved from shell rock - a type of limestone, consisting mainly of shells and their fragments.
The spheres were first mentioned in the 1930s, when the United Fruit Company was clearing the jungle for banana plantations and other fruit plants. Company workers discovered the objects and, remembering the local legend about the spheres covering the golden cores, tried to crack them with dynamite, hoping to find the gold hidden inside. In 1948, Dr. Samuel Lothrop of the Peabody Museum at Harvard University and his wife began a comprehensive study of stone balls. In 1963, the results of the study were published. In his report, Lothrop described all 186 known specimens and noted that he had heard about the existence of another 45 balls somewhere in the Yalaki region, where they were located, but they were transported somewhere. Several spheres were found in pacific ocean on the island of Kano, which is 12.5 miles to the southwest. This confirms the version that several hundred such stones were once created. Since the 40s of the XX century. balls began to be transported - often they were moved along 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. It is known that today only six stones remain where they were discovered.
Scientific analysis of the stone balls of Costa Rica has been going on for over 60 years. Work began in 1943 by archaeologist Doris Zemurray-Stone, the daughter of Samuel Zemurray, the founder of the United Fruit Company. She examined the stones found by the workers of the fruit company, and later became director of the National Museum of Costa Rica and in 1943 published her work in the American Antiquity magazine, placing in them five maps of the area, on which 44 stone balls were placed. According to Stone, these spheres could be cult statues, tombstones, or were elements of some kind of calendar. In the publication of Lothrop in 1963, there were also maps of places where spheres were found, data comparative analysis found nearby pottery and metal artifacts related to stone balls, as well as many photographs and drawings depicting spheres, data on their sizes and notes on the location of the balls.
Later, in the 1950s, there were archaeological excavations, thanks to which stone spheres were discovered in the south of Costa Rica, along with pottery and other artifacts related to the cultures of pre-Columbian America. Since then, research has been regularly carried out, but the most thorough were the excavations, which in 1990-1995. conducted by archaeologist Iphigenia Quintanilla of the National Museum of Costa Rica. For many years, archaeologists have been trying to figure out the origin of these strange spheres. Whether they are natural objects or handmade. Some geologists claim that the rocks have natural origin. They put forward the theory that magma rising into the air after a volcanic eruption settles on a hot, ash-covered valley, then the globules of magma cool and form spheres. According to another version, granite blocks were placed in specially dug pits, at the bottom huge waterfall and under the influence of the flow of falling water gradually acquired an almost perfect spherical shape. But the version that the stones were created by man seems more likely, especially considering that granodiorite, from which the spheres are mainly made, does not occur in this area. The deposits of this rock are located in the Talamanca mountain range, about 50 miles from the find site. Archaeologist Iphigenia Quintanilla identified the source of the raw materials during field research: she found boulders that can be called unfinished examples of stone spheres. During the excavations of Quintanilla, fragments of balls were also found, which made it possible to restore the method of their creation. Thus, in order to give the stones a rounded shape, they most likely did this: first, an approximately rounded boulder was alternately affected by heat and cold until cracks appeared in the rock, then the surface was leveled using heavy stone sledgehammers, probably made of 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 theory would be flawless if the boulders were not carved with such precision. However, the surface of the balls is not absolutely perfect: the diameters of some differ by 5 cm from the parameters of a regular sphere. It is also not clear how the inhabitants of pre-Columbian America transported and installed 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).
The question of who created these mysterious spheres and why is more difficult task. According to archeological data, the balls were carved during two periods. The earlier of these, the Aguas Buenas period (AD 100–500), contains only a few balls. Most of the stone spheres in the lowlands of the Terraba River were created in the second period - Chirikui (800-1500). However, this does not help to clarify the purpose of the spheres. Let's leave aside 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. However, without concrete evidence, this theory is baseless and seems as mythical as the legend that local residents there was a potion that could soften rocks. Authors of Atlantis in America: Navigators ancient world» (1998) Iver Zapp and George Erickson argued that the spheres were created as navigational tools of a highly developed ancient race seafarers, a race that inspired the Greek philosopher Plato to write about the disappeared land - Atlantis. According to this theory, the spheres must have been close enough to the coast that they could be seen by sailors, and this does not correspond to their original location. In addition, this version assumes the accuracy of the placement of the balls, which cannot be said about the instances that have not been moved.
