Giant people are not a legend at all. The famous Russian giantess Elizaveta Lisko Other evidence of giants

People are giants. Do you think this is a myth or reality? In the article we will analyze the findings and compare the facts, which will help solve this mystery or get very close to the result.

The existence of giants is evidenced by finds of bones of unusual sizes around the world, as well as myths and legends living mainly among American Indians. Scientists, however, have never paid enough attention to collecting and analyzing this evidence. Probably because they considered the existence of giants impossible.

The book of Genesis (chapter 6, verse 4) reads:“At that time there were giants on the earth, especially since the time when the sons of God began to come in to the daughters of men, and they began to bear children to them. These are strong people who have been famous since ancient times.”

Giant men in history

Goliath

The most famous of the giants described in the Bible is the warrior Goliath of Gath. The Book of Samuel says that Goliath was defeated by the sheep shepherd David, who later became king of Israel. Goliath, according to the biblical description, had a height of more than six cubits, that is, three meters.

His military equipment weighed about 420 kg, and the weight of the metal spear reached 50 kg. There are many stories among the people about giants who were feared by rulers and leaders. Greek mythology tells the story of Enceladus, a giant who fought Zeus, was struck by lightning, and was covered by Mount Etna.

In the fourteenth century, the skeleton of the supposed Polyphemus, the one-eyed king of the Cyclops, was discovered in Trapani (Sicily), 9 meters long.

The Delaware Indians say that in the old days east of the Mississippi there lived giant men called Alligewi who would not allow them to pass through their lands. declared war on them and eventually forced them to leave the area.

The Sioux Indians had a similar legend. In Minnesota, where they lived, a race of giants appeared, which, according to legend, they destroyed. The bones of giants are probably still in this land.

Trace of the Giant

On Mount Sri Pada in Sri Lanka there is a deep imprint of a man's foot of gigantic proportions: it is 168 cm long and 75 cm wide! Legend says that this is the trace of our ancestor - Adam.

The famous Chinese navigator Zheng He spoke about this find in the 16th century:

“There is a mountain on the island. It is so high that its peak reaches the clouds and a single imprint is visible on it. male legs. The recess in the rock reaches up to two chi, and the length of the foot is more than 8 chi. They say here that this trace was left by Saint A-Tang, the forefather of mankind.”

Giants from different countries

In 1577, huge human bones were found in Lucerne. The authorities quickly convened scientists who, working under the guidance of the famous anatomist Dr. Felix Plater from Basel, determined that these were the remains of a man 5.8 meters tall!

36 years later, France discovered its own giant. His remains were found in a grotto near Chaumont Castle. This man was 7.6 meters tall! The Gothic inscription "Tentobochtus Rex" was found in the cave, as well as coins and medals, which lead to believe that the skeleton of the Cimbri king was discovered.

Europeans who began to study South America also talked about huge people. South part Argentina and Chile were named Patagonia by Magellan from the Spanish "pata" - hoof, because tracks resembling large hooves were found there.

In 1520, Magellan's expedition encountered a giant in Port San Julian, whose appearance was recorded in the journal: “This man was so tall that we only reached him to the waist, and his voice sounded like the roar of a bull.” Magellan's men probably even managed to capture two giants, who, chained on the deck, did not survive the journey. But because their bodies stank horribly, they were thrown overboard.

British explorer Francis Drake claimed that in 1578 he got into a fight with giants in South America, whose height was 2.8 meters. Drake lost two people in this battle.

More and more researchers encountered their giants and the number of documents on the topic grew.

In 1592, Anthony Quinett summarized that the height of known giants is, on average, 3-3.5 meters.

Giant Man - Myth or reality?

When, however, Charles Darwin arrived in Patagonia in the 19th century, found no trace of the giants. Earlier information was discarded as it was considered to be greatly exaggerated. But stories of giants continued to come from other regions.

The Incas claimed, What giant people descend from the clouds at regular intervals to live with their women.

It is often difficult to tell the difference between a very tall person and a giant. For a pygmy, a person with a height of 180 cm is probably a giant. However, anyone over two meters tall should be classified as a giant.

That's exactly what he was Irishman Patrick Cotter. He was born in 1760 and died in 1806. He was famous for his height and made his living performing in circuses and fairs. His height was 2 meters 56 centimeters.

At the same time, he lived in the USA Paul Bunyan - Lumberjack, about which there are many legends. According to them, he kept elk as pets, and when he was once attacked by a buffalo, he easily broke its neck. Contemporaries claimed that Bunyan was 2.8 meters tall.

There is also a very interesting document in the English archives, namely, "The History and Antiquities of Allerdale." This work is a collection folk songs, legends and stories about Cumberland and talks, in particular, about the discovery of huge remains in the Middle Ages:

“The giant was buried at a depth of 4 meters in what is now farmland, and the grave was marked with a vertical stone. The skeleton was 4.5 meters long, and it had full armament. The sword and ax of the dead man lay near him. The sword was more than 2 meters long and 45 centimeters wide.”

IN Northern Ireland there are 40,000 closely spaced conical pillars driven into the ground with convex and concave ends, which are considered natural formations. Old legends say, however, that these are the remains of a colossal bridge that connected Ireland and Scotland.

In the spring of 1969, excavations were carried out in Italy and 50 brick-lined coffins were discovered nine kilometers south of Rome. There were no names or other inscriptions on them. All of them contained skeletons of men with a height of 200 to 230 cm. Very tall, especially for Italy.

Archaeologist Dr Luigi Cabalucci said the people died between the ages of 25 and 40. Their teeth were in surprisingly good condition. Unfortunately, the date of the burial and the circumstances under which it occurred were not established.

Where do giants come from?

