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

Giant people. Do you think this is a myth or reality? In the article, we will analyze the findings and compare the facts, which will help to 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 the American Indians. Scientists, however, have never paid due attention to the collection and analysis of this evidence. Probably because they considered the existence of giants impossible.

The book of Genesis (chapter 6, verse 4) says:“At that time there were giants on earth, especially since the time when the sons of God began to enter into the daughters of men, and they began to give birth to them. These are strong, glorious people from ancient times.”

giants in history

Goliath

The most famous among the giants described in the Bible is the warrior Goliath of Gath. The book of Samuel says that Goliath was defeated by the shepherd of sheep, David, who later became the 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 afraid of rulers and leaders. Greek mythology tells of Enceladus, a giant who fought Zeus and was struck by lightning and covered by Mount Etna.

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

The Delaware Indians say that in the old days east of the Mississippi there lived a giant people called the Alligewys who would not let them pass through their lands. declared war on them and, in the end, 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 the giants are probably still in this land.

Giant's footprint

On Mount Sri Pada in Sri Lanka there is a deep imprint of a giant male foot: it is 168 cm long and 75 cm wide! Legend says that this is the footprint of our ancestor - Adam.

The famous Chinese navigator Zheng He speaks 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 on it one can see the only imprint of a man's foot. The depression in the rock reaches up to two chi, and the length of the foot is more than 8 chi. It is said here that this trace was left by the holy A-Tang, the forefather of mankind.”

Giants of 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 make it possible to believe that the skeleton of the Cimbri king was discovered.

Europeans who began to study South America, also talked about people of great stature. The southern part of Argentina and Chile was named Patagonia by Magellan from the Spanish "pata" - hoof, because footprints resembling large hooves were found there.

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

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

More and more researchers met their giants and the number of papers on the subject grew.

In 1592, Anthony Quinet summed up that the growth of famous giants is, on average, 3-3.5 meters.

Giant Man - Myth or Reality?

When, however, Charles Darwin arrived in the 19th century in Patagonia, did not find a trace of the giants. Earlier information was discarded, as it was considered greatly exaggerated. But stories of giants continued to come from other regions.

The Incas claimed, what people are giants 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 who is over two meters tall should be classified as a giant.

That's exactly what it was Irishman Patrick Cotter. He was born in 1760 and died in 1806. He was known for his height and made a 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 moose as pets, and when he was once attacked by a buffalo, he easily twisted his neck. Contemporaries claimed that Banyan's height was 2.8 meters.

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

“The giant was buried at a depth of 4 meters in what is now agricultural land, and the grave was marked with a vertically set stone. The skeleton was 4.5 meters long and was fully armed. The dead man's sword and ax lay beside him. The sword was over 2 meters long and 45 centimeters wide.”

In Northern Ireland, there are 40,000 conical poles with convex and concave ends, closely spaced and driven into the ground, 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 the skeletons of men from 200 to 230 cm tall. Very tall, especially for Italy.

Archaeologist Dr. Luigi Cabalucci said that people died at the age of 25-40. Their teeth were in remarkably good condition. Unfortunately, the date of the burial and the circumstances under which it took place have not been established.

Where do giants come from

So, the number of finds increased, and in different countries. But the most intriguing question is “where do people are giants' remains unanswered.

French writer Denis Sora has formulated a fascinating version. Thinking about what might happen if some other celestial body began to approach the Earth, he came to the conclusion that the effect of such an event would be a sharp increase in the gravity of our planet.

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

“The increase in radiation, including cosmic radiation, probably has two effects: it causes mutations and damages or transforms tissues. Some illustration of the theory and the effects of radiation on growth can be seen in the events of 1902 in Martinique, where Mount Pele erupted, killing 20,000 people in St. Pierre.

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

Suddenly, a 1,300-foot-high column of fire erupted from the volcano. A cloud that burned at a temperature above 1000 degrees also took up from the fire. All the inhabitants of St. Pierre died, with the exception of one who was sitting in a prison cell protected by thick walls.

The ruined city was never rebuilt, but the island's biological life revived faster than expected. The plants returned and, 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 last."

The French authorities placed a scientific station at the foot of the mountain and soon discovered that the mutations in animals and plants were the result of radiation from minerals ejected during a volcanic eruption.

This radiation also affected people: the head of the research center, Dr. Jules Graviu, grew by 12.5 cm, and his assistant, Dr. Pouen, by 10 cm. It was found that the irradiated plants grew three times faster and reached the level of development in six months, which, under normal circumstances, would take two years.

The lizard, called the copa, which had previously reached 20 cm in length, turned into a small dragon 50 cm long, and its bite, previously harmless, became more dangerous than the poison of a cobra.

The strange phenomenon of anomalous growth disappeared when these plants and animals were brought 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 a 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 in 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 admitted to destroying thousands of giant human skeletons in the early 1900s.

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

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

New details surfaced during the trial when a number of Smithsonian insiders acknowledged the existence of documents that supposedly prove the destruction of tens of thousands of human skeletons ranging in size from 6 to 12 feet tall, according to AIAA spokesman James Charward. ;), the existence of which traditional archeology, for various reasons, does not want to recognize.

Let's find out more about this...