For sure, it is not established what these objects were created for. It is especially difficult to find out because most of spheres moved to other places. This issue is important because the arrangement of the orbs probably played an important role in the lives of the people who created them. Given the data now known, the most plausible is the assumption that the spheres were some kind of marks, perhaps the boundaries of land plots or symbols of social status. It is also worth paying attention to the fact that initially many balls were arranged in such a way that each place corresponded to the position of the Sun, the Moon and all the planets known at that time. There was even a theory that they reflected the entire solar system. In the 40s of the 20th century, while studying the balls, Lothrop noticed that some of them rolled down from the nearby hills, on which there were once dwellings. Perhaps the balls 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 thousand years of history The existence of the sphere performed many functions that changed over time. An interesting version is 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.
Ever since the balloons were discovered in Costa Rica, they have been constantly exposed to the harmful effects of temperature changes, rain damage and occasional fires. In 1997, land management services began to be created to protect holy places and landscapes around the world. In 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. Currently they are under protection in the store, but when it is built Cultural Center, balls will be placed in it and can be seen in the very places where they were originally located in the Dikvis River Delta.
Archaeologists still find balls in the muddy deposits of the Dikvis River Delta. Today, the stones can be seen in museums in Costa Rica; they decorate 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 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). Orbs also decorate the gardens of the rich, as symbols of their position in society. Many stones have long since changed their usual location, but some of them again perform the functions for which they were created.
In the small Central American Republic of Costa Rica, at the end of the 40s of our century, interesting discovery. Workers cutting down dense thickets tropical jungle under banana plantations, suddenly stumbled upon some strange stone statues correct spherical shape.
The largest of them reached a diameter of three meters and weighed almost 16 tons. And the smallest did not exceed the size of a handball, having a diameter of only about 10 centimeters. It should be noted that with a large diameter, the deviations are only +8 millimeters. The balls were distributed, as a rule, in groups from three to forty-five pieces.
But the most amazing thing happened next. Costa Rican scientists, interested in stone balls, decided to look at the find from above, from a helicopter. 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 formed into giant triangles, squares, circles... Lined up in straight lines, exactly oriented along the north-south axis... The thought immediately comes to mind that these balls were made and laid by very skilled people. But when and for what purpose were they erected? What tools did the ancient masters use, who managed to give the stone the correct spherical shape? With the help of what devices did the giants "roll" the balls from place to place, making up exact geometric figures from them? Of course, it remains a mystery how these multi-ton huge balls were delivered through the jungle and swamps from quarries several tens of kilometers away from the place of discovery. Unfortunately, most of these questions did not have satisfactory answers.
Immediately after the discovery of the balls, archaeologists began intensive excavations. Suddenly stood in front of them 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!
When a void arises in knowledge, a mass of hypotheses immediately appears that seek to fill it. Let's consider some of them.
Hypothesis 1. The balls are arranged like a model of some constellation. 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. 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- just "shells" 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.
Hypothesis 3. Adherents of this hypothesis, which was one of the most common, argued that guests from other space worlds chose this place for their permanent spaceport. In this regard, the huge spheres that struck the imagination of earthlings are located in the form of restrictive lines because they performed a function similar to the current ones. runways airfields.
Some archaeologists believed that under the balls there may be peculiar capsules with messages from our alien brothers in mind, left by them when they finally decided to leave our planet. Naturally, there were projects to raise the balls and carry out excavations, which, apparently, would have been carried out if new discoveries had not been made ...
In 1967, an engineer who worked in the silver mines of Western Mexico and was fond of history and archeology, told American scientists 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, on the Aqua Blanca plateau, located at an altitude of two thousand meters above sea level near the village of Guadalajara, an archaeological expedition discovered hundreds of balls that were an exact copy of Costa Rican ones. Now there were almost no doubts: traces of some unusual and incomprehensible civilization were found.
One of the balls was found near a smooth stone platform. And immediately the assumption: perhaps he served as an altar? Again laborious excavations. Thousands of tons of soil are thrown - and again nothing! no trace material culture. The mystery grew even more murky.
Unlike modern scientists, everything was clear to the ancients: what are the balls, and how they appeared ... The gods of the ancient Mexicans, for example, loved the game of ball. But if people played with an elastic rubber ball, then the gods tossed up stone balls. In those places where the gods competed, there were placers of stone balls of various sizes - from a few centimeters to three meters in diameter ...