So, the number of finds increased, and in different countries. But the most intriguing question is “where do they come from? giant people"remains unanswered.

French writer Denis Saurat has formulated a fascinating version. Thinking about what might have happened if something different heavenly body began to approach Earth, he concluded that the effect of such an event would be a sharp increase in the gravity of our planet.

The tides would be higher, meaning land would be flooded. Another, less well-known consequence of this state of affairs would be gigantism in plants, animals and humans. The latter would reach a height of 5 meters. According to this theory, the size of living organisms increases with increasing radiation, in this case cosmic radiation.

“Increased radiation, including cosmic radiation, probably has two effects: it causes mutations and damages or transforms tissue. Some illustration of the theory and the effect of radiation on growth may be the events of 1902 in Martinique, where Mount Pelée erupted, killing 20,000 people in St. Pierre.

Immediately before the eruption began, a purple cloud consisting of dense gas and water vapor formed over the crater of the volcano. It grew to an unprecedented size and spread throughout the island, whose inhabitants were not yet aware of the threat.

Suddenly, a pillar of fire 1,300 feet high shot out from the volcano. The fire also engulfed the cloud, which burned at temperatures above 1000 degrees. All the inhabitants of St. Pierre died, with the exception of one, who was sitting in a prison cell protected by thick walls.

The destroyed city was never rebuilt, but biological life on the island was reborn faster than expected. The plants and plants returned, but they were all much larger now. Dogs, cats, turtles, lizards and insects were larger than ever before, and each successive generation was taller than the previous one."

French authorities set up a research station at the foot of the mountain and soon discovered that mutations in animals and plants were the result of radiation from minerals released during the volcanic eruption.

This radiation also affected people: the head of the research center, Dr. Jules Graviou, grew by 12.5 cm, and his assistant, Dr. Powen, by 10 cm. It was discovered that the irradiated plants grew three times faster and reached a development level in six months. for which in normal conditions it took two years.

A lizard called a copa, which previously reached 20 cm in length, turned into little dragon 50 cm long, and its bite, previously harmless, has become more dangerous than the venom of a cobra.

The strange phenomenon of anomalous enlargement disappeared when these plants and animals were transported from Martinique. On the island itself, the apogee of radiation was reached within 6 months after the explosion, and then its intensity slowly began to return to normal levels.

Is it possible that something similar (maybe on an even larger scale) happened once in the past? Increased doses of radiation could contribute to the formation of abnormally large organisms. This theory finds some support from the fact that huge animals existed on Earth long after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

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Here is some information that recently appeared on the Internet: The Smithsonian Institution has admitted to destroying thousands of giant human skeletons in the early 1900s.

The US Supreme Court has ordered the Smithsonian to release classified documents dating back to the early 1900s, showing that the organization took part in a major historical cover-up of evidence showing that tens of thousands of gigantic human remains were found across America, and destroyed on the orders of senior officials for defending the dominant chronology of human evolution that existed at that time.

Suspicions emanating from the American Institute of Alternative Archeology (AIAA) that the Smithsonian Institution destroyed thousands of giant human remains were met with hostility by the organization, which responded by suing the AIAA for defamation and attempting to damage the reputation of the 168-year-old institution.

According to AIAA spokesman James Charward, new details emerged during the trial when a number of Smithsonian insiders acknowledged the existence of documents that allegedly prove the destruction of tens of thousands of human skeletons ranging in size from 6 to 12 feet tall (1.8-3.65 m). ;), the existence of which is traditional archeology according to various reasons doesn't want to admit it.

Let's find out more about this...

But first, let's define this topic: yes, you are right, the photos in the post are a collage and photoshop.

The turning point in the case was the demonstration of a 1.3 meter long human femur as proof of the existence of such gigantic human bones. This evidence blew a hole in the defense of the Institute's lawyers, since the bone was stolen from the organization by a senior curator in the mid-1930s, who kept it his entire life and wrote a written confession on his deathbed about the Smithsonian's cover-up operations.

“It’s terrible that they do this to people,” he writes in his letter. “We are hiding the truth about the ancestors of humanity, about the giants who inhabited the earth, which are mentioned in the Bible, as well as other ancient texts.”

The US Supreme Court ordered the institute to release classified information about everything related to the “destruction of evidence relating to pre-European culture,” as well as items “associated with larger-than-usual human skeletons.”

“The publication of these documents will help archaeologists and historians reconsider current theories about human evolution and help us better understand pre-European culture in the Americas and the rest of the world,” says AIAA Director Hans Guttenberg.

The release of the documents is scheduled for 2015, and all this will be coordinated by an independent scientific organization to ensure the political neutrality of the operation.

Historical chronicles of the 19th century often report the discovery of skeletons of abnormally tall people in different parts of the globe.

In 1821, in the US state of Tennessee, the ruins of an ancient stone wall were found, and under it were two human skeletons 215 centimeters tall. In Wisconsin, during the construction of a granary in 1879, huge vertebrae and skull bones of “incredible thickness and size” were found, according to a newspaper article.

In 1883, several burial mounds were discovered in Utah containing the burials of very tall people - 195 centimeters, which is at least 30 centimeters higher than the average height of Aboriginal Indians. The latter did not make these burials and could not provide any information about them. In 1885, in Gasterville (Pennsylvania), a stone crypt was discovered in a large burial mound, in which there was a skeleton 215 centimeters high. Primitive images of people, birds and animals were carved on the walls of the crypt.

In 1899, miners in the Ruhr region of Germany discovered the fossilized skeletons of people ranging from 210 to 240 centimeters tall.

