There are many interesting historical mysteries to be found around the world. In part one of this series we looked at The Underwater Cities. Here in part two we are going to take a look at Giant Stone Spheres.
The giant spheres found in Costa Rica are more well known however it's not the only place they are found. They are found in a number of countries on different continents. I believe some are created through natural processes however others most certainly are not.
Why would people in the past produce these massive spheres?
The amount of effort it must have taken to produce the bigger stones would have been immense.
Could they all be a naturally occurring phenomenon?
Lets delve into this curious subject and see where they occur, what the 'experts' say and what theories have been put forward by alternative sources. Whatever the truth is, someone at some point in history spent a lot of time and effort creating these stones so they must have had a good reason.
THE GIANT STONE SPHERES.
Map Source
Discovered in the 1930's in the Diquis Delta of Costa Rica, the stone balls or Petrospheres number in excess of 300. Sizes range from a few centimetres in diameter up to two meters. The largest stones found thus far weigh an astonishing 16 tons!
The majority of the stones are fashioned from Granodiorite which is an igneous rock similar to granite. The date of their creation is difficult to assess and therefore the time frame is considered to be between 200BC and 1600AD. A pretty big window in my opinion.
As you would expect with something so difficult to date there are a few different theories regarding who and why they were created, let's take a look at some of the theories being thrown around and a closer look at the stones themselves.
Lets start with this article from Crystalinks.com which gives a mix of mainstream and mythical theories........
It states......
The story of the spheres' discovery began in the early 1930s as the United Fruit Company was searching new grounds for banana plantations. A disease threatened the health of their crop on the Caribbean side of the isthmus. Searching the Pacific side, they found promising land within the Diquis Valley, not far from the coast where exports could be undertaken. They moved their headquarters from Limon to Golfito.
When the United Fruit Company arrived, the town of Golfito was a simple fishing village on the eastern periphery of the Golfo Dulce. However, it was soon connected by rail line to the larger town of Palmar Sur, some eighty kilometers away.
The stone spheres came to light during early cultivation of the farmland. Most were discovered by workmen as they cleared and burned the jungle in preparation for planting. Recognizing the stones as man-made, the workmen pushed them aside with bulldozers and heavy equipment. At some point thereafter, they returned to the stone balls, and, inspired by stories of hidden gold, began to drill holes into them.
Within the drilled holes they inserted sticks of dynamite, which they would use to remove stubborn roots and stumps. Unfortunately, several of the spheres were destroyed before authorities intervened. Some of the dynamited spheres have been reassembled and are currently on display at the National Museum in San Jose.
The first scientific investigation of the spheres was undertaken shortly after their discovery by Doris Stone, a daughter of a United Fruit Co. executive. These were published in 1943 in American Antiquity, attracting the attention of Dr. Samuel Lothrop of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University. In 1948, he and his wife attempted to excavate an unrelated archaological site in the northern region of Costa Rica. The government of the time had disbanded its professional army, and the resulting civil unrest threatened the security of Lothrop's team. In San Jose he met Doris Stone, who directed the group toward the Diqu’s Delta region in the South-West and provided them with valuable dig sites and personal contacts. Lothrop's findings were published in Archaeology of the Diqu’s Delta, Costa Rica 1963.
Myths.
Numerous myths surround the stones, such as they came from Atlantis, or that they were made as such by nature. Some local legends state that the native inhabitants had access to a potion able to soften the rock. Another calls for the center of the spheres to contain a single coffee bean.
It is wrongly believed that the spheres are perfect. However they do have a surprisingly smooth surface. According to laser measurements by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the spheres were 96% perfect.
The stone spheres have been found in clusters of up to twenty, and often in geometric patterns such as triangles, rectangles or straight lines. Such alignments often point to the earths magnetic north. A large number of the spheres have been located in the Diquis River Delta, with other popular sites being the southern cities of Palmar, Sur, Buenos Aires and Golfito as well as in the province of Guanacaste to the north and in the central valley. Archaeologists have been able to date the stones by the artefacts that have been found lying alongside them. Some of them have, thus, been dated as far back as 400 BC.
