From time to time, photographs of huge skeletons or giant skulls with two rows of teeth appear in print. Photos, as a rule, were taken in hard-to-reach regions of the planet by members of expeditions about which there is no information. However, some of the finds were made in Ireland or North America. Are the ancient legends about giants really documented?
Giants are found in both biblical traditions and folk tales. They are usually evil characters who prey on humans. Although scientists argue that a six-meter giant is not able to walk on two legs, some still believe that giants lived on earth, 10, 18, and even 28 meters tall …
Flood survivors
At the beginning of the sixth chapter of the biblical Book of Genesis, there are words that are often interpreted as evidence of the existence of giants born from the connection of women with fallen angels. This is how it sounds: “When people began to multiply on earth and daughters were born to them, then the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, and took them as their wives, whatever they chose. And the Lord said, My Spirit will not forever be despised by men, because they are flesh; let their days be one hundred and twenty years. At that time there were giants on earth, especially since the time when the sons of God began to enter the daughters of men, and they began to give birth to them: these are strong, glorious people from ancient times”(Genesis 6: 1-4).
God did not like this state of affairs very much. When the people created by him began to sin recklessly, he decided to take extreme measures and destroy the humanity, which had not justified expectations, with the Flood. Among all people, he found a righteous man with a family - Noah. God taught him how to build an ark ship to save his righteous family, as well as the local flora and fauna.
According to Jewish folklore, Noah took into the ark not only all of the above, but also the giant Og. Due to his size, Og did not fit inside, but sat on the roof of the ark. It is from this giant that all the tall people of antiquity went. And Og himself founded the kingdom of the Amorites in Palestine and lived up to the time of Moses. The Jews who fled Egypt destroyed both this kingdom and the king himself.
Biblical characters encountered giants in the future. Young David, who later became king of Israel, defeated a giant Philistine warrior named Goliath in battle. He was no longer as tall as his ancestors - his height was about three meters.
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Giants are known not only by the Bible, but also by other religions. The Greeks believed that the giants have a divine nature, since the blood of the inhabitants of Olympus flows in their veins. Not only the celestials themselves were giants, but also children from mixed marriages. Greek and Roman historians swore that they saw with their own eyes the skeletons of ancient giants, which were found by builders during excavation work. Pausanias, for example, described the skeleton of a giant 5.5 meters tall. Herodotus referred to a 3.5 meter human skeleton worn by the Spartans as a relic. New time has presented new finds, which many consider to be material confirmation of ancient myths. But is it?
Mysterious islands
The most piquant find of the remains of giants are artifacts of the island of Santa Catalina off the western coast of the United States. This tiny island near Los Angeles did not become part of the United States until 1840. Once there lived the Tongwa Indians, then it was conquered by the Spaniards. Then it became a staging post for smugglers, and during the gold rush, nuggets were looked for there.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Glidden family from Massachusetts moved to the island. On Catalina, they hoped to start a new, happier life. The Gliddens' son Ralph, who was at the age when he was looking for treasure, immediately became interested in Native American myths and the history of the island. He was especially attracted by archeology after the discovery by Dr. Furstenan in 1913 of the skeleton of an Indian almost 2.5 meters tall.
For almost 10 years (from 1919 to 1928) Glidden has unearthed over 800 graves. More precisely, he plundered barbarously. He dug without any scientific method, registering only the finds themselves and the coordinates where they were made. However, Glidden managed to interest local sponsors with his theory, based on Indian mythology. According to her, once in the area of the island group Chen-nel, to which the island of Santa Catalina belongs, tribes of white Indians with blue eyes, who were distinguished by very tall stature and six-fingered, lived.
Some of the 4 thousand skeletons he discovered were really impressive in size, and one even reached a length of 2.8 meters. True, nothing of Glidden's research has survived. One can only believe the accuracy of the measurements taken. As well as the fact that some of the deceased had six fingers and toes. Of some of the skeletons, nothing remained at all but ash. One day Glidden dug up an urn with ashes, around which there were 64 more skeletons. With this find, he dreamed of returning the location of the sponsors, but those were not impressed with the artifact, and they flatly refused to fund the excavations.
On the same islands, but after 30 years, cave burials were found. The skeletons from the island of Santa Rosa were about 2 meters long and had prominent frontal bones. On some turtles, strands of red hair are preserved. But the greatest bewilderment was caused by the structure of their jaws - with two rows of teeth. Since these excavations were carried out officially, information about them was included in the multivolume description of the races of the Indians of the Pacific coast of the United States.
As already mentioned, from the research of Glidden himself practically nothing remained. Only a small box kept in a local museum with several very large human bones, scanty records and photographs from the excavations. And even then she was discovered quite by accident in 2012, that is, half a century after the death of Glidden.
Irish genetics
In Ireland in 1895, the fossilized skeleton of a giant was found more than 3.5 meters tall. The circumference of the chest was about two meters, the length of the arm was almost one and a half meters. Moreover, instead of five, he had six toes on his right foot. As soon as the photographs of the find were published, a discussion broke out in the press. Some believed that the giant found once escaped from the sunken Atlantis. Others say that this is one of the giants who drowned during the Flood.
Both those and other disputants believed that giants in ancient times really existed. As proof of their case, they referred to the megalithic monuments of Ireland. Especially on the "road of the giants" located in the north of the island. True, this stretch of coast, three kilometers from the village of Bushmills, covered with amazing hexagonal basalt columns, was the result of the rapid cooling of the lava flow. Geologists quickly figured out that the "giants' road" appeared here tens of millions of years ago, of course, no giants built it.
Geneticists put an end to the dispute about the race of the Irish giants. They discovered that the inhabitants of Northern Ireland (in particular in the province of Ulster) had a long time ago a "breakdown" in the AIP gene, which led to a mutation that causes gigantism. Large and strong Irish, reaching two or more meters in height, turned out to be patients with acromegaly. Although outwardly they look absolutely healthy, life is not easy for them, and genetic disorders often lead to early death. This disease is characterized by uncontrolled growth of bones and tissues, leading to deformation of the limbs and face. Many Irish people either carry the flawed gene or suffer from acromegaly. Interestingly, all Irish people from Ulster with these problems come from one man who lived about 2,500 years ago.
Six-fingered, like acromegaly, is also inherited. In some cases, if two genetic mutations existed at the same time, they passed from generation to generation. And not only in Ireland, but all over the world. So the giants existed and continue to exist. It's just about size. If the skeleton of a giant up to three meters tall can be believed and explained by problems with genetics, then photographs of skeletons five or more meters tall are outright fakes.
Nikolay KOTOMKIN