In 1890, in Egypt, archaeologists found a stone sarcophagus with a clay coffin inside, which contained the mummies of a two-meter red-haired woman and a baby. The facial features and build of the mummies were sharply different from the ancient Egyptians. Similar mummies of a man and a woman with red hair were discovered in 1912 in Lovelock (Nevada) in a cave carved into the rock. The height of the mummified woman during life was two meters, and the man was about three meters.

Australian finds

In 1930, near Basarst in Australia, prospectors mining jasper often found fossilized imprints of huge human legs. Race giant people, the remains of which were found in Australia, anthropologists called megantropus. The height of these people ranged from 210 to 365 centimeters. Megantropus is similar to Gigantopithecus, the remains of which were discovered in China. Judging by the found fragments of jaws and many teeth, the height of the Chinese giants was 3 to 3.5 meters, and the weight was 400 kilograms. Near Basarst, there were stone artifacts in river sediments huge weight and size - clubs, plows, chisels, knives and axes. Modern Homo sapiens I would hardly be able to work with tools weighing from 4 to 9 kilograms.

An anthropological expedition that specifically explored this area in 1985 for the presence of remains of Meganthropus, carried out excavations at a depth of up to three meters from the surface of the earth. Australian researchers found, among other things, a fossilized molar tooth 67 millimeters high and 42 millimeters wide. The owner of the tooth had to be at least 7.5 meters tall and weigh 370 kilograms! Hydrocarbon analysis determined the age of the finds to be nine million years.

In 1971, in Queensland, farmer Stephen Walker, while plowing his field, came across a large fragment of a jaw with teeth five centimeters high. In 1979, in Megalong Valley in the Blue Mountains, local residents found a huge stone sticking out above the surface of a stream, on which could be seen the imprint of part of a huge foot with five toes. The transverse size of the fingers was 17 centimeters. If the print had been preserved in its entirety, it would have been 60 centimeters long. It follows that the imprint was left by a man six meters tall
Near Malgoa, three huge footprints were found, 60 centimeters long and 17 centimeters wide. The giant's stride length was measured at 130 centimeters. The footprints were preserved in fossilized lava for millions of years, even before Homo sapiens appeared on the Australian continent (if the theory of evolution is correct). Huge footprints are also found in the limestone bed of the Upper Macleay River. The fingerprints of these footprints are 10 centimeters long and the width of the foot is 25 centimeters. Obviously, the Aborigines of Australia were not the first inhabitants of the continent. Interestingly, their folklore contains legends about giant people who once lived in these territories.

Other evidence of giants

In one of the old books entitled History and Antiquity, now kept in the library of Oxford University, there is an account of the discovery of a gigantic skeleton made in the Middle Ages in Cumberland. “The giant is buried four yards deep in the ground and is in full military garb. His sword and battle ax rest next to him. The skeleton is 4.5 yards (4 meters) long and the teeth " big man"measures 6.5 inches (17 centimeters)"

In 1877, near Ewreka, Nevada, prospectors were panning for gold in a deserted hilly area. One of the workers accidentally noticed something sticking out over the cliff ledge. People climbed the rock and were surprised to find human bones of the foot and lower leg along with the kneecap. The bone was immured in the rock, and the miners used picks to free it from the rock. Assessing the unusualness of the find, the workers brought it to Evreka. The stone in which the rest of the leg was embedded was quartzite, and the bones themselves turned black, which indicated their considerable age. The leg was broken above the knee and consisted of the knee joint and completely preserved bones of the lower leg and foot. Several doctors examined the bones and concluded that the leg undoubtedly belonged to a person. But the most intriguing aspect of the find was the size of the leg - 97 centimeters from knee to foot. The owner of this limb during his lifetime had a height of 3 meters 60 centimeters. Even more mysterious was the age of the quartzite in which the fossil was found - 185 million years, the era of dinosaurs. Local newspapers vied with each other to report the sensation. One of the museums sent researchers to the site in hopes of finding the remaining parts of the skeleton. But, unfortunately, nothing more was discovered.

In 1936, German paleontologist and anthropologist Larson Kohl found the skeletons of giant people on the shores of Lake Elizi in Central Africa. 12 men buried in mass grave, during their lifetime they had a height of 350 to 375 centimeters. It is curious that their skulls had sloping chins and two rows of upper and lower teeth.

There is evidence that during the Second World War in Poland, during the burial of those executed, a fossilized skull 55 centimeters high was found, that is, almost three times larger than that of a modern adult. The giant to whom the skull belonged had very proportional features and a height of at least 3.5 meters

Giant Skulls

Ivan T. Sanderson, a famous zoologist and frequent guest on the American Tonight show, popular in the 60s, once shared with the public interesting story about a letter he received from a certain Alan McShir. The author of the letter in 1950 worked as a bulldozer operator on the construction of a road in Alaska. He reported that workers discovered two huge fossilized skulls, vertebrae and leg bones in one of the burial mounds. The height of the skulls reached 58 cm and the width 30 centimeters. The ancient giants had a double row of teeth and disproportionately flat heads. Each skull had a neat round hole in the upper part. It should be noted that the custom of deforming the skulls of infants in order to force their heads to acquire an elongated shape as they grew, existed among some Indian tribes North America. The vertebrae, as well as the skulls, were three times larger in size than those of modern humans. The length of the shin bones ranged from 150 to 180 centimeters.

In South Africa, in diamond mining in 1950, a fragment of a huge skull 45 centimeters high was discovered. Above the brow ridges were two strange protrusions that resembled small horns. Anthropologists who came into possession of the find determined the age of the skull - about nine million years.

There is not entirely reliable evidence of the finds of huge skulls in South-East Asia and on the islands of Oceania.

