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 has been exciting the minds of researchers.
Scientists have not come to a single version, discussing both the natural processes that could have resulted in the formation of the balls, and some highly developed civilization capable of technologically processing the stone. True, what these round stones were used for in this case is also unclear.
How the stone balls were found
Workers came across a mysterious discovery while clearing the jungle for banana plantations in 1930. More than three hundred stones shared an obvious similarity - perfect round form And smooth surface. The size of the spheres varies - from a few centimeters to a couple of meters in diameter, respectively, and the weight of the largest ones is quite impressive - about 20 tons. When flying over the area on an airplane, it turned out that most of the stones were located in a strict order, forming clear geometric shapes.
The workers, assuming that there might be a gold treasure hidden inside, immediately began sawing up the finds until the company management stopped the vandalism. However, several years later, less than a dozen balls remained in place - the rest were taken to museums, public buildings and for souvenirs. Today, stone balls decorate courtyards, archaeological collections, parks and squares.
In total, more than 300 round boulders were discovered 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 was immediately divided into two directions: natural or human. The second version is confirmed by obvious 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 on the American continent (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 forms is possible, and their subsequent rise to the surface is not excluded in areas subject to severe weathering. Where such processes are not observed, the spheres remain underground. Required condition– significant temperature changes, and traces of them were 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 arranged in 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 make it easier to work with the stone, it was repeatedly heated and cooled, the excess was peeled off, and then trimmed with a hard tool. The finished sphere was placed on a base and ground/polished with abrasive and probably leather.
However, many questions remain unanswered. What tools did the supposed craftsmen use? How were huge stones moved across terrain, sometimes tens of kilometers through jungles and swamps? Why and on what basis were they placed in groups?
Perhaps the riddle would have been easier to solve if the balls had remained in their original places. But by the beginning of the research they had all been moved, information about their exact locations is unreliable, and the time of their appearance has not been established.
Suggestions that the groups of stones were prototypes of astronomical observatories or religious buildings are discussed, but suffer from a lack of factual evidence. From the same area are the ideas that these are the cores of ancient military weapons, landmarks for starships, or even just architectural decoration.
Thus, the American researcher I. Zapp linked 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 traces of high-tech guests who set up spaceports for themselves here. 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.
In the small Central American republic of Costa Rica in the late 40s of our century, an interesting discovery was made. Workers who were cutting down dense thickets of tropical jungle for banana plantations suddenly came across some strange stone sculptures of the correct spherical shape.
The largest of them reached a diameter of three meters and weighed almost 16 tons. And the smallest ones did not exceed the size of a handball ball, 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 usually distributed in groups of three to forty-five.
But the most amazing thing happened next. Costa Rican scientists, interested in the stone balls, decided to look at the discovery site from above, from a helicopter. The helicopter rose above the jungle - and suddenly a page from a geometry textbook, stretching for tens of kilometers, seemed to float underneath it. The strings of balls formed into giant triangles, squares, circles... They lined up in straight lines, precisely oriented along the north-south axis... The thought immediately comes to mind that these balls were made and laid by very skillful people. But when and for what purpose were they erected? What tools did the ancient craftsmen use 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 precise geometric shapes from them? Of course, it remains a mystery how these multi-ton huge balls were delivered through the jungle and swamps from quarries located several tens of kilometers away from the place of discovery. Unfortunately, most of these questions have not been answered satisfactorily.
Immediately after the discovery of the balls, archaeologists began intensive excavations. Suddenly, an incredible fact arose before them: apart from stone spheres, in this area there was not a single object indicating the presence of a person ever here. No tools for working stone, no shards, or bones were found. Nothing!
When a void appears in knowledge, a mass of hypotheses immediately appears that seek to fill it. Let's look at some of them.
Hypothesis 1. The balls are arranged like a model of a certain constellation. It is possible that these bizarre stone mosaics of 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 existed a highly developed civilization - the predecessor 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 throwing weapons of exceptional power. Stone balls are just "projectiles" scattered on the battlefield. Maybe it wasn’t even a battle, but military exercises (maneuvers) were taking place here; a huge field is a kind of training ground for throwing weapons.
