|The stone spheres of Costa Rica||| Print ||
|Wednesday, 31 March 2010 16:27|
One of the strangest mysteries in archaeology was discovered in the Diquis Delta of Costa Rica. Since the 1930s, hundreds of stone balls have been documented, ranging in size from a few centimetres to over two meters in diameter. Some weigh 16 tons. Almost all of them are made of granodiorite, a hard, igneous stone. These objects are monolithic sculptures made by human hands.
The spheres number over 300. The large ones weigh many tons. Today, they decorate official buildings such as the Asamblea Legislativa, hospitals and schools. You can find them in museums. You can also find them as ubiquitous status symbols adorning the homes and gardens of the rich and powerful.
The stones may have come from the bed of the Térraba River , to where they were transported by natural processes from sources of parent material in the Talamanca mountains. Unfinished spheres were never found. Like the monoliths of the Old World, the Costa Rican quarry was more than 50 miles away from the final resting place of these mysteries.
Debunking the "Mystery" of the Stone Balls
by John W. Hoopes
The stone balls of Costa Rica have been the object of pseudoscientific speculations since the publication of Erich von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods in 1971. More recently, they have gained renewed attention as the result of books such as Atlantis in America- Navigators of the Ancient World, by Ivar Zapp and George Erikson (Adventures Unlimited Press, 1998), and The Atlantis Blueprint: Unlocking the Ancient Mysteries of a Long-Lost Civilization, by Colin Wilson and Rand Flem-Ath (Delacorte Press, 2001). These authors have been featured on television, radio, magazines, and web pages, where they do an incredible disservice to the public by misrepresenting themselves and the state of actual knowledge about these objects.
Although some of these authors are often represented as having "discovered" these objects, the fact is that they have been known to scientists since they first came to light during agricultural activities by the United Fruit Company in 1940. Archaeological investigation of the stone balls began shortly thereafter, with the first scholarly publication about them appearing in 1943. They are hardly a new discovery, nor are they especially mysterious. In fact, archaeological excavations undertaken at sites with stone balls in the 1950s found them to be associated with pottery and other materials typical of the Pre-Columbian cultures of southern Costa Rica. Whatever "mystery" exists has more to do with loss of information due to the destruction of the balls and their archaeological contexts than lost continents, ancient astronauts, or transoceanic voyages.
Hundreds of stone balls have been documented in Costa Rica, ranging in size from a few centimeters to over two meters in diameter. Almost all of them are made of granodiorite, a hard, igneous stone. These objects are not natural in origin, unlike the stone balls in Jalisco, Mexico that were described in a 1965 National Geographic article. Rather, they are monolithic sculptures made by human hands.
The balls have been endangered since the moment of their discovery. Many have been destroyed, dynamited by treasure hunters or cracked and broken by agricultural activities. At the time of a major study undertaken in the 1950s, fifty balls were recorded as being in situ. Today, only a handful are known to be in their original locations.
Frequently Asked Questions
by John W. Hoopes
Where are the balls found?
originally found in the delta of the Térraba River, also known as the
Sierpe, Diquís, and General River, near the towns of Palmar Sur and
Palmar Norte. Balls are known from as far north as the Estrella Valley
and as far south as the mouth of the Coto Colorado River. They have been
found near Golfito and on the Isla del Caño. Since the time of their
discovery in the 1940s, these objects have been prized as lawn
ornaments. They were transported, primarily by rail, all over Costa
Rica. They are now found throughout the country. There are two balls on
display to the public in the U.S. One is in the museum of the National
Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. The other is in a courtyard near
the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography, at Harvard University
in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
balls range in size from only a few centimeters to over two meters in
diameter. It has been estimated that the largest ones weigh over 16 tons
(ca. 15,000 kg).
all of the balls are made of granodiorite, a hard, igneous stone that
outcrops in the foothills of the nearby Talamanca range. There are a few
examples made of coquina, a hard material similar to limestone that is
formed from shell and sand in beach deposits. This was probably brought
inland from the mouth of the Térraba-Sierpe delta. (The background image
for these pages is a photograph of the surface of a stone ball in
Palmar Sur, Costa Rica.)
Lothrop recorded a total of approximately 186 balls for his 1963
publication. However, it has been estimated that there may be several
hundred of these objects, now dispersed throughout Costa Rica. It was
reported that one site near Jalaca had as many as 45 balls, but these
have now been removed to other locations.
balls were most likely made by reducing round boulders to a spherical
shape through a combination of controlled fracture, pecking, and
grinding. The granodiorite from which they are made has been shown to
exfoliate in layers when subjected to rapid changes in temperature. The
balls could have been roughed out through the application of heat (hot
coals) and cold (chilled water). When they were close to spherical in
shape, they were further reduced by pecking and hammering with stones
made of the same hard material. Finally, they were ground and polished
to a high luster. This process, which was similar to that used for
making polished stone axes, elaborate carved metates, and stone statues,
was accomplished without the help of metal tools, laser beams, or alien
The balls were most
likely made by the ancestors of native peoples who lived in the region
at the time of the Spanish conquest. These people spoke Chibchan
languages, related to those of indigenous peoples from eastern Honduras
to northern Colombia. Their modern descendants include the Boruca,
Téribe, and Guaymí. These cultures lived in dispersed settlements, few
of which were larger than about 2000 people. These people lived off of
fishing and hunting, as well as agriculture. They cultivated maize,
manioc, beans, squash, pejibaye palm, papaya, pineapple, avocado, chilli
peppers, cacao, and many other fruits, root crops, and medicinal
plants. They lived in houses that were typically round in shape, with
foundations made of rounded river cobbles.
balls are known from archaeological sites and buried strata hat have
only pottery characteristic of the Aguas Buenas culture, whose dates
range from ca. 200 BC to AD 800. Stone balls have reportedly been found
in burials with gold ornaments whose style dates from after about AD
1000. They have also been found in strata containing shreds of Buenos
Aires Polychrome, a pottery type of the Chiriquí Period that was made
beginning around AD 800. This type of pottery has reportedly been found
in association with iron tools of the Colonial period, suggesting it was
manufactured up until the 16th century. So, the balls could have been
made anytime during an 1800-year period. The first balls that were made
probably lasted for several generations, during which time they could
have been moved and modified.
Nobody knows for
sure. The balls had ceased to be made by the time of the first Spanish
explorers, and remained completely forgotten until they were
rediscovered in the 1940s. Many of the balls were found to be in
alignments, consisting of straight and curved lines, as well as
triangles and parallelograms. One group of four balls was found to be
arranged in a line oriented to magnetic north. This has led to
speculation that they may have been arranged by people familiar with the
use of magnetic compasses, or astronomical alignments. Unfortunately,
all but a few of these alignments were destroyed when the balls were
moved from their original locations, so measurements made almost fifty
years ago cannot be checked for accuracy. Many of the balls, some of
them in alignments, were found on top of low mounds. This has led to
speculation that they may have been kept inside of houses built on top
of the mounds, which would have made it difficult to use them for making
Virtually all of the known balls have been moved from their original locations, destroying information about their archaeological contexts and possible alignments. Many of the balls have been blown up by local treasure hunters who have believed nonsensical fables that the balls contain gold. Balls sitting in agricultural fields have been damaged by periodic burning, which causes the once smooth surface of the balls to crack, split, and erode--a process that has contributed to the destruction of the largest known stone ball. Balls have been rolled into gullies and ravines, or even into underwater marine locations (as at Isla del Caño). The vast majority have been transported far from their zone of origin, separating them even further from the consciousness of the descendants of the people who made these balls.