The Diquís Spheres: Symbols of Power Separated from Their Original Places

Archaeologists have recovered more than three hundred nearly round stone spheres from the Diquís Delta in southern Costa Rica. Some are only a few dozen centimetres across; the largest is over two metres wide and weighs more than ten tons. They were made across many centuries, from around the first millennium of the Common Era until before the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. Many once stood beside houses, mounds, paths, or ceremonial grounds of chiefdom communities.

Their round shape sends modern viewers straight after a hidden code. The better question is why a society poured labour into objects that have no handle, no writing, and no practical use like a pot, a tool, or a weapon. Stone had to be picked out, pecked, polished, and carried to its place. A large sphere does not appear in the middle of a settlement by itself. Whoever could put one there could command masons, carriers, food, and time, and that display of command was already a statement of authority before the sphere carried any other meaning.