Hypothesis 3. Proponents of this hypothesis, which was one of the most widespread, argued that guests from other cosmic worlds chose this particular place for their permanent cosmodrome. In this regard, the huge spheres that captured the imagination of earthlings are located in the form of boundary lines because they performed a function similar to the current landing strips of airfields.
Some archaeologists believed that under the balls there could be some kind of capsules with messages from our alien brothers in mind, left by them when they finally decided to leave our planet. Naturally, projects arose for raising the balls and conducting 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 interested in history and archeology told American scientists that he had discovered the same balls in the mines as in Costa Rica, but significantly more large sizes. In his opinion, they were made by the Aztecs. This sensational statement had the effect of a bomb exploding. Then, on the Acqua 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 the Costa Rican ones. Now there was almost no doubt: traces of some unusual and incomprehensible civilization had been found.
One of the balls was discovered near a smooth stone platform. And immediately an assumption: perhaps it served as an altar? Again labor-intensive excavations. Thousands of tons of soil are transferred - and again nothing! No traces of material culture. The mystery became even murkier.
Unlike modern scientists, the ancients understood everything: what the balls were and how they appeared... The gods of the ancient Mexicans, for example, loved playing ball. But if people played with an elastic rubber ball, then the gods tossed stone balls. In those places where the gods competed, scatterings of stone balls remained different sizes- from a few centimeters to three meters in diameter...
A large number of balls were discovered in the Jalisco region near the city of Aulaluco de Mercazo in Mexico, in Palmar Sur in Costa Rica, in the Los Alamos area and in the state of New Mexico (USA). It should be noted that all these areas are characterized by active volcanic activity...
To conclude the conversation about the archaeological expedition that carried out research in Guadalajara, it must be said that in the end it was lucky. Just to be on the safe side, several scientists from other specialties took part in it: geologists, geophysicists and geochemists. Ignoring the just anger of archaeologists, they mercilessly destroyed two balls and established that the stone spheres had nothing in common with either aliens, or the Aztecs, Incas or Mayans... The balls turned out to be of natural origin.
Apparently, 25-40 million years ago, several dozen volcanoes suddenly awoke in Central America. Their eruptions caused catastrophic earthquakes. Lava and hot ash covered vast areas. In some places, glassy particles ejected from the volcanoes began to cool. They were the embryos of giant spheres. Around these nucleoli, surrounding particles of eruption products gradually began to crystallize. Moreover, crystallization proceeded 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 the natural influences of factors such as water, wind and rain, which washed away the ash and soil day after day. Thanks to this, over time, the “whitened” stone balls ended up on the surface. For example, it has been established that in areas of the Earth with large daily temperature differences (fluctuations), ordinary weathering, called exofolization, “works” very effectively. In this case, the rocks are destroyed spontaneously according to the “falling husk” type, that is, the outer layers of the rock formation are gradually separated, like the husk of an onion, which ultimately 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 discovery of such fused balls confirmed the scientists’ guess.
Thus, not some unfounded assumption appeared to explain the origin of the stone balls, but a completely substantiated 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 the stone balls has ceased to exist, but not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance...
Firstly, as it turned out, there are two types of balls - obsidian and granite. If the theory of volcanic origin for the former 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 were people armed only with stone tools able to do this? Obsidian balls created by nature most likely served as models for the Mayans (who, naturally, did not doubt the divine origin of the first balls), and skilled craftsmen carved giant balls from blocks of granite, worthy of being both the amusement of the gods and the subject of human worship, and perhaps they and were used in one form or another human activity. Thus, H. Kink in the book “How the Egyptian Pyramids were Built” indicates: “At the foot of the Djoser pyramid, many stone balls with a diameter of 12 to 19 centimeters were found, and the diameter of some of them reaches 40 centimeters. These specially made stone balls were used as rollers for dragging large boulders..."
And yet, how, 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 these are special signs? Who, for whom and why scattered them “all over the world”? There are no answers to these and many other questions yet.
STONE BALLS OF COSTA RICA
Photo by Connor Lee (GNU Free Documentation License). Stone ball in the courtyard of the capital's National Museum
One of the greatest mysteries of pre-Columbian America is 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, were found in the Diquis area of Palma Sur, near the Pacific coast of southern Costa Rica. They are primarily made from granodiorite, an igneous rock similar to granite. However, a few examples are carved from shell rock, a type of limestone consisting primarily of shells and their fragments.
