The Stone Spheres of Costa Rica are a collection of over 300 perfectly spherical stone balls, ranging in size from a few centimeters to over two meters in diameter, that were discovered in the jungles of Costa Rica in the 1930s. The purpose and origin of the spheres remains a mystery, as they were likely created by indigenous peoples in the region thousands of years ago. Let's talk about this mystery and possible explanations. + You can mention other similar mysteries of Costa Rica (Las Bolas artifact, Boruca Dragon, etc) Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music by Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
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00:00Imagine you've booked a tour through the jungles of Costa Rica.
00:04All of a sudden, you stumble upon a huge stone sphere,
00:08nearly the length of a king-sized bed in diameter.
00:11How on earth did it end up there?
00:14And what does it symbolize?
00:15You immediately ask your guide.
00:17He's not as amazed as you are,
00:19and tells you that there are actually several hundreds of them
00:23scattered across the south of the country.
00:27The mysterious stone spheres don't have an official name.
00:31The locals simply call them Las Bolas,
00:34which means balls in Spanish,
00:36while historians refer to them as Diquis spheres
00:39after the culture that produced them.
00:41Scientists have studied the sediment layers of the earth around them
00:45and estimate that the earliest were made around the year 600 CE,
00:50and the newest ones date to the year 1000 CE.
00:53Many of the spheres were relocated after their initial discovery,
00:57and that's why archaeologists can't date them precisely.
01:02The Diquis culture completely disappeared
01:05shortly after they were discovered by the Spanish in the 16th century.
01:10Unlike the Mayas and the Aztecs,
01:12the myths or legends of these peoples didn't survive,
01:16so they cannot explain the existence of the mysterious orbs.
01:20More than 300 of these objects have been discovered so far,
01:24with some being smaller than 1 inch in diameter,
01:27and the largest measure 6.6 feet in diameter,
01:31standing taller than most humans.
01:33Although there are ones made from limestone,
01:36most spheres were carved out of a coarse version of basalt,
01:40a type of rock that forms when lava cools rapidly.
01:44Some orbs weigh up to 15 tons,
01:47and in most cases, their surface is smooth to the touch,
01:52although there are coarse, mostly unfinished pieces.
01:57If we throw away the theory
01:58that river erosion naturally sculpted the spheres,
02:01the ancient people seem to have created them
02:04by hammering boulders with other rocks.
02:07Once they got the rough shape they were aiming for,
02:09they would polish the rock to perfection
02:12using techniques such as controlled fracture and grinding.
02:15The mysterious spheres are located in the Diquis Delta
02:19on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.
02:21Most of them can be found in a place called Farm 6,
02:25which, alongside three other sites,
02:27was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014.
02:32The area contains other finds from the pre-Columbian era,
02:36such as paved areas, burial sites, and mounds.
02:41For centuries, the stone balls were hidden
02:44under a thick layer of sediment
02:46that protected them against the elements and looters
02:49until they were unearthed during the 1930s.
02:52The company that owned the land
02:54was clearing the rainforest for banana plantations
02:57when they stumbled upon these unusual stone constructions.
03:01Some were damaged by bulldozers
03:03and some by workers trying to pry them open,
03:06as they believed there was gold hidden inside.
03:09It took a while before the authorities intervened
03:11to stop further damage to the finds.
03:14Doris Stone, the daughter of an executive
03:16of the company that owned the land,
03:18was the first to study the spheres.
03:20In 1943, she published an article
03:23in a leading American archaeological journal
03:26turning the world's attention to the orbs.
03:30Expeditions soon followed,
03:32and archaeologists were immediately able to determine
03:35that the stone formations were human-made,
03:38probably created by the ancient indigenous population
03:41of Costa Rica.
03:42To this day, no one has been able
03:44to fully explain their function in a scientific way.
03:48It means there's still room for some wild theories
03:51about the spheres' origins and true purpose.
03:56The most popular theory in the scientific community
03:59is that the stone spheres served as decorations
04:02and status symbols,
04:03as many of them were found near the houses of chieftains.
04:07Local tribal leaders were also laid to rest
04:10with some of the smaller balls,
04:12so these stone formations were definitely associated
04:15with power in some way.