The majority of them have, however, been dated between 800 and 1200 B.C.E. Many of these stones have been found near the remains of dwellings and in close proximity to grave sites. Some believed that the stones contained some hidden treasures and a few of them have been smashed to try to get at this supposed treasure. None has been forthcoming, however. Despite these losses, however, the National museum of Costa Rica has catalogued some one hundred and thirty existing stone spheres. However, many of them are not catalogued. This is because of the fact that many of the spheres have been removed from their original sites and used as ornaments in private homes, gardens and churches. Clearly, there are also many stones that still lie undiscovered.
Image Source
Just how the ancient people of Costa Rica made these perfectly cylindrical stone spheres, remains largely a mystery. It is clear that some sort of mechanical procedure was needed in order to attain the precision displayed by the stones. Statues emanating from the same period show that the ancient Costa Ricans were very skilled sculptors. The existence of gold artefacts from about 800 C.E. also show that the people living at that time were experienced at working with high temperatures. It is, therefore, believed by some researchers that the stones were moulded into their perfectly cylindrical shapes by extreme heating followed by cooling, to remove any outer layers of rock. The rocks could have been finished by polishing with sand or leather.
The larger stones were clearly crafted by the most skilled sculptors. These stones are so perfectly shaped that the tape and plumb bob measurements of diameters reveal no imperfections. This shows that the makers of the stones must have had a degree of mathematical ability as well as advanced knowledge of stone carving and the use of tools. The ancient Costa Ricans, however, had no written language. There is, therefore, no written record of just how they made the stones spheres.
Many of the spheres are made of granite like rock. Yet the granite rock quarries were often twenty five to thirty miles away from the location of the largest stone spheres. How, then, did the sculptors move such heavy stones? Some of the stones, after all weigh sixteen tons. If the granites rocks were moved before they were sculpted, then the nine foot cube that would be needed to sculpt a sphere eight feet in diameter would weigh a whopping twenty four tons. To even get such a massive stone to its final location the natives would have to cut large tracks through very dense bush.
Other stones were made of coquina, a limestone like material which is found on the beaches near the mouth of the Diquis river. This stone was probably rafted up river about thirty miles to its final location. Some of these stone spheres have been found on Cano Island, which is located about twelve miles off the Pacific coast. As to why the stone spheres were made, there are, as yet, no explanations. It is possible that they were used as a symbol of rank or importance for a tribal chief or a village. Then again, they may have been used as religious or ceremonial symbols. Perhaps further study by archaeologists will unravel the secrets of the stone spheres of Costa Rica.
There seem to be lots of if, buts and maybe's! No real answers as to by who, how and why these stones were produced. The fact they many are found in dense jungle suggests that either they were brought there or there was no jungle when they were placed there which again is interesting. Could it be that they are much, much older than scholars currently believe?
Stone is difficult to date especially when it has been moved from where it was originally quarried or placed. Further study is absolutely needed if the mystery of these stones is ever to be revealed.
I've read a number of articles regarding the Costa Rican stones however there are no definitive answers, there are plenty of theories however not a lot of evidence to back any of them up. Some have postulated that they were used for star mapping (see this article ) which the ancients certainly did, one blog even suggested they were used for games by Giants in antiquity! I like a good conspiracy theory but even for me that one is out there.
Lets move on to another part of the world where stones almost identical to those found in Costa Rica have been discovered.
In recent years there has been a lot of archeological interest in Bosnia. This is due to the discovery of potentially the world's largest pyramid. I wrote about this recently in this post - The Bosnian Pyramids.
Hundreds of stone spheres have been found laying around the countryside of Bosnia however a 2016 discovery made the mainstream press. The reason it made headlines was because it is the biggest found on earth to date with a diameter of three meters and is estimated to weigh 60tons! The pictures below are of this massive sphere, discovered by Dr Sam Osmanagic in Zavidovici just 80km north of the pyramid site.
This is just one of the many that have been discovered over a longer period of time in this area, so many in fact that a park was opened in the area in 2006. This article from Megaliths.org reveals the story of the discovery of the stones.
It reads....
The Bosnian Stone Sphere Park near the town Zavidovici, Bosnia and Herzegovina was opened in September of 2016 by the Bosnain Pyramid of the Sun Foundation in conjunction with a group of local enthusiasts who recognised the value of the stones and the need to protect them.
It is located 80 kilometres north of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun in Visok. The spheres were discovered in 1936 after a large storm caused heavy run off in the area that opened the hillside and washed out an estimated 80 stone spheres.