A large number of balls were found in the Jalisco region near the city of Aulaluco de Mercazo in Mexico, in Palmar Sur in Costa Rica, in the area of the city of Los Alamos and in the state of New Mexico (USA). It should be noted that all these areas are characterized by active volcanic activity ...
To end the conversation about archaeological expedition, who conducted surveys in Guadalajara, it must be said that she was lucky in the end. Just like that, just in case, several scientists of other specialties participated in it: geologists, geophysicists and geochemists. Ignoring the justified wrath of archaeologists, they mercilessly destroyed two balls and found that the stone spheres had nothing to do with aliens, or with the Aztecs, Incas or Mayans ... The balls turned out to be of natural origin.
Obviously, 25-40 million years ago in Central America suddenly woke up several dozen volcanoes. Their eruptions caused catastrophic earthquakes. Lava and hot ash covered vast areas. In some places, glassy particles ejected from the poles of volcanoes began to cool. They were the germs 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.
Geologists and petrographers believe that the "creators" of the balls are natural influences such as water, wind and rain, which washed away the ash 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 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. The finding of such fused balls confirmed the conjecture of scientists.
Thus, not some unfounded assumption appeared, explaining the origin of stone balls, but a well-founded hypothesis. Scientists managed to find similar stone balls in completely different places on our planet - in the Kashkadarya region of Kazakhstan, Egypt, Romania, Germany, Brazil and even on Franz Josef Land. It would seem that the mystery of the origin of stone balls has ceased to exist, but not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance...
First, there are, as it turned out, two types of balls - obsidian and granite. If the theory volcanic origin for the first is confirmed by laboratory studies, which showed that the balls from Jalisco arose in the Tertiary period (man, as is known, appeared only in the Quaternary period), then it is impossible to explain the appearance of granite balls with this theory. Moreover, some of the granite balls (for example, a giant ball from Costa Rica) are polished in a way that only human hands can polish. And everything seems to be clear. Except perhaps for this moment: how could people armed only with stone tools manage to do this? The obsidian balls created by nature most likely served as models for the Maya (who, of course, did not doubt the divine origin of the first balls), and skillful craftsmen carved from blocks of granite giant balls, worthy of being both the fun of the gods and the subject of human admiration, and perhaps they were used in certain types of human activity. So, H. Kink in the book "How Egyptian pyramids" indicates: "At the foot of the pyramid of Djoser, many stone balls with a diameter of 12 to 19 centimeters were found, and the diameter of some of them reaches 40 centimeters. These balls, specially made of stone, were used as rollers for dragging large blocks ... "
And yet, how the ancient craftsmen managed to give the hardest granite such a perfect spherical shape remains a mystery, the same as the mystery of the formation of mysterious geometric shapes and lines oriented to the cardinal points ... What if this special characters? Who, for whom and why scattered them "all over the world"? There are no answers to these and many other questions yet.
At the end of the 30s of the last century in the territory Costa Rica found unusual stone boulders spherical shape. Their diameter ranged from 10 centimeters to more than 3 meters, the mass of the largest balls reaches 20 tons. In total, more than three hundred round boulders were found in Costa Rica, but this number is not exact, since many of them were taken to various institutes, museums and schools. Many stone balls were broken by treasure hunters who thought that there were some kind of jewels inside the spheres.
However, as it turned out later, similar finds were also found in other places around the world: Germany, Chile, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Russia ... But the spheres of Costa Rica, unlike the others, are almost ideally spherical in shape, and their surface is very smooth and even. How it was possible to process stones so well is not clear even modern researchers, because the age mysterious artifacts near 12000 years.
It's interesting that stone balls were not randomly scattered, but were in groups from 3 to 50 boulders. Moreover, it turned out that the balls are made up of different geometric shapes: squares, triangles...
Putting forward theories about the origin of the stone boulders of Costa Rica, the opinions of scientists and researchers were divided into two camps: natural and artificial origin.
Supporters of the first tabor believe that the stones acquired this shape thanks to volcanic activity. But this theory has faced many contradictions and faded into the background.
The theory of artificial origin claims that the spheres of Costa Rica are the result of human activity. However, this version does not reveal the curtain of secrets, but raises even more questions: What tools could be used to carve huge stones with such accuracy? How were they moved and laid out in geometric shapes? What were they for?
And of course, like many other mysterious objects on earth, boulders have a theory of origin associated with an alien mind.
