Erich von Daniken - Return To The Stars-pages

Page 53 of 138

Page 53 of 138
Erich von Daniken - Return To The Stars-pages

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were made. Everything that archaeologists say today in explanation of the Indian balls or sky balls, as the natives call them, is pure speculation. A local legend says that each ball represents the sun—an acceptable interpretation. But the archaeologists reject this version, because in these latitudes the sun has been represented in all ages as a golden orb, wheel or disc, and never as a ball—neither among the One thing is quite certain. The stone balls cannot have originated without mechanical help. They are perfectly executed—absolutely spherical, with smoothly polished surfaces. Archaeologists who have investigated the balls of Costa Rica confirm that none of them deviates in the slightest from a given diameter. This precision implies that the men who made them had a good knowledge of geometry and possessed the appropriate technical implements. section, unevenness and inaccuracies would inevitably have resulted because the distances to the part stuck in the ground could no longer have been checked. This primitive procedure is out of the question. The raw material must have been transported from somewhere, because there are no nearby quarries, and that alone must have been very arduous. In addition, the stone blocks must have been broken out or cut out of the rock. My conclusion is that many workers were engaged on the task for a long time and that they possessed tools which made possible such perfect stone dressing. Even if all this is accepted, it still does not explain why the finished balls were rolled to a particular site, e.g. the top of a mountain. What an absurd idea and what a tremendous expenditure of labour! However, an explanation is given, though it only seems suitable for the most superficial kind of guide- book. The gigantic balls were rolled down riverbeds. I should laugh at such naivety if the problem involved were not so serious to me. The massive heavy balls would simply have stuck in the muddy, One irritating fact which cannot have altered in the course of the ages confronts the holders of the riverbed theory. Between the granite mountains in which the material for the majority of the balls must have been quarried and the sites where the balls were found in the Diquis delta the steaming jungle extends far and wide, and the three small rivers that exist are considerable obstacles to transporting material on such a scale without deeploading lorries, cranes and special freight ships. And as if these barriers were not enough, when seen from the granite cliffs most of the balls lie on the far side of the Rio Diquis! In other words, the forwarding agents would have had to 'conjure' the material over this barrier, too. I have noticed that whenever archaeologists cannot explain gigantic feats of transport, they have recourse to the so-called ‘rolling theory’. But this is pitifully inadequate when one sees the giant balls on the tops of mountains. An expert has told me that at least twenty-four tons of raw material are needed to make a stone ball weighing sixteen tons. In view of the large numbers of balls, one can guess roughly what masses of raw material must have been moved about I had seen the miraculous world of the stone balls and convinced myself of their disturbing existence. Now I wanted to try to find the solution of this puzzle as well, but when I asked the Costa Ricans about the origin and meaning of the stone balls, I met silence and suspicion. Although visited by Incas, Mayas nor Aztecs. If the stonemasons had first buried the raw material in the earth and then worked on the protruding and in parts gravelly, riverbeds. here in the past.