Almost all nations have legends about Giants who lived in ancient times on the territory of one country or another. Armenia is no exception, but unlike other places, the stories here cannot be so easily dismissed. And, although not all anthropologists and archaeologists believe that we're talking about about an entire race of giants, and not about isolated tall specimens, attempts continue to discover the last refuges of our distant ancestors or traces of their economic activities.

Thus, during a scientific and practical expedition that took place in 2011, a number of evidence was collected, from which it followed that fairly large people, 2 or more meters tall, inhabited some regions of Armenia.

Artsrun Hovsepyan, the director of the Goshavank historical complex said that in 1996, when laying a road through the hills, bones were found of such a size that when they were applied to oneself, they reached the level of the throat. Komitas Aleksanyan, a resident of the village of Ava says that local residents found skulls and leg bones of very large sizes, almost the size of a person. According to him: “Once it happened last fall (2010) and another 2 years ago (2009), on the territory of our village, where the grave of St. Barbara is located.”

Ruben Mnatsakanyan, an independent researcher mentioned in an interview for the program “City of Giants” (TV channel “Culture”) that he discovered bones that were very large, the length of the entire skeleton was approximately 4 m 10 cm. “I carried the skull in my hands and could see in front of me no closer than 2 meters. Such was its size. The shin was higher than my lower back, it was about 1 m 15 cm. This bone was also not a light one.” In 1984, construction of a new plant was underway near the city of Sisian. Tractors were digging the foundation. Suddenly one of them, throwing away a layer of earth, stopped. An ancient burial opened before the observers, where the remains of very big man. The burial in which the second giant lay was piled high with huge stones. The skeleton was covered with earth up to the middle of the ribs, there was a sword along the body, with both hands he held its hilt, which was made of bone. Before that, I thought that giants lived in time immemorial. Perhaps I would not have paid attention to it, but the sword was made of metal, because along the entire body there was a layer of rust left over from the iron.

Pavel Avetisyan– the director of the Institute of Archeology claims that on the territory of Gyumri, in the area of ​​​​the Black Fortress, huge skulls and even entire skeletons of the ancient period were discovered, which were shown to him. “I was just taken aback because, probably, thumb such a person would be thicker than my arm. I myself participated in excavations and often came across the remains of people who were much taller than me. Of course, I can’t tell you their height exactly, but it’s more than 2 meters. Because the tibia or hip bone that was discovered, when I put it on my leg, was much longer.”

Human bone found at excavations in Armenia. Still from the film "City of Giants". Although the height of a person, according to the authors’ assumption, reached 2 meters, it still did not reach the “giant”

Movses Khorenatsi(a representative of Armenian feudal historiography, lived in the 5th and early 6th centuries) wrote that the cities of giants were also located in the gorge of the Vorotan River. This is the Syunik region, located in the southeast of Armenia. Here in the mountain village of Khot in 1968 a monument to the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War was built. When the top of the mound was leveled, ancient tombs with unusual remains were discovered. Already mentioned Vazgen Gevorgyan: “The entire population of the village of Khot talks about the skeletons of giants found there. In particular, Razmik Arakelyan many years ago, during excavation work, personally saw the graves of two giants. The village headman, to whom his father showed the exact place, also spoke about this. Everyone who saw it was very surprised at how huge people once lived here. Apparently there was their cemetery there, and this place needs to be explored.”

In the neighboring village of Tandzatap there are also witnesses who spoke about giant bones - the tibia reached the waist of the tallest of them. This happened in 1986, when they were making terraces for fruit trees. Tractors dug up the mountainside many meters deep. Thanks to this, very ancient layers were accessible. The tractor bucket demolished the bottom slab, and then the burial itself was revealed, from which the bone of a real giant was extracted. Mikhail Ambartsumyan, at that time personally supervised the work.

Mikhail Ambartsumyan, former village head: “I saw that a small hole had opened, lined with flat stones on the sides. There I found a leg bone: from the knee to the foot, about 1.20 cm long, I even called the driver, showed him, and he is a tall guy. We tried to see what else was in this hole, but it was too deep, and it was already dark, we couldn’t see. They left it that way. Then in the same hole I found a karas, that is, a huge jug, but, unfortunately, when I tried to pull it out, it broke. The height of the crucian carp reached about 2 meters.”

Sometimes there are also finds of mammoth skulls, which, due to their structure, are mistaken by many for “one-eyed skulls.” Seda Hakobyan, a resident of Yeghvard mentioned that she once decided to break the concrete floor on the balcony, under the column, in order to fill it with concrete again and install a beam. When the concrete was broken, they found a flat stone under it, and under the stone a hole was discovered. “And in the hole they found a skull, one eyed, the eye was on the forehead, a mouth, and a small hole from the nose, very small. And there were also legs, very long, both together probably about 3 meters. From the bottom to the waist, the length reached 3 m. They took it out of the hole. My husband was advised to take the find to the museum. He took the skull, I don’t know whether he took the rest or not.” This suggests that the bones of mammoths or other animals could be confused with human bones.

There is also a scandal associated with the quoted film “City of Giants”, so the presenter Researcher Institute of Archeology RAS, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Ph.D. Maria Borisovna Mednikova sent an open letter to the Kultura TV channel and stated that her words were distorted in the film because she is opposed to the existence of a “race of giants.” As a result, the program began to be broadcast without her interview. In general, M.B. Mednikova expressed very interesting thoughts, noting that the so-called “high-mountain type” of a person has always been “head and shoulders above” his fellows. Both the Caucasus and the territory of Armenia are one of the centers of tallness, so the appearance here of people taller than the average highlander of that time is quite normal.

Findings of human skeletons significantly larger than anyone can imagine modern science does not mean that it was an entire race; it may be more correct to talk about only some of its representatives, who, for their growth, were endowed with divine properties during life, and were buried in special stone burial grounds with greater honors than their compatriots, who were not touched by the hand of all genetic advantages of the “high mountain type”?

