In the 1930s, workers clearing land for a plantation in Costa Rica discovered dozens of stone balls. Some of these balls were so perfectly rounded that they could only have been man-made.
The granite spheres ranged from the size of a baseball to huge balls 8 feet in diameter, weighing more than 16 tons! They became known as Las Bolas Grandes, or “the Great Balls.”
Years later, a scientist went to Costa Rica to investigate these spheres. He discovered that many of the balls had been removed from their original sites to serve as garden ornaments. Others had been broken open in the hope that they might contain treasure. It seemed that there originally may have been thousands of these granite balls in the region!
Who made these mysterious balls, and why? The stone they were made from did not come from the area where the balls were found, but from distant mountains. Huge blocks of stone had been rubbed smooth and fashioned into the shape of perfect spheres, then transported many miles. Yet even today, these 16-ton spheres are hard to move.
What purpose did Las Bolas Grandes serve? People are still discovering more of these Great Balls, and still wondering.