People first started talking about spheres in the 1930s, when the United Fruit Company cleared the jungle for banana plantations and other fruit plants. Company workers discovered the objects and, remembering a local legend about spheres covering golden cores, tried to crack them open 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 the 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 Yalaka area, where they were located, but they were transported somewhere. Several spheres were also discovered in Pacific Ocean on Cano Island, 12.5 miles southwest. This confirms the theory that several hundred such stones were once created. Since the 40s of the XX century. balls began to be transported - they were often 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. It is known that today only six stones remain where they were discovered.
Scientific analysis of Costa Rican stone balls has been going on for more than 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 stones found by fruit company workers and later became director of the National Museum of Costa Rica and published her work in American Antiquity magazine in 1943, including five maps of the area on which 44 stone balls were placed. According to Stone's assumption, these spheres could be cult statues, tombstones, or were elements of some kind of calendar. Lothrop's publication in 1963 also contained maps of the places where spheres were discovered, data comparative analysis pottery and metal artifacts found nearby related to the stone balls, as well as many photographs and drawings depicting the spheres, data on their sizes and notes on the location of the balls.
Later, in the 50s of the 20th century, archaeological excavations were carried out, 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 carried out regularly, but the most thorough excavations were carried out in 1990–1995. conducted by archaeologist Iphigenia Quintanilla from 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 man-made remains a matter of considerable debate. Some geologists claim that the stones are of natural origin. They put forward a theory that magma rising into the air after a volcanic eruption settles into a hot, ash-covered valley, then the magma balls cool and form spheres. According to another version, granite blocks were placed in specially dug holes at the bottom of a huge waterfall and, under the influence of the flow of falling water, gradually acquired an almost ideal 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, is not found in this area. Deposits of this rock are located in the Talamanca mountain range, approximately 50 miles from the discovery site. Archaeologist Iphigenia Quintanilla, during field research, established the source of the raw material: she found boulders that can be called unfinished examples of stone spheres. During the excavations at Quintanilla, fragments of the balls were also found, which made it possible to reconstruct the method of their creation. Thus, in order to give the stones a rounded shape, they most likely did this: first, a boulder of approximately round shape was alternately exposed to heat and cold until cracks appeared in the rock, then the surface was leveled using heavy stone sledgehammers, probably made from 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 inches ±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 ideal: the diameters of some differ by 5 cm from the parameters of a regular sphere. It is also unclear how the inhabitants of pre-Columbian America transported and installed them in the right places. Such skills indicate a highly developed culture and a well-organized community (although if the stones were carved directly from a quarry in the mountains, rolling the balls down would not be difficult).
The question of who created these mysterious spheres and why is more difficult task. According to archaeological data, the balls were carved during two periods. The earlier of these, the Aguas Buenas period (100-500 AD), only a few balls date back to. Most of the stone spheres in the lowlands of the Terraba River were created in the second period - the Chiriqui (800-1500). However, this does not help in any way 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 for the ancient worldwide electrical network. However, without concrete evidence, this theory is groundless and seems as mythical as the legend that local residents had a potion that could soften rocks. Authors of the book “Atlantis in America: Navigators ancient world" (1998) Ivar Zapp and George Erickson argued that the spheres were created as navigational tools of a highly advanced ancient race of seafarers, a race that inspired the Greek philosopher Plato to write about the lost land of Atlantis. According to this theory, the spheres would have been close enough to the coast to be visible to seafarers, which is not their original location. In addition, this version assumes the accuracy of the placement of the balls, which cannot be said about the specimens that remained unmoved.
It is not certain why these objects were created. This is especially difficult to find out because most of the spheres have been transported to other places. This issue is important because the placement of the balls likely played an important role in the lives of the people who created them. Taking into account the currently known data, the most plausible assumption is that the spheres were some kind of marks, perhaps boundaries land plots or symbols of social status. It is also worth paying attention to the fact that initially many of the balls were placed in such a way that each place corresponded to the position of the Sun, Moon and all the planets known at that time. There was even a theory that they reflected the whole solar system. In the 40s of the 20th century, while studying the balls, Lothrop noticed that some of them had rolled down from nearby hills where there had once been homes. Perhaps the balls were once located in the center of settlements, on the tops of hills. In this case, they could not be used in astronomy and, of course, in navigation. Most likely, over more than a thousand years of history, the spheres performed many functions that changed over time. An interesting version is that the labor-intensive production of balls could itself be an important ritual process. Moreover, it played the same role (and maybe even more significant) as, in fact, its result.
