Mysterious Stone Spheres of Costa Rica

I found this card, it is part of a set, A Series of 40 Unexplained Mysteries of the World. This one is card No. 3.

A Series of 40 Unexplained Mysteries of the World

No. 3

The mysterious giant granite spheres of Costa Rica were first studied in the 1940s by American archaeologist, Dr Samuel Lothrop, of Harvard University. They were originally found in the 1930s when a forest was cleared for a banana plantation. At least four centuries old, they range from a few centimetres in diameter to over two metres and weigh over 16 tonnes.

Many of them are almost perfectly smooth, obviously man-made by skilled artisans using templates. Who made the spheres, and why, remains an unsolved mystery.

Photograph: Tony Morrison

A Series of 40 Unexplained Mysteries of the World

No. 3

Save your 40 picture cards in a special album. Just send 2 x 20p coins plus your name and address to: Brooke Bond Picture Card Dept., PO Box 216, Croydon CR93TA

Over three hundred stone spheres have been found in Costa Rica. These aren’t geodes. These are spheres sculpted from rock.

They call them Las Bolas, which means The Balls or the Diquís Spheres, because they are believed to have been created by the pre-Columbian indigenous Diquís people.

Sculpted rock spheres have been found in other countries.

Some have been found in Europe, India, Chile, Mexico and the United States.  But, Costa Rica’s granite spheres unique.  They are nearly perfect spheres with very smooth sides.

Most of these mysterious stone spheres are sculpted of gabbro. Gabbro looks a lot like granite, but it isn’t. There is no quartz. Gabbro is a dark, medium to coarse grained intrusive igneous rock of white calcium plagioclase, black pyroxene and/or hornblende, and sometimes olivine.

Some spheres have been found that are made of sedimentary calcium carbonate limestone with shell fossils.

Some others are made of sedimentary sandstone.

The spheres are as small as four inches to as large as eight feet. They weigh up to 15 tons. And most are perfectly formed.

Some have sophisticated petroglyphs in high and low relief, like the ones in the photo.

They are often grouped. Twenty or more stone spheres are found aligned in geometric patterns, triangles, rectangles or straight lines. And the patterns often point to the earth’s magnetic north.

The spheres are found in different places. Some are found in the Diquis River Delta.

Others are in the south, near Palmar Sur, Buenos Aires, and Golfito.

Stone spheres are also north in the province of Guanacaste and in the central valley.

Spheres have even been found on Caño Island, about 12 miles off the Pacific coast.

Some of the stone spheres were broken open, to see if there was anything inside.

Over 300 spheres have been cataloged, but it is difficult to count them. Many have been used as ornaments.

There are probably more still undiscovered.

How were they made?

We can guess, but we will never really know. They seem to date to the pre-Columbian indigenous Diquís people. No written language has ever been discovered.

We know they were skilled sculptors. Statues from the Diquís culture demonstrate their proficiency.

They were skilled gold smiths.

The spheres appear to have been made by hammering boulders with rocks, then polishing them with sand until they were smooth spheres.

Although they seem to be perfect, some are more perfect than others.

The spheres made of gabbro come from a quarry up in the hills 25 to 30 miles from the Diquis River Delta. Some unfinished spheres are still there.

How were they moved? Some spheres weigh over 16 tons!  If a stone sphere that size was moved before it was sculpted, they would need to move a nine foot rock to make an eight foot sphere. That would weigh over 24 tons! If they were made on location, how did they roll the balls as far away as they can be found? It’s a mystery.