00:00Imagine that you have booked an excursion in the jungles of Costa Rica.
00:05Suddenly, you come across a huge sphere of stone,
00:09whose diameter is almost 2 meters.
00:12How the hell did it get there and what does it symbolize?
00:16You immediately ask your guide.
00:18He is not as surprised as you,
00:20and explains to you that there are in fact several hundred scattered in the south of the country.
00:27These mysterious spheres of stone have no official name.
00:31The inhabitants simply call them Las Bolas,
00:34which means ball in Spanish,
00:36while historians call them the spheres of Iquis,
00:40from the name of the culture that produced them.
00:42Scientists have studied the layers of sediment of the earth that surrounds them,
00:46and estimate that the oldest have been made around the year 600 of our era,
00:51and that the most recent date from the year 1000 of our era.
00:54Many spheres have been moved after their initial discovery,
00:57which is why archaeologists find it difficult to date them precisely.
01:03The culture of Iquis completely disappeared shortly after its discovery by the Spaniards, in the 16th century.
01:09Unlike the Maya and the Aztecs,
01:12the myths and legends of these peoples have not survived,
01:16and therefore cannot explain the existence of these mysterious spheres.
01:21More than 300 of these balls have been discovered to this day,
01:25some measuring less than 2.5 centimeters in diameter,
01:29the largest measuring up to 2 meters in diameter,
01:32higher, therefore, than most humans.
01:35Although some spheres are made of limestone,
01:37most of them have been sculpted in a variety of basalt,
01:41a type of rock that forms when the lava cools quickly.
01:45Some spheres weigh up to 15 tons,
01:48and, in most cases, their surface is smooth to the touch,
01:52although there are rougher pieces, generally unfinished.
01:57If we ignore the theory that the fluvial erosion would have naturally sculpted these balls,
02:02it seems that it was ancient men who created them by hammering blocks of stone with other stones.
02:08Once the approximate shape obtained,
02:10they polished the rock to perfection using techniques such as controlled fracture and milling.
02:16These mysterious spheres are located in the Dikis Delta, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.
02:22Most of them were discovered in a place called Farm 6,
02:26which, along with three other sites, was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014.
02:32The area contains other discoveries from the pre-Columbian era,
02:36such as paved spaces, funerary sites and mounds.
02:41For centuries, stone balls have been hidden under a thick layer of sediment
02:46that protected them from elements and pillars until they were discovered in the 1930s.
02:52The landowner's company was clearing the tropical forest to install banana trees
02:58when it came across these strange stone works.
03:01Some were damaged by bulldozers,
03:04others by workers who tried to open them, thinking they contained gold.
03:09It took some time before the authorities intervened
03:12to prevent the discoveries from being further damaged.
03:15Doris Stone, the daughter of a member of the landowner's company,
03:19was the first to study the spheres.
03:21In 1943, she published an article in a leading American archaeological journal,
03:27thus drawing the attention of the whole world to the balls.
03:31Expeditions quickly followed,
03:33and archaeologists were immediately able to determine that the stone formations
03:37were of human origin, probably created by the ancient indigenous population of Costa Rica.
03:42To this day, no one has been able to scientifically explain their function.
03:47This means that there is still room for the craziest theories
03:51about the origin and true purpose of the spheres.
03:56The most popular theory in the scientific community
03:59is that these spheres were used for decoration and social symbols,
04:03because many of them were found near the dwellings of tribal chiefs.
04:08These same chiefs were also buried with some of the smallest balls.
04:12These sculptures were therefore certainly associated with power in one way or another.
04:17Sizzling a block of stone perfectly required a lot of work and planning,
04:22and only powerful individuals could afford such orders at the time.
04:27The other most widespread theory is that the balls were used for astronomical observation.
04:32The individual spheres represented stars or planets,
04:35forming a primitive map of the night sky.
04:38As they were perfectly round, it was easy to make them roll.
04:42Before the jungle swallowed them, the region where they were discovered
04:47was a flat alluvial plain, ideal for rolling large stones.
04:51Another version of this theory suggests that the stones were used as border markers,
04:57a bit like modern terminals, which are also mainly made of stone.
05:02Finally, the legends of other tribes living in the region
05:07tell that the spheres were cannonballs that the divinity of thunder used
05:12to chase away the divinity of winds and hurricanes.
05:16We still do not know the primary function of the spheres of Costa Rica,
05:20but they remain an important element of the national identity of the country.
05:24The National Museum of San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, has six in its courtyard.
05:29Many other spheres have become garden decorations,
05:33very popular with the wealthiest inhabitants.
05:35There is even one at Harvard University.
05:38More than a millennium after their creation,
05:41the mysterious spheres of Costa Rica are still associated with power and wealth.
05:47In mathematical terms, the spheres of stone are not quite round.
05:51It is estimated that they are almost perfect, approaching the shape of a sphere at 96%.
05:57Although this figure is impressive, the spheres of Costa Rica are not the only of their kind.
06:04Nearly ten years ago, workers discovered mysterious giant spheres of stone
06:09in the depths of a coal mine in northern Asia.
06:12The surface of these spheres, which measured a little more than the length of a human foot in diameter,
06:17was exceptionally smooth.
06:19And people looked at the question to try to understand what it was.
06:23Some were convinced that the balls came from another world,
06:27while others suggested that they were actually petrified dinosaur eggs.
06:32Scientists quickly put an end to the discussion.
06:35It turned out that the mysterious spheres were actually concretions.
06:40These are rock formations that take millions of years to form in the depths of the subsoil.
06:45Think of a rock that amasses snow by unveiling a hill.
06:49This is how concretions are formed.
06:52Underground water, rich in sediments and minerals,
06:55flows around the concretion, slowly shaping it into a perfect orb.
06:59This process is quite common in nature, but in general the concretions are quite small.
07:05The spheres found in the coal mine had reached this size in a soil rich in minerals,
07:11and they were large enough to interest the press and the general public.
07:16Another possible case of concretions is that of the imposing spheres of stone
07:20found in the Visoko Valley, in Bosnia.
07:24Semir Osmanagic, nicknamed the Indiana Jones Bosniak,
07:28was the first to study these objects whose width is equivalent to that of a London bus.
07:34He thinks that these stone balls were sculpted by a lost civilization
07:39that lived in the region a thousand years ago.
07:42The reddish color of the orbs proves, however, that these are indeed concretions.
07:47Rich in iron.
07:49The Moki Marbles, discovered in rural Utah,
07:52have a color similar to that of the Bosnian spheres.
07:55These tiny concretions, the size of a ball,
07:58are made up of a grey core and a dematite shell, an iron ore.
08:04In South Africa, miners discovered the spheres of Klerksdorp,
08:08whose shape and size are similar to those of the Moki Marbles.
08:12The only difference is that these are formed inside sediments and volcanic ash.
08:20Among the small spheres created by man,
08:22the most intriguing are probably those found on certain Greek islands.
08:27Scientists have discovered 700 smaller stones
08:30than golf balls near the site of the Bronze Age in Akrotiri, on the island of Santorin.
08:36They think that these objects are between 3,600 and 4,500 years old.
08:42By comparing all the variations in size and color of these enigmatic stones,
08:47archaeologists have concluded that they could have been part of the oldest game of society ever made.
08:54With the help of artificial intelligence,
08:57scientists are now trying to understand the rules of this game.
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