By the way, I can explain the history of this photo, for example:

At first scandalous photo were circulated without any details. They appeared only in 2007 in the Indian magazine Hindu Voice.

Where the correspondent reported that the skeleton of a giant 18 meters tall was discovered in northern India during excavations organized by the National geographical society, its Indian branch and with the support of the Indian Army.

The publication emphasized that clay tablets with inscriptions were found along with the skeleton. And from them it followed that the giant belonged to a race of superhumans who were mentioned in the Mahabharata, an Indian epic of 200 BC.

The editor of the magazine - one P. Deivamuthu - then apologized to the National Geographic Society by sending a letter. He allegedly fell for facts obtained from sources that, as it has now become obvious, were not trustworthy.

But the thirst for knowledge could no longer be quenched. Information about the “Indian find” emerged from all the cracks of the Internet with renewed vigor. And, of course, along with a photo of the giant.

In short, the public suspects some kind of conspiracy. And she's right. There really was a conspiracy. It was organized back in 2002.

There are plenty of skeletons like this

As the investigation showed, the photo of the “Indian skeleton” was made by an artistic Photoshop specialist from Canada, a certain IronKite. But not for the sake of malice, but as a form of participation in the annual competition called “Archaeological Anomalies 2”. Where the author was awarded third place (which works were awarded the first and second prizes is not possible to determine now - access to the competition website is closed). Participants were asked to fabricate some amazing archaeological find. Which some did very talentedly. And it fell on fertile soil - many have no doubt that giants once lived on Earth.

IronKite reported by mail to National Geographic News that he pursued only highly artistic goals, and has nothing to do with subsequent fools. But he doesn’t want to reveal his name. From sin.

The original photograph was also discovered, which served as a kind of background and archaeological setting for the skeleton. The picture was taken in 2000 in New York's Hyde Park (New York) at the site of a real excavation. The skeleton of a mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant, was discovered here.

Regarding the “Indian giant skeleton,” only one thing remained unclear: whose bones played its role?

And the pioneer IronKite seems to have attracted followers. And now the Internet is full of giant skeletons.

According to statistics, average height women are 162-164 cm. The famous Russian giantess Elizaveta Lisko was 2 meters 27 centimeters tall! Judging by the surviving photographs and reviews of contemporary eyewitnesses, she had normal body proportions and was considered a very pretty girl.

The tallest woman in history is the Chinese woman Tseng Jin-lian (1964 -1982). She died at the age of 17 with a height of 2.48 m. The name of 18-year-old Thai woman Malee Duangdee is also included in the Guinness Book of Records. Currently, her height is 208 centimeters, but she continues to grow. Doctors discovered she had a brain tumor at the age of nine, which causes... hormonal growth bodies. She currently receives expensive injections ($3,200 every three months) to control her explosive growth.

In our country, the most famous living giant is Ulyana Semenova, a famous basketball player and Honored Master of Sports (2, 18 m). She was born in 1952 in a small Latvian town and made a lot of efforts to enter a basketball school. As they wrote in the newspapers: “Passages under the shield, where Semenova is on duty, have no chance of success. The rivals either end up under Semyonova’s hands or are driven away like annoying flies.” Semenova is by far the tallest athlete in the world.

But the tallest woman of all those born in Russia is still Ekaterina Lisko, who was born in the small town of Krasnokutsk near Novocherkassk into a family of poor burghers. This happened in 1877. At first she was a completely ordinary pretty girl. But after three years she began to grow “by leaps and bounds” and at the age of 9 she reached 2 arshins 11 vershoks (1.92 m).

Her parents were of average height, so those around him heatedly discussed her unusual appearance. But the girl continued to gain centimeters and by the age of 17 she reached 2 meters 27 centimeters. Her weight reached 8 pounds (132 kilograms). By the way, it’s not clear where these kilograms came from, because she always ate a little...

Soon misfortune came to the family - the father died, and Lysko’s situation became simply disastrous. Then the elder brother of the deceased, Mikhail Gavrilovich, decided to take a gamble - to use Elizabeth’s extraordinary external data to make money, showing her as a phenomenon (at that time various “freak shows” were becoming fashionable in Russia).

Uncle and niece went traveling around different countries. They traveled all over Russia and Europe. At first, Elizaveta lived for some time in St. Petersburg, where she was a welcome guest at all dinner parties. The girl loved theaters and was often seen at various performances. They wrote a lot about her, calling her “the miracle giant”, and “the giant maiden”, and even... “the miracle of the Lilliputians”. In Moscow, Lisa was at a reception with Prince Dolgorukov. When visiting Kyiv, Metropolitan Platon himself blessed the girl in the Kiev Pechersk Lavra and presented her with silver icon. Lisa also did not hesitate to take part in various fairs and exhibitions.

After success in Russia, her uncle took her on a foreign tour. Elizabeth was capable of learning, and during her travels she mastered languages: she knew English and German quite well. In 1889, Lisa and her uncle visited Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille, and then visited the cities of Great Britain: London, Liverpool and Manchester. In 1893, Elizabeth walked along the streets of Italy - Naples, Rome, Milan, then visited Zurich, Munich and Vienna.

In Rome, the maiden Lisko was granted an audience with Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich (third son of Alexander II). The Don giantess became increasingly famous in high society, and it was considered in good form invite her as a guest to secular salons. In London, she attended an evening at the home of the Russian ambassador, Baron Staal, where she made an indelible impression on his wife, Baroness Staal. She even presented Lisa with diamond jewelry for her beauty and beauty. As a result of her foreign tour, she gained fame, became rich, and princes and barons were predicted for her husbands.

