Stone Spheres

The stone spheres of Costa Rica are an assortment of over three hundred petro spheres . Located at the Diquis Delta on Isla Del Caño. Locally they are known as LasBolas. The spheres are commonly attributed to the extinct Disquis culture and are sometimes referred to as the Disquis spheres. They are the best-known sculptures of theIsthmo-Colombian area.
The spheres range in size from a few centimeters to over 2 meters in diameter, and weigh up to 16 short tons. Most are sculpted from gabbro thecoarse-grained equivalent of basalt. There are a dozen or so made from shell-rich limestone, and another dozen made from sandstone.
The stones are believed to have beencarved between 200 BC and 1500 AD. However the only method available for dating the carved stones is stratigraphy, and most stones are no longer in their original locations.The culture of the people who made them disappeared after the Spanish conquest.
The spheres were discovered in the 1930s as the United Fruit Company was clearing thejungle for banana plantations. Workmen pushed them aside with bulldozers and heavy equipment, damaging some spheres. People thought there was gold there, so workmen began todrill holes into the spheres and blow them open with sticks of dynamite. Several of the spheres were destroyed. Some of the dynamited spheres are currently on display atthe National Museum of Costa Rica in San José.
Numerous myths surround the stones, such as they came from Atlantis, or that they were made as such by nature. Some locallegends state that the native inhabitants had access to a potion able to soften the rock.
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology which studies rock layers and layering.