04:17Chiseling a boulder to perfection
04:19involved a lot of labor and planning,
04:22and only powerful individuals could afford it at the time.
04:27The other popular theory is that the boulders
04:29were used for astronomical observations.
04:32Individual spheres represented stars or planets,
04:35like a primitive map of the night sky.
04:38Since they were perfectly round,
04:40it was easy to roll them around.
04:42Before the jungle engulfed them,
04:44the area where they were found was a flat alluvial plain,
04:48ideal for rolling large boulders around.
04:51Another version of this theory suggests
04:53that the stones were used as boundary markers,
04:56much like modern border stones,
04:59which are also mostly made from stone.
05:03Finally, legends from other tribes that lived in the area
05:06tell of how the spheres were cannonballs
05:09that the deity of thunder used
05:11to drive away the deity of winds and hurricanes.
05:15We still don't know the original purpose
05:17of the Costa Rican spheres,
05:19but they remain an important part
05:21of the country's national identity.
05:23The National Museum in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose,
05:27has six of them in its courtyard.
05:29Many other spheres have become prized garden decorations
05:33for wealthy Costa Ricans.
05:35There's even one at Harvard University.
05:37More than a millennium after they were created,
05:40the mysterious stone spheres of Costa Rica
05:43are still associated with power and wealth.
05:47In terms of numbers,
05:49the stone orbs are not perfectly round.
05:52They are rated as nearly perfect at 96% spherical in shape.
05:57And while even that is pretty impressive,
05:59the spheres of Costa Rica are not the only ones of their kind.
06:05Nearly a decade ago,
06:07workers came across mysterious giant stone spheres
06:10deep underground in a coal mine in northern Asia.
06:14The surface of the spheres,
06:15which measured a little over the length
06:17of a human footstep in diameter,
06:19was unusually smooth,
06:21and people tried to explain it somehow.
06:23Some were certain they were out of this world,
06:26and others suggested the spheres
06:28were actually petrified dinosaur eggs.
06:32Scientists quickly put an end to further discussion
06:36as it turned out that the mysterious spheres were concretions.
06:40Those are rock formations
06:41that take millions of years to form deep underground.
06:45Think of a pebble that picks up snow
06:47as it rolls down a hill.
06:49That's how concretions are made.
06:52Groundwater, rich in sediment and minerals,
06:54flows around the sediment,
06:56slowly shaping it into a perfect orb.
06:59The process is quite common in nature,
07:02but most concretions are fairly small.
07:05The spheres found in the coal mine
07:07grew to their size in the mineral-rich ground,
07:10and they were big enough to get the press
07:12and the general public interested.
07:15Another possible case of concretions
07:18is the massive stone spheres
07:20found in the Visoko Valley in Bosnia.
07:23Samir Osmanagish,
07:25better known as the Bosnian Indiana Jones,
07:28was the first to explore those objects
07:30about as wide as the length of a London bus.
07:34He believes the stone spheres
07:35were carved by a lost civilization
07:38that lived in the area a thousand years ago.
07:41The reddish color of the orbs, though,
07:43is proof to geologists
07:44that they are indeed concretions,
07:47rich in iron content.
07:50The Moki marbles, found in rural Utah,
07:54are similar in color to the Bosnian spheres.
07:57These tiny concretions are the size of toy marbles
08:00and consist of a sandstone core
08:02and a shell made out of hematite, an iron ore.
08:06In South Africa,
08:07miners have come across Klerksdorp spheres,
08:11which are similar in shape and size to Moki marbles.
08:15The only difference is that these ones
08:17formed inside volcanic sediments and ash.
08:22The most intriguing among human-made tiny spheres
08:25are probably the orbs found on several Greek islands.
08:29Scientists discovered 700 stones smaller than golf balls
08:33near the Bronze Age site of Akrotiri
08:36on the island of Santorini.
08:38They believe that the finds
08:40were between 3,600 and 4,500 years old.
08:46When they compared all the stones' variations
08:49in size and color,
08:50the archaeologists concluded
08:52that these enigmatic stones
08:54could have easily been
08:56the oldest board game ever made.
08:59With the help of artificial intelligence,
09:01scientists are now trying to work out
09:03the rules of this game.