Some of the spheres were washed all the way to the Bosna river, but most remained in the area that is now the park. In the 1960's and 1970's many of the spheres were destroyed when a rumour circulated that they had gold inside. Spheres were also taken from the site by collectors.
It continues....
The spheres are shiny and very smooth on the outside. Materials analysis revealed that the spheres are made of the local native sandstone but contain additional materials that are consistent with binding and hardening rock used during a geopolymer casting process.
Essentially it appears that the spheres were created from powdered or melted local stone mixed with a calcium carbonate (binder) and manganese (hardener), then molded into the sphere shapes.
I'm going to quickly cut in here to say.......What?!
If this is true it shows a level of sophistication comparable to modern techniques. There must have been a specific reason to do this, the stones must have had a purpose or why make them? It would be just as easy to use this process to create statues or building blocks. Why make spheres of varying sizes?
Continuing with the article.......
Stone spheres in other parts of the world made of granite and other hard natural stones are typically 'shaped' into their spherical form. Stone spheres have discovered in 8 different locations in Bosnia and Hezegovina. The stone spheres in NE Bosnia are made of granite and those in central Bosnia are made of volcanic stone, these geopolymer spheres are the third type of material discovered.
Image Source
Again after reading a number of articles no one comes up with answer as to why these spheres were created. Could it just be coincidence that the Bosnian spheres are a stones throw pun intended from the site of the Bosnian pyramid? I suppose it could be however the stones in Costa Rica aren't that far from many pyramid complexes, remember the country borders in place now are modern when you consider the timelines, is it a stretch to think they could have been connected to the builders of the Central and South American Pyramid complexes?
The stones of Costa Rica and Bosnia appear to me to have been produced by man however it would appear the methods are different. Some scholars still claim that they were produced through a natural process called concretion however I find this hypothesis disingenuous as you will see when you compare the spheroid stones that have been formed by this process to the ones I've shown you thus far. They are formed of much weaker materials and in most case are nowhere near as close to the almost perfect spherical of the stones in Costa Rica and Bosnia.
Lets take a look at some examples to compare.
The Moeraki Boulders are found on a long stretch of beach called Koekohe Beach - New Zealand between Moeraki and Hampden. These are a great example of spherical stones formed by concretion.
There are more called the Katiki Boulders found just 19km away at Shag Point and similar boulders are found in New Zealand's north island called the Koutu Boulders. All examples of concretion however they don't look anything like as well made or perfect as the ones we've see no of far.
They are indeed a fascinating phenomena however they are natural, the pictures are evidence of that. They're spherical however not even close to the perfection seen in Costa Rica and Bosnia.
An easy to digest explanation of how these particular stones formed can be found in this article along with more pictures of the stones.
New Zealand is by no means the only place these naturally formed boulders are found. Below are a few more examples.
Not even close to the quality of the stones spheres found in both Costa Rica and Bosnia. Clearly a quirk of nature found in many places around the world.
I visited Costa Rica early this year and while I was aware of the existence of the stones I'll admit I'd never given them much thought. However when you set eyes on them you can see and feel that they are somehow different to the ones produced by the earths natural processes. The pictures alone testify to that. Sadly I'm still no closer to the answers I seek regarding these amazing sculptures. The composition of the stones in Bosnia may well be a game changer if they prove to have been made from a molded geopolymer. Stories of the ancients having the ability to 'melt' and reshape stone in Central and South America are well documented, if this is true did people in the past have the same knowledge in Bosnia? If so, where did this knowledge originate? Hopefully one day the answers will be forthcoming and another mystery from the many in our history will be solved.
Thank you for reading Mystery History.
Great work as always @tremendospercy I have to admit although I was aware of the spheres I have yet to actively research them so this post provided a wealth of information. Like yourself I'm really unsure as to what they were used for? equally I feel that they must have had some kind of purpose. Perhaps some way of mapping a scale model, circumference of the world? A way of marking certain sites? I don't know and I'm clutching at straws and scratching my head! This one has me stumped and I usually have a few ideas! One things for sure I'm certainly going to pay closer attention to these discoveries over the next few years and see if anyone comes up with some more plausable explanations. Great post!!
Thanks mate.
