In the 40s of the twentieth century, an interesting discovery was made in the tropical thickets of Costa Rica. The workers of the United Fruit Company, who were cutting down the dense thickets of the tropical jungle for banana plantations, unexpectedly stumbled upon giant stone sculptures of the correct spherical shape.
The largest ones reached three meters in diameter and weighed about 16 tons. And the smallest were no more than a children's ball, having only ten centimeters in diameter. The balls were placed singly and in groups from three to fifty pieces, sometimes forming geometric shapes.
In 1967, an engineer and lover of history and archeology working in a silver mine in Mexico told American scientists that he had found the same balls in the mines, but much larger.
After some time, on the Aqua 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 Daniken, the balls were dubbed "balls played by the gods."
Some geologists attributed their appearance to volcanic activity. An ideal ball can be formed if the crystallization of volcanic magma occurs uniformly in all directions.
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According to Elena Matveyeva, a leading researcher at the Central Research Institute of Geology of Rare-Earth and Non-Ferrous Metals, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, the balls could come to the surface as a result of the so-called exfoliation - weathering, which works in areas with large daily differences. In the same place, where the temperature is more stable, they find similar balls, but already underground.
However, no matter how convincing these assumptions sound, there is no definitive solution to the phenomenon to this day. First of all, they are unable to explain the occurrence of granite balls.
In addition, the ancient volcanoes could not correctly arrange many balls in the form of figures, which, moreover, have traces of grinding! And although a significant part of such balls do seem to be of purely natural origin, some specimens, such as balls of Costa Rica, do not fit into the framework of this theory in any way, since they have obvious traces of alignment and grinding. More than 300 stone spheres have now been found in Costa Rica.
The first scientific study of the balls was undertaken by Doris Stone directly when they were discovered by the workers of the United Fruit Company. The results of her research were published in 1943 in 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, Harvard University, conducted major field work on the sphere in 1948. A final report on his findings was published by the Museum in 1963.
It contains maps of the areas where the balls were found, detailed descriptions of pottery and metal objects found near the balls, and many photographs, measurement data and drawings of the balls, their relative position and stratigraphic contexts.
Additional exploration of the balls by archaeologist Matthew Stirling was reported on the pages of National Geographic in 1969.
In the 1980s, the balloon sites were explored and described by Robert Drolet during his excavations.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Claude Baudez and his students at the University of Paris returned to the Lothrop excavation to undertake a more thorough analysis of the pottery and to obtain more accurate dating of the stratigraphic contexts of the balls. This study was published in Spanish in 1993, with a summary in English appearing in 1996.
Also in the early 1990s, John Hopes did fieldwork around the Golfito, documenting the easternmost known examples of these balls. At the same time, Enrico Dala Lagoa, a student at the University of Kansas, defended his dissertation on the topic of balls.
The most thorough exploration of the balls since Lothrop, however, was the fieldwork undertaken in 1990-1995 by the archaeologist Iphigenia Quintanilla under the auspices of the National Museum of Costa Rica.
She was able to unearth several balls in their initial state. As of 2001, most of the information she has collected has not yet been published, although it was the subject of her graduate study 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, DF 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 Costa Rica's balls.
Almost all of the balls are made of granodiorite, a hard lava rock outcropping in the foothills of the Talamanca suburbs. There are several examples made from coquina, a hard, limestone-like material that is formed 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. At the first stage, the boulders were subjected to alternately strong heating and cooling, as a result of which the upper part of the boulders peeled off like the leaves of a bulb.
Granodiorite, from which they are made, has been found to still show traces of extreme temperature changes. When they approached the shape of a sphere, they were further processed with stone tools of a material of the same hardness. In the final stage, the balls were placed on the base and polished to a high shine.
Often in the media there are statements that these balls have a perfect spherical shape with an accuracy of 2 millimeters. In reality, there are no grounds for such categorical statements.
The fact is that no one has ever measured the balls of Costa Rica with such a degree of accuracy. Lothrop wrote:
“We used two methods to measure the circumference, neither of which is completely satisfactory. When the large balls were deeply buried in the ground, it might take several days to dig a trench around them. Therefore, we examined only the top half and then measured two or three more diameters with a tape and a plumb line. Measurements have shown that small specimens, usually 2 to 3 feet (0.6-0.9 meters) in diameter, have differences in diameter of 1 or 2 inches (2.5-5.1 centimeters)."