Since the balls were discovered in Costa Rica, they have been subject to constant harmful effects temperature changes, suffer from rain and are periodically exposed to fires. In 1997, land management services began to be created to protect sacred places and landscapes around the world. In 2001, with the assistance of various government agencies, the National Museum of Costa Rica began transporting the balls from San Jose through a high mountain range to the places where they were discovered. Currently they are protected in storage, but when the cultural center is built, the balls will be placed there and can be seen in the very places where they were originally located in the Diquis River delta.
Archaeologists still find balls in the muddy sediments of the Diquis River delta. Today, the stones can be seen in Costa Rican museums and decorate the lawns of various official buildings, hospitals and schools. Two of them were exported to the United States: one is on display at the National Geographic Society Museum (Washington, DC), and the other is in patio Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnography, Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts). Balls 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 are again performing the functions for which they were created.
Costa Rica is called a fairyland. And not only for the extraordinary beauty and natural resources of this tiny corner of the Earth, but also for the secrets that it keeps. One of them is stone spheres, rows of which are folded into giant triangles, squares, parallelograms, circles, and lined up in straight lines, some of which are precisely oriented along the north-south axis. In the 40s of the 20th century, workers of an American campaign stumbled upon them. While cutting down the primeval tropical jungle to accommodate banana plantations, they discovered stone balls in shape so close to perfection that measuring the diameters using a tape measure and a plumb line did not reveal any inaccuracies. The largest reached three meters in diameter and weighed approximately 16 tons. And the smallest ones were no larger than a child’s ball, having only ten centimeters in diameter. The balls were located singly and in groups of three to fifty pieces. They are made from granodiorite - a hard, coarse-grained rock of igneous origin, limestone or sandstone.
If this is the work of man, then, apparently, the natives possessed mathematical abilities and deep knowledge of stone processing using special tools. If we take into account the accuracy of the form, the conclusion arises that there was some mechanical processing involved. According to one theory, during work they may have used high temperatures and then cooling, after which the upper layers of the rock were removed. To top it all off, the balls could be polished with sand or leather. But, probably, the creators did not have writing, and therefore there is no information about the method of their manufacture. There are no myths or legends left about why and when these balls were made.
Archaeologists believe that the balls could have been created during different, unfortunately, not precisely established periods: 1000 years BC, in the first millennium AD, or even could have appeared more than 12 thousand years ago. This is allegedly proven by the finds of balls on the seabed, where they were installed at a time when there was still land here.
By now, almost all groups of balls have already been destroyed, as during agricultural work they were moved from their original location, which destroyed information about the archaeological contexts. The balls were rolled into ravines and gorges, or even under water on the sea coast. Some remain intact in their original locations, but many are damaged due to erosion, fires and vandalism. A certain part of the balls was destroyed by local treasure hunters, hoping to find gold in the middle.
For six decades, scientists have been trying to figure out the purpose of these balls, but they cannot yet determine for sure. Of course, there are many hypotheses that attribute these balls to completely different meaning. Some are based on the assumption of their creation as symbols heavenly bodies, in which the entire Universe is reflected or they served as airfield landing strips for aliens from other worlds, and under them there could be capsules left by aliens for future earthlings. Or maybe the balls served as boundaries dividing the lands of different tribes, or maybe they were something ritual, or they were “shells” left after exercises or battles. What if these are the balls the gods used to play football? Some publications claimed that the stones belonged to the “lost” continent of Atlantis. Others have suggested that the balls are navigational aids or that they are associated with Stonehenge or the giant heads of Easter Island.
The version of the artificial creation of balls put forward by archaeologists is rejected by geologists who consider the origin of the balls to be the result of catastrophic earthquakes, as a result of which cooled glassy particles ejected from volcanic vents formed the basis or core of their formation. Around these cores, surrounding particles of eruption products crystallized. Since crystallization proceeded evenly in all directions, balls of the correct shape gradually formed. But then several questions arise: - why do the balls have traces of leveling and grinding?