Indeed, Lisa was surprisingly good for her height, as she did not suffer from gigantism, a characteristic disease of very tall people. This pathology is associated with improper functioning of the pituitary gland. In patients with gigantism, the bones are bent, cartilage tissue grows, and often the person cannot even move normally. Also, the cause of the abnormal growth could be a brain tumor, but medical observations did not reveal any pathologies in the Krasnokutsk beauty. She was examined by doctors in Leipzig and gave evidence that she was “an exceptional phenomenon in the world.” This evidence was confirmed in Berlin in 1893.

There, a forecast was made about her further development Professor Rudolf Virchow. It was disappointing - the girl should grow another 13 vershoks (58 centimeters), that is, reach almost 3 meters! However, these predictions were not destined to come true. Lisa died at mysterious circumstances at the age of 17 somewhere abroad. It was rumored that by that time she even had a fiancé - some Russian prince. The reason for her sudden death, as well as the mystery of her gigantic growth, remained a mystery to everyone.

In the tales and legends of almost all peoples of the Earth there are references to people of enormous physique - giants. The fact that once upon a time there lived people whose height was much higher than that of modern man is indicated by many facts. These are, in particular, archaeological finds: written evidence of antiquity, structures that have survived to this day, striking in their size, which are incompatible with the physical capabilities of modern man.

IN different parts all over the world you can find such strange cyclopean buildings. One of the most amazing buildings– Baalbek terrace in Lebanon.

Its grandeur is emphasized by the size of the stones from which it is composed.

In Baalbek lies the largest processed stone in the world. Its ancient name is Gayar el-Qibli, which means “Stone of the South.” The volume of the stone is 433 m3, weight is 1300 or even 2000 tons. According to the calculations of engineer O. Kolomiychuk, in order to move this stone block from its place, the simultaneous efforts of 60 thousand people are required!

In the northwestern corner of the terrace, three unusually large slabs can still be seen today. These are the famous trilithon (three stone) blocks. The volume of each of them is more than 300 cubic meters, and their weight is about 800 tons.

Who, besides the giants, could transport and process such colossuses?

In Egypt, in the temple of Pharaoh Khafre there is a block weighing 500 tons. In Greece, the fortress walls of Tiryns have been preserved, the thickness of which reaches 20 meters, and the weight of the stones in the masonry is 125 tons.

A team of giants may have participated in the construction of the Egyptian and Mexican pyramids, Stonehenge and installed about 500 huge stone idols on the shore of Easter Island - sculptures up to 8 meters high and weighing up to 50 tons, which were carved from volcanic rocks and transported over a distance of several tens kilometers and erected along the coast of the island.

IN Central America In the jungles of Costa Rica, giant stone spheres called Las Bolas Grandes are scattered - there are some that weigh 16 tons and reach a diameter of 2.5 meters.

Tales of Giants

There is a lot of documentary information about giants in a variety of sources. Let's list some of them.

In South Africa, on the Okovango River, the aborigines talk about giants who lived in these places in the past. One of their legends says that “the giants were endowed with incredible strength. With one hand they blocked the flow of rivers. Their voices were so loud that they could be heard from one village to another. When one of the giants coughed, the birds seemed to be blown away by the wind.

While hunting, they walked hundreds of kilometers a day, and killed elephants and hippos were easily thrown onto their shoulders and carried home. Their weapons were bows made from palm tree trunks. Even the earth had difficulty carrying them.”

And Inca legends say that during the reign of Inca XII Ayatarco Kuso, people of such enormous stature arrived from the ocean on huge reed rafts to the country that even the tallest Indian only reached their knees. Their hair fell to their shoulders, and their faces were beardless.

Some of them wore animal skins, others went completely naked. Moving along the coast, they devastated the country - after all, each of them ate more at a time than 50 people could eat!

One of the adobe tablets of ancient Babylon says that the priests of the Babylonian state received all their astronomical knowledge from giants who lived in South Asia, over 4 meters tall.

Ibn Fadlan, an Arab traveler who lived a thousand years ago, saw a six-meter-long human skeleton, which was shown to him by the subjects of the Khazar king. A skeleton of the same size was seen by the Russian classical writers Turgenev and Korolenko while in Switzerland in the museum of the city of Lucerne. They were told that these huge bones were discovered in 1577 in a mountain cave by the doctor Felix Platner.

Only the four- or six-meter giants were not the most gigantic. While conquering America, the Spaniards allegedly discovered a skeleton 20 meters tall in one of the Aztec temples. This is already the scale of giants. The Spaniards sent it as a gift to the Pope. And a certain Whitney, who served in early XIX century, the chief archaeologist for the US government, examined a skull with a diameter of two meters. He was found in one of the mines in Ohio.

Obvious evidence of the existence of giants are the imprints of their huge feet. The most famous of them is located in South Africa. It was found by local farmer Stoffel Kötzi at the beginning of the last century. The “left foot print” is imprinted into the almost vertical wall to a depth of approximately 12 centimeters. Its length is 1 meter 28 centimeters. It is believed that the owner of enormous growth came when the breed was soft. Then it froze, turned into granite and stood upright due to geological processes.

One thing is surprising: why are giant human bones not exhibited in any museum in the world? The only answer that some scientists give is that they deliberately hid the unique finds, otherwise Darwin’s theory of evolution would have completely collapsed and they would have had to change their views on the entire history of mankind and its appearance on earth.

The history of Islam shows that...

...many of the prophets of Allah Almighty were giants. It is known that the prophet Nuhu was helped to build the ark by a giant named Uja.