Yes they are intriguing and some of the hypothesis are interesting. I don't really know what to think, the material composition of the Bosnian ones threw me a bit as it appears they are a geopolymer which suggest they were created as opposed to shaped. The rumours of the ancients having the ability to melt and shape rocks in South/Central America in antiquity is a technical theory which could have been an ability available to others around the world. Who knows? There are no definitive answers as yet.
Thanks for reading and commenting buddy, welcome back.
Something is beyond imagination, you know out here in India you will get to see a lot of temples which were like 1000 years old, but their architectures are world class so that's why you actually don't know what would had happen that time :)
I've spent a fair bit of time in India and some sites are way, way older than 1000 years. Check my blog for the post about the lost city of Dwarka, that had to be constructed in extreme antiquity. QThere are many histories from around the world that are many thousands of years old however we do know what happened. Time isn't always a factor, lack of evidence is.
Yes indeed @Tremendospercy, strange indeed these " spheres " that are quite perfect and could not be possibly explained by geothermic processes that create the rock formations we aee all around us in the natural enviroment ! You know you really need to check out the talk made by David Wilcocks and Corey Goode talks ! they are utterly amazing and I believe you might find some answers to your questions within some of the imagery shown by Mr Goodes experience of being transported by Spherical forms to a destination and meeting out of this world ) check it please and get back to me !!
I will buddy. Ive seen David Wilcox a few times on a YouTube channel I watch. He is a fascinating fellow indeed.
I will mate and I'll catch up with you in Discord. I've listened to Davis Wilcox on ufoswg on YouTube, a channel he uses with Ben Fulford. I've come across Corey Goode too but not much.
Wilcocks and Goode led me to this blog:
"According to Goode, he receives his information by being teleported to alien worlds after he falls asleep on his living room couch."
re the Trump campaign:
"Tools like Deep Root drove the scaled-back TV ad spending by identifying shows popular with specific voter blocks in specific regions--say, NCIS for anti-ObamaCare voters or The Walking Dead for people worried about immigration.
Thus, entertainment and politics aren’t just linked but are inseparable."
jasoncolavito.com/blog
LOL!
The commment section on the jason colavito blog -
What is he eating, drinking, smoking, or injecting before he falls asleep on his couch? When I fall asleep on my couch all I tend to do is drop my beer on the floor, which wakes me up rather quickly. Maybe that's my problem. I wake up before the buxom women can come and teleport me to an alien world.
Now we need to find the cannon.
Haha, believe it or not I read an article that theorised that they were used in warfare in some ancient mythical alien battle!!!!
I guess they were shooting from another planet :)
Very cool that you were in Costa Rica not too long ago, would have been great if you went and saw/felt the stones when you were there! <3 They look so amazing...
They are found in a number of places, I saw a number of them. Costa Rica is a beautiful place too. The cloud forest was amazing, we had humming birds land on our fingers while feeding, that was so cool.
Cheers for checking in Lyndsay ❤️
Ooh okay I must have misunderstood, I thought you didn't see the stones, well WOOHOOO!! That's so awesome!!! xoxo
This is an amazing post TP and you've really researched this subject well. To think there was a single coffee bean in the centre of it, or attempting to blow the things up, shows that the government intervention was almost divine for preservation reasons. I don't think any of these stones were man-made, and this is a great opportunity to segue to some great theories about all 'natural' rock formations covered by this You Tube Channel. Are mountains really large pieces of natural rock? According to this researcher what we know about rocks and their formations, could all be wrong, but then who knows? I wish I had seen this at the time, but I've resteemed it and given a token vote, awesome work dude as always. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSNGpyGctY2K8Gf6ZCatXlw
Cheers dude, I wrote this in October I think and haven't posted anything until 2 days ago. I'll start back up in 2018. I have a few history pieces to do.
Cheers dude, I wrote this in October I think and haven't posted anything until 2 days ago. I'll start back up in 2018. I have a few history pieces to do.
Could all of them be related? Are they some sort of astronomical map? Are they trying to tell us something? As always very interesting post my friend. I own you the pictures of them I took some years ago. (in Costa Rica)
I think they may have been related, the Costa Rican ans Bosnian ones. I do like the starmap idea however there is no real evidence of that as they have been moved and others stolen or broken. There is one with inscriptions on it that suggest a good knowledge of the stars, however as it has been moved along with the others it's impossible to know if that was the original function.
That's true how about tribute to the 'gods' or ancient visitors.