- why are they laid according to a certain pattern?
- why are they found in places where volcanic activity has not been observed? And, besides, it does not explain the appearance of some balls made of granite and shell rock.
The method of transporting the balls (or blanks for them) also remains a mystery. There are tens of kilometers from the places of supposed origin of the material for their manufacture to the places of their further location, a significant part of which is in swamps and dense thickets tropical forest. If granite was mined in 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! What powerful equipment had to be used to move such a load! And balls made from shell rock, which is found on the sea coast near the mouth of one of the rivers, indicate that the rock had to be floated 50 kilometers upstream.
Two balloons are currently on display in the United States. One is in the National Geographic Society museum in Washington, DC, the other is in the courtyard of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnography at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In Costa Rica, a significant part of the balls are used as lawn decorations and are located on the territory of the museum.
Archaeologist Doris Z. Stone, who first began to explore the mysterious spheres of Costa Rica, wrote that they belong to the incomprehensible megalithic mysteries.
It is possible that Costa Rican stone balls will be included in the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage, which will help their conservation and further study.
One of which was the discovery of mystical stones. The giant stone balls of Costa Rica became famous throughout the world after the release of the Indiana Jones movie. For science, however, the origin of these strange structures remains a mystery.
Discovery history
The archaeological site was found relatively recently - about 50 years ago. For a long time mysterious spheres were hidden in the wild impenetrable jungle. While cutting down trees for plantations in 1948, workers came across round stone sculptures. Scientists immediately became interested in the findings. Several hundred balls had various sizes: the largest ones reached 3 m in diameter and weighed almost 16 tons, the smallest ones did not exceed 10 cm. Having decided to look at the find from a helicopter height, the researchers were amazed: the balls were located in groups of 3 to 45 pieces in the form of geometric shapes. These were circles, squares, triangles, stretching for several kilometers. It immediately became clear that the balls had been placed by people, but it was unclear for what purpose, and how the stone sculptures got to this area.
Stone balls of Costa Rica. Origin theories
All balls have a precise round shape, which can only be created using measuring technology, and, therefore, spheres are the work of man. According to analyses, the age of the balls is 1500 years. During this period, Costa Rica was inhabited by Mayan tribes. Scientists are confident that the Indians used stone processing technology that is unknown to modern mankind. Excavations in the area of the finds showed that the balls were brought here through impenetrable swamps and jungles from quarries, since no tools were found nearby. Scientists have put forward a number of hypotheses trying to explain how the stone balls of Costa Rica appeared among the wild forests.
Theories of the origin of the spheres are different:
- Stone balls are arranged in the form of someone constellations . This combination was necessary for astronomical observations, helping to calculate the time of the beginning and end of agricultural work.
- Ancient civilizations had the most powerful military equipment . The balls could serve as cannonballs for throwing weapons. The geometric arrangement of the spheres may have been necessary for educational activities at the training ground.
- Some scientists believe that the stone spheres represent connection with alien beings . The demarcations in which the stones are laid out are a kind of landing strips, intended for space objects.
Manufacturing process
Scientists believe that the stone balls of Costa Rica, theories of origin of which have not yet been proven, were made from stone blocks by processing and polishing. The stone easily chips with a sudden change in temperature. To do this, the workpieces were heated with coals and then sharply cooled with water. Excess pieces were broken off by striking the stone with harder materials. When the boulders were close to completion, they were polished using sand or leather. The result is a perfect round shape. Inaccuracies were not detected even when measured using a tape measure and a plumb line. This once again proves that the Indians had good mathematical and physical knowledge in the field of stone processing.
Transportation
And the method of moving the stone spheres to the place where they were found. According to researchers, this distance was tens of kilometers through impassable swamps, rivers and forests. Without special transport, it is almost impossible to move the giant stone balls of Costa Rica weighing 16 tons. Analysis of some of the spheres showed that they were made of shell rock and limestone, which are found on the banks of the Dikvis River. This meant that heavy boulders were transported deep into the jungle upstream at a distance of 50 km. Unfortunately, the answer to these questions has not yet been found.
Scientists who made presentations to UNESCO after careful research did not come to a common opinion and could not give an exact answer as to where the giant stone balls of Costa Rica came from. Therefore, to the registry world heritage finds have not yet been entered.