The Adites are a tribe of descendants of the prophet Nuh. They were the tallest and strong people on the ground. But they, having forgotten the Creator, began to worship idols, and wickedness and sins appeared among them, crossing all boundaries. This is how the story of the Hell Tribe is told in the book honorable sheikh Said-Afandi “History of the Prophets”: “The shortest of them was sixty cubits tall, and they reached maturity only after a hundred years.

They were led by a tyrant named Jalidzhan, one hundred cubits tall. He oppressed people so much that they despaired of seeing anything else from him. In their tribe, someone died only once every hundred years - these giants lived that long.

To instruct the tribe of Hell in faith, the prophet Hud was sent to them, but they rejected his calls. Having disobeyed Hood, the proud inhabitants of the Hell tribe did not find happiness. They thought that they would get rid of punishments, hoping that their offspring were numerous, and their bodies were huge and strong, and they were sure that no one could defeat them. No matter how much Hood instructed them, they rejected him and threw stones at him. So seventy years passed, but their delusion only grew stronger. Then Hud asked Allah to make their women barren and their numbers to decrease. Not a single child was born to them that year. So they saw with their own eyes that Hood’s plea was accepted. When this miracle did not work on the unfortunate tribe because of their recklessness, the Almighty sent them a drought, and there was no rain for seven years. Half of the tribe died from hunger.

At that time, everyone, believers and unbelievers, who were touched by troubles and misfortunes, had a tradition: to go to Mecca and there ask Allah for deliverance. And in the Hell tribe, a group of people also gathered and were sent to Mecca to ask for rain.

They saw three clouds in the sky - red, white and black. A voice from above advised them to choose any of the three, and they, thinking that the black cloud meant rain, chose it, because they were going to ask for rain. After this, a black cloud flew to Yemen.

The Ad tribe was very happy when they saw this cloud, but the wind was sent down by the power of Allah on the unrighteous who desired rain. A hurricane raged continuously for seven nights and eight days, uprooting trees, destroying homes, and there was no one left who could stand on his feet. Having made life unbearable and without killing them, Allah punished the giants with rain of stones. They found themselves between life and death, their torment was unbearable. The faithful heard their groans every day from under the piles of stones.

The wind, which was a disaster for the people of Hell, did not harm the people who believed in Hud. While the idolaters endured so much torment and suffering, the faithful among them survived.

Of the entire Hell tribe, no one remained alive except the people sent to Mecca.

At the age of 150 years in the area of ​​Jabal Ahkaf Hud passed on to another world.”

It is noteworthy that in the summer of 2006 in Saudi Arabia a human skeleton was discovered, exceeding 10 m in length. According to archaeologists and Islamic scholars, the remains could belong to a representative of the Hell tribe mentioned in the Koran.

Why did we get smaller?

Dr. Karl Bohm believes that in the distant past natural conditions favored increased human growth, and then they changed dramatically, and people “shredded.”

“Optimal genetic development,” says Bohm, “is when everything embedded in the DNA of an organism develops entirely due to favorable atmospheric conditions.” In his opinion, before Flood The ozone layer was much thicker, and after that only one-seventh of it remained. The decline of the ozone layer has led to weakening protection from solar radiation, which affected plants, animals, and, naturally, humans.

There are legends about giants in many countries. Myths agree on one thing - they tell of creatures whose size is so impressive that it is impossible to imagine them.

Such, for example, is the ancient Atlas, who supposedly supports the firmament on his shoulders, or the Tibetan Avalokiteshvara, an eleven-headed giant, whom some researchers consider to be the embodiment of the forces that support the earth's axis in Tibetan cosmology.

Avalokitesvara

These are the so-called world giants, that is, those who support the world in the literal sense of the word. And there were also those who were smaller - they met with people and brought them trouble sometimes, and sometimes not. For example, in Greece there were legends about Cyclops, huge, evil, but stupid creatures. Homer's Odyssey says that the Cyclopes were cannibals. So, one of them almost devoured Odysseus and his crew of sailors, but was fooled and blinded by the captives.

Cyclops

Giants are also mentioned in the Bible. The Old Testament says that the spies sent by Moses to Palestine returned and said that they had seen giants compared to which ordinary people They were like locusts. The Koran also contains references to giants who were taller than the tallest palm trees and laughed at Noah, who began to build his ark before the Great Flood: they say, we are so tall that we don’t care about the flood. And they all drowned.

However, giants were not always arrogant or hostile to people. For example, Russian epics preserve the memory of Svyatogor, a giant hero who was so great that he could hide a rider in his pocket along with his horse. Svyatogor, as is clear from his name, lived in the mountains, or rather, on the mountains, because ordinary earth could not bear his weight. Therefore, Svyatogor never traveled to Rus' and did not interfere in its affairs - for example, in the fight against external enemies.

Svyatogor

Sometimes folklore researchers interpret Svyatogor as a representative of a different race, who did not touch the affairs of Rus' because he had no relation to it. Sometimes they see him as one of the first ancestors who possessed unheard-of strength and power - but their time was already passing, and much smaller people appeared on earth, and they already had their own heroes and their own heroes.

Actually, this is what the epic about Svyatogor talks about. Allegedly, he met Ilya Muromets, put him, as he was told, in his pocket, and began to carry him around with him. Yes, and forgot until his horse (as it should be in fairy tales, a talking horse) reminded him that it was hard to carry so many people at once. Svyatogor brought Ilya into the light of God, and they began to travel together until they came across a giant stone coffin.

Here Svyatogor committed a strange and subsequently suicidal act. He lay down in this coffin, which came at exactly the right time for him, closed the lid - but could not open it back. It was time for the giant to leave this world, but since no mortal could kill him, fate itself did it. Before his death, Svyatogor transferred part of his power to Ilya and wanted to transfer all of it, but he did not take it: there was no longer room on earth for such gigantic power. Thus ended the era of giants in Rus'.