Lothrop also measured balls that were completely removed from the ground by applying a piece of tape around five circles. He's writing:
“Obviously, the big balls were of the highest quality and they were so nearly perfect that the tape and plumb line measurements 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 circle because the large balls were too heavy to move around. 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 statement 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 might 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, balloons were no longer manufactured, and they remained completely forgotten until they were rediscovered in the 1940s.
Some archaeologists believe that the balls were located 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 with a line oriented to magnetic north.
This led Ivar Zappa to speculate that they may have been placed by people familiar with the use of magnetic compasses or astronomical orientation.
However, the hypothesis of Ivar Zappa that groups of stone balls were navigational devices pointing to Easter Island and Stonehenge seems to be ill-founded.
This group of four balls occupies (according to Lothrop's measurements) only a few meters, which is clearly not enough to avoid mistakes in planning at such long distances.
In addition, with the exception of the balloons 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 arrangement of stone balls resembles some celestial constellations. In accordance with this, the balls of Costa Rica are often considered by some "explorers" as a kind of "planetarium", "observatory" or landmarks for spaceships.
However, for all 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 studies.
Many of the balls, some of them in groups, have been found at the top of the mounds. This has led to speculation that they may have been preserved inside buildings created on top of the embankments, making them difficult to use for observations.
Moreover, by now all groups (except a few) have already been destroyed, so measurements taken almost fifty years ago cannot be verified for accuracy.
Virtually all known balls have been displaced from their original location during 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 in the 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 is used as an unpretentious decoration for lawns. It is possible that at least some of the balls were also once used for similar purposes.
So, for example, in the center of Isap, located off the Pacific coast on the border with Guatemala, which existed a little later than the Olmecs, small round balls were found next to small stone pillars that could well serve as supports for them.
The time of making the balls is also unknown.
Since there are no reliable methods for dating stone products now, archaeologists are forced to rely only on stratigraphic studies and determine the date of manufacture of balls from cultural remains found in the same deposits.
Found during excavations, such remains are now dated by archaeologists in the range from 200 BC. before even 1500 AD. But even such a wide range cannot be considered final.
The fact is that stratigraphic analysis always leaves a lot of doubts about the dating of such artifacts. If only because if now the balls move from place to place, then nothing can exclude the possibility of such a movement of the balls and 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 also 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. For all the skepticism of archaeologists in relation to such a date, it is by no means groundless.
In particular, John Hopes mentions the balls in the 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 be placed there only when the sea level was significantly lower than the current 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 location to the places of the alleged origin of the material for their production tens of kilometers, a significant part of which falls on swamps and dense thickets of tropical forests …
Archaeologist Doris Z. Stone ended the very first report on the exploration of the balls of Costa Rica with the words: “We must classify the perfect spheres of Costa Rica as incomprehensible megalithic mysteries.” It is impossible not to agree with him on this …
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Stone balls are actually found not only in Costa Rica. There were reports that sailors of the Murmansk Shipping Company found such balloons on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. And here is a shot of balls on the coast of one of the islands of New Zealand:
Or here are some more facts:
In 1969 in Germany, in the Eiffel, during the explosion of a quarry, a perfectly round ball with a diameter of five meters and weighing more than 100 tons rolled out of the slope.
In Kazakhstan, during the development of a sand pit, several large stone balls were dug from great depths.
Balls of unique beauty were found along the sides of the Bukobay girder in the Sol-Iletsk district of the Orenburg region.
Several dozen more of these stones were found in a ravine five kilometers west of Zhirnovsk in the Volgograd region. In 2002-2003, unfortunately, the most beautiful and expressive of them were destroyed by local oil bulldozer drivers who had stretched several pipelines.
Balls in the Volgograd region
Full of balls (up to 2 meters in diameter) on the arctic Champa island in Franz Josef Land. However, there are also very tiny ones.
In October 2007, at a depth of 10-25 meters at the bottom of the Black Sea near Gelendzhik, the Kosmopoisk expedition found balls with a diameter of 0.7 to 1 meter. The smallest was raised and examined on the shore.
Geologists and historians have concluded that the ball was machined artificially, and on its surface one can see a "side" and an X-shaped cut. Why such balls were made, which are too large for the most gigantic powder cannons, and for the largest catapults, is unknown.
Boguchansky balls do not pretend to be the most mysterious. For over 60 years, scientists have been puzzling over their more famous and massive cousins - stone balls from Costa Rica (Central America) and other regions of South America.