Link of image
Those stones look cool. I like the idea of using them for gentle backbends.
A megalithic Pilates ball eh? Hey babe you may have solved the mystery!
Thanks for checking in Choo Choo 😉
Hey, it's what I do. 😁
Wow - I think I'm going to have to read that again!
Many years ago I was on a desert trip with one of the last Australian Great Explorers - Len Beadell, before he died. He took us to a series of stones he had found. They were all carved at the base and had other carved stones place around them to hold them vertical. They were all placed in a perfectly straight line across a naturally cleared area. He had been trying to find their origin but had never succeeded. He knew all the local Aboriginal tribes very well and none of them were able to explain where they came from. He never showed many people where they are and to this day the mystery continues. He navigated by the stars so was very good with directions etc. The ONE amazing fact was that the line of stones was 100% aligned to true North / South (not magnetic).
I've got an old super 8 video somewhere I might convert to digital and see if I can do post on it.
Thanks for reminding me about it with your post.
No worries mate.
The aboriginals have some fascinating stories, I wish I'd had the knowledge I have now when I lived in Australia. One story passed down tells of two brothers from Egypt that visited in antiquity and Egyptian hieroglyphs have been found in Australia also. Why would the Aboriginals make this up? I don't believe they would. Strange things happened in the past that we are just beginning to uncover. The history taught in schools can be boring which is terrible when you consider how amazing it is in reality. I hope my posts peak people's interest in the history we're not taught and look into some of the mysterious events that have shaped our world.
Good on ya buddy for reading and commenting.
All good. I see my comment came up twice? Some weird shit happening lately!
You've gone "marbles", big time!
:)
That ship sailed a long time ago buddy 😂
The answer is time traveling aliens. This answer answers almost everything mysterious, apart from the mysteries of the human mind!
Haha, you may well be right. As I've posted before there is plenty of evidence of strange Alien beings inhabiting the Earth in antiquity. If they are so advanced, time travel wouldn't be a stretch.
Haha, you may well be right. As I've posted before there is plenty of evidence of strange Alien beings inhabiting the Earth in antiquity. If they are so advanced, time travel wouldn't be a stretch.
as always @tremendospercy excellent writing. Those spheres are crazy. There is so much we don't know about our world. For all we know a civiliation even more advanced than ours could have been here many millennia ago.
Cheers my friend!
Thanks mate. I believe there was an advanced civilisation in extreme antiquity and on a worldwide scale. There have been lots of catastrophic events that have hit our planet in the distant past, multiple civilisations could have been wiped out. Many dodgy assumptions have been made by academia about the past who quite often refuse to investigate new sites or new evidence. Slowly the timelines of our history are being pushed back but sadly much of it hasn't reached mainstream teachings.
Thanks for reading and commenting buddy.
There's so many things that can't be explained, or maybe our ancestors were actually a lot more intelligent than we can imagine?
There is plenty of evidence to suggest they were way more intelligent that they have ever been given credit for. We still can't work out how many of the ancient megalithic structures were built.
Really great post Sir... up voted
Thanks dude.
Interesting
img credz: pixabay.com
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Wow - I think I'm going to have to read that again!
Many years ago I was on a desert trip with one of the last Australian Great Explorers - Len Beadell, before he died. He took us to a series of stones he had found. They were all carved at the base and had other carved stones place around them to hold them vertical. They were all placed in a perfectly straight line across a naturally cleared area. He had been trying to find their origin but had never succeeded. He knew all the local Aboriginal tribes very well and none of them were able to explain where they came from. He never showed many people where they are and to this day the mystery continues. He navigated by the stars so was very good with directions etc. The ONE amazing fact was that the line of stones was 100% aligned to true North / South (not magnetic).
I've got an old super 8 video somewhere I might convert to digital and see if I can do post on it.
Thanks for reminding me about it with your post.
I can't read things like this without thinking in Giorgio. Easy way to fix this mysteries, with one word:
I was wondering as I read this how on earth so many people were convinced that there was treasure inside the rocks that they kept blasting even though the first few thousand had nothing, but seeing the natural ones with the cracks made it make more sense (could totally hide something in cracks) XD
Ahh your stone's throw pun was terrible, maybe they got them part of the way from quarry to building/final site by trebuchet.
Really interesting stuff, I love this series :D
Do you know if they have tested them for vibrations?
nice post
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