There was, however, one more mention, and it concerned the Battle of Kulikovo. As if the Horde put a 4-meter-tall giant on the battlefield, but he was defeated by the Russian warrior Peresvet. But both the Horde giant and Svyatogor were, so to speak, foreigners. But Russian folklore does not particularly mention its own local giants.

Some researchers explain that Russian nature itself was not conducive to this. Plains and forests - where can a giant go in such a landscape? But where there were mountains, they often told a lot about giants - they say, the giants sketched these very mountains. In this case, the myth of the giants was simply an attempt to explain the features of the surrounding nature.

Legends about giants could arise due to the fact that sometimes abnormally tall people appear in the world. One of them was Fyodor Makhnov, who received the official title of the tallest man in the world: his height reached two and a half meters (according to some sources, Makhnov was even taller - about 2 meters 70 centimeters).

Makhnov was born in Belarus in 1878 and from adolescence began to show fantastic strength: he could lift the roof of a house, break or, conversely, straighten a horse’s shoe, and so on. The strongman was found by entrepreneur Robert Cook and went with him to conquer Europe. At this time, in 1903, the magazine Nature and People wrote:

“The Russian giant Feodor Makhnov is now unanimously recognized as the tallest man in the world. Currently, he has arrived with his impresario in Berlin, where he is shown in a panopticon. In the Berlin Anthropological Museum, Makhnov was carefully measured and weighed, and he was given a document that he belongs to among the tallest giants that have ever existed on globe. In many ways he represents high interest for science."

Two and a half meters is, of course, phenomenal height, but still, giants are spoken of as fantastically tall creatures. Moreover, there is a version according to which all people were once fantastically tall, that is, giants. They say that people used to be larger, then they became smaller and continue to shrink. And when they reach the size of an ant, then the end of the world will happen - the predictions are frightening.

Could our ancestors have been larger than us? On the one hand, nature, of course, sometimes gravitates towards gigantomania. In prehistoric times, the living creatures that inhabited the earth were huge, so why shouldn’t human ancestors also be gigantic in size? This was the opinion of the famous Swedish naturalist and creator of the system of classification of flora and fauna, Carl Linnaeus. According to his calculations, the first people should have been much larger than us - Adam supposedly reached 40 meters, and Eve - 35.

There are unusual and strange finds that support Linnaeus' theory. Allegedly, huge skeletons were found in Egypt, Africa, China, Australia and the USA, but then these finds were kept secret for some unknown reason - perhaps so as not to rewrite the theory of evolution. Most scientists grimace during such conversations and say that these are all just unscientific tales.

The only huge humanoid creature whose reality they are ready to admit is Gigantopithecus. Gigantopithecus - species great apes, which was found in Southeast Asia in the late Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene, possibly adjacent to the so-called “homo erectus”.

Gigantopithecus really were giants, only they walked on four limbs. In the dictionaries they write about them that Gigantopithecus was up to 3 meters tall and weighed from 300 to 550 kilograms, that is, they were the largest monkeys of all time. Who knows, maybe some distant echoes of the prehistoric memory of a meeting with Gigantopithecus gave rise to myths about giants. But no one can answer this question for sure.

As for the version that people were once larger, but now they are only getting smaller, it does not stand up to any criticism. Rather, everything happens the other way around. It was not our ancestors who were giants, but rather, we would have seemed to them to be creatures of extremely tall stature, because before people were much smaller. Evidence can be found in any historical museum that contains clothing among other exhibits. Armor medieval knight suitable for a current sixth grader. Camisoles and dresses today are unlikely to fit on the average adult.

When did we make such a leap in growth? It seems like quite recently. I was told a story about how one of the London theaters decided to restore a play that was performed on its stage in the 1950s. It seems like not that long ago. The idea seemed feasible: the same scene, the same text, and even the costumes were preserved - in general, take it and play. But it was not there.

It turned out that the costumes did not suit modern actors. And it would be okay for one or two - the things didn’t suit the whole troupe! The sleeves, trouser legs and skirts were too short, and limbs stuck out awkwardly from underneath them. The clothes were small at the shoulders, narrow at the hips - in short, they could not be adjusted to the artists at all, and only half a century had passed since the costumes were made.

It became obvious that during this time the outlines of human body: we have become taller, our arms and legs have lengthened, our shoulders have become wider... In a word, acceleration is the changes that occur recent years 100-150. Thus, over five generations, from 1880 to 1980, the French grew by 8 centimeters, and the Swedes by 15. Acceleration concerns not only European countries, but also many others: the inhabitants of the Seychelles are becoming taller.

What happened during this century if people began to grow in size? First of all, the conditions in which we live have changed greatly. Yes, during the 20th century humanity experienced two of the most terrible wars throughout its history - the First and Second World Wars. But overall, in terms of the level of medicine, as well as access to food and warmth, the twentieth century was very different in better side from the previous ones. In such conditions, a person as a species can afford to grow larger - there is no problem feeding and warming a larger body.

The fact that acceleration is not a fiction can be seen with the naked eye. Children, growing up, find themselves taller than their parents, and even more so their grandparents. Each generation grows taller, and the concept changes " A tall man"Fifteen years ago, a height of 1 meter 75 centimeters was considered tall, but today it is already average.

Where are we growing and, most importantly, when will we stop? They say that acceleration will begin to decline when the average human height reaches two meters. And then we will begin to shrink again, because our body - the musculoskeletal system, circulatory and other systems - is not designed for higher growth. This means that after reaching two meters, people will apparently begin to shrink to the optimal size. Until that moment, humanity will have a chance to live like giants.