Some Boguchansky balls are cut into slices.
In the forties of the last century, they were discovered by workers who cut down thickets for banana plantations. Here you come across a placer of small balls 10 centimeters in diameter, and giant "statues" of three meters, which weigh about 20 tons. The material is different - from volcanic rock to granite.
At the time of discovery, some of the balloons looked as if they had recently been brought to the site. Others were partially buried. Or barely sticking out of the ground. Several specimens were found at a depth of two meters. Nobody dug deeper. Nevertheless, the impression was created that the balls were crawling out of the bowels.
The arctic island of Champa is one of the most unique places on Earth - all dotted with strange, perfectly round stones.
Without pretending to be the ultimate truth, we can draw the following preliminary conclusion. Certainly, stones from Champa can be classified as spherical nodules. Concretions - from the Latin word concretio - accretion, thickening.
These are concretions, mineral formations of rounded shape in sedimentary rocks. The centers of such a contraction can be grains of minerals, 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, concentric-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, manganese compounds.
The formation of nodules occurs approximately like this: growths appear on the walls, which, growing towards each other, close and form various forms. On Earth, nodules are spherical, disc-shaped, less often found in the form of an ellipse or irregular - accrete.
There are as many opinions about the origin of the 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 exclude that there are still places of concentration of spherical stones on Franz Josef Land: “I would not be surprised if new expeditions report something like that. In geological terms, this corner of the planet is capable of presenting many unexpected surprises."
The proximity of mysterious civilizations and their places of worship like the pyramids naturally gives rise to supernatural hypotheses. Up to the point that the balls were made by aliens either from space or from Atlantis. Or at least under their guidance.
Indeed, on some, in fact, traces of processing are found. And inscriptions. And some of the balls from Costa Rica were originally laid out with some kind of ornaments - as if their drawings corresponded to the arrangement of the constellations.
However, now the finds have been rearranged, taken to private farmsteads and museums. And it is already impossible to restore the previous picture.
The famous researcher of the anomalous and great dreamer Erich von Daniken generally dubbed the balls "balls played by the gods." He hinted at football. Although they are more suitable for playing golf or croquet.
Champa Island, Franz Josef Land
Geologists are not very surprised at the balls. But put forward different hypotheses of their occurrence.
“The aliens, of course, have nothing to do with it,” says Aleksey Korolkov, associate professor of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Irkutsk State University. - Most likely, these are the so-called glandular nodules. They are formed during the compaction of sediments in coal deposits. In their center, organic residues, mineral or bacterial accumulations are often found, which serve as a "seed" for its growth.
Some scientists emphasize that the nodule turns into a ball and grows evenly when substances are deposited in a rock equally permeable in all directions. And the ocean floor is called the ancestral home of the balls. Like, they formed around the remains of shells, animal bones, algae in soft sediments. And they were on land when the seabed rose.
But the properties of the surrounding rock are such that the formations become discs. Or even cylinders up to several tens of meters long. Both can be easily mistaken for hand-made products. Cylinders, for example, can be counted as columns - the remains of structures that are supposedly many million years old.
Someone sees the reason for the "ball formation" in the crystallization of volcanic magma. Someone - in the filling of voids with a foreign substance - bubbles (similar to holes in Swiss cheese). And the appearance on the surface is in elementary weathering.
Stone for Hot Easter
There is a hypothesis that balls appear in the pits and folds of the stone bed of mountain rivers. They say that there the current makes the boulders rotate quickly and, over time, processes them to a round state.
Archaeologists argue with geologists. Not all balls. Some of them, perhaps, really somehow created nature. But it is unlikely that she can handle huge specimens. Especially from granite or other material with increased hardness, made with precision, available only 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 balls from Costa Rica.
“Obviously,” he wrote in the report, “the big balls were of the highest quality. And they are so perfect that measuring the diameters with a tape (in five directions) and a plumb line showed no difference.
The archaeologist found only surface irregularities of about 2 millimeters.
Scientists found objects of ancient life next to the balls. But they themselves were located away from habitats and possible manufacturing. And who and why dragged multi-ton stone spheres into the distance? Sometimes to the mountains? Riddle.
By the way, in the chronicles of Costa Rica, which have been going on since 1512, there is not a single mention of stone balls. Even if they once had a cult significance much earlier, what kind of cult was it? It is also not clear. So, while these balls remain a mystery to us.
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