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

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

“It's terrible what they do to people,” he writes in his letter. “We hide the truth about the ancestors of mankind, about the giants that inhabited the earth, which are mentioned in the bible, as well as other ancient texts.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the Institute to release classified information about anything related to “destruction of evidence relating to pre-European culture” as well as elements “associated with larger than normal human skeletons.”

“The publication of these documents will help archaeologists and historians revisit current theories about human evolution and help us better understand pre-European culture in America and the rest of the world,” said 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 finds in different parts of the world of skeletons of people of abnormally tall stature.

In 1821, in the United States in 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 were found "of incredible thickness and size," according to a newspaper article.

In 1883, several burial mounds were discovered in Utah, in which there were burials of people of very tall stature - 195 centimeters, which is at least 30 centimeters above the average height of the Aboriginal Indians. The latter did not make these burials and could not provide any information about them. In 1885, in Gusterville (Pennsylvania), a stone crypt was discovered in a large grave 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 in Germany discovered fossilized skeletons of people ranging in height from 210 to 240 centimeters.

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 differed sharply from the ancient Egyptians. Similar mummies of a man and a woman with red hair were discovered in 1912 in Lovelok (Nevada) in a cave carved into the rock. The growth of a mummified woman during her lifetime was two meters, and men - about three meters.

Australian finds

In 1930, near Basharst, Australia, jasper miners often found fossilized imprints of huge human feet. The race of giant people, whose remains were found in Australia, anthropologists called meganthropus. The growth of these people ranged from 210 to 365 centimeters. Meganthropus are similar to Gigantopithecus, the remains of which were found in China. Judging by the fragments of jaws and many teeth found, the growth of Chinese giants was 3 to 3.5 meters, and the weight was 400 kilograms Near Basarst, in river deposits, there were stone artifacts of enormous weight and size - clubs, plows , chisels, knives and axes. Modern Homo sapiens would hardly be able to work with tools weighing from 4 to 9 kilograms.

An anthropological expedition, which specifically investigated the area in 1985 for the presence of the remains of megantropus, excavated at a depth of up to three meters from the surface of the earth. Australian researchers found, among other things, a petrified molar 67 mm high and 42 mm 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, amounting to nine million years.

In 1971, Queensland farmer Stephen Walker, while plowing his field, came across a large fragment of a jaw with five centimeters high teeth. In 1979, in Megalong Valley in the Blue Mountains, locals found a huge stone protruding above the surface of the stream, on which one could see the imprint of part of a huge foot with five fingers. The transverse size of the fingers was 17 centimeters. If the print had been preserved in its entirety, it would have been 60 cm long. It follows that the imprint was left by a man of six meters in height
Near Malgoa, three huge footprints were found, 60 centimeters long, 17 wide. The giant's step length was measured 130 centimeters. Traces were preserved in the petrified lava for millions of years, even before Homo sapiens appeared on the Australian continent (if the theory of evolution is considered correct). Huge footprints are also found in the limestone bed of the Upper Maclay River. The fingerprints of these footprints are 10 cm long and the width of the foot is 25 cm. Obviously, the Australian Aborigines were not the first inhabitants of the continent. It is interesting that in their folklore there are 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 stored in the library of Oxford University, there is an account of the discovery of a giant skeleton, made in the Middle Ages in Cumberland. “The giant is buried to a depth of four yards and is in full military dress. His sword and battle ax rest next to him. The length of the skeleton is 4.5 yards (4 meters), and the teeth of the "big man" measure 6.5 inches (17 centimeters)"

In 1877, near Eureka, Nevada, prospectors were working for gold panning in a deserted, hilly region. One of the workers accidentally noticed something sticking out above the ledge of the cliff. People climbed a rock and were surprised to find the human bones of the foot and lower leg, along with the patella. The bone was immured in the rock, and the prospectors freed it from the rock with picks. Assessing the unusualness of the find, the workers delivered it to Evreka. The stone, in which the rest of the leg was embedded, was quartzite, and the bones themselves turned black, which betrayed their considerable age. The leg was broken above the knee and consisted of a knee joint and intact bones of the lower leg and foot. Several doctors examined the bones and came to the conclusion 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 the knee to the 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 place of discovery in the hope of finding the rest of the skeleton. But, unfortunately, nothing more was found.

In 1936, the German paleontologist and anthropologist Larson Kohl found the skeletons of giant people on the shores of Lake Elisey in Central Africa. 12 men buried in a mass grave had a height of 350 to 375 centimeters during their lifetime. Curiously, 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 the executed, a fossilized skull 55 centimeters high was found, that is, almost three times more than that of a modern adult. The giant to whom the skull belonged had very proportional features and was at least 3.5 meters tall.

giant skulls

Ivan T. Sanderson, a well-known zoologist and frequent guest on the popular 1960s American show Tonight, once shared with the public a curious 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 the workers found two huge fossilized skulls, vertebrae and leg bones in one of the grave mounds. The skulls were 58 cm high and 30 cm wide. 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 babies in order to make the heads become elongated as they grow, existed among some Indian tribes of North America. The vertebrae, as well as the skulls, were three times larger than those of modern humans. The length of the leg 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 superciliary arches were two strange protrusions resembling small horns. Anthropologists, in whose hands the find fell, determined the age of the skull - about nine million years.

There is not quite reliable evidence of the finds of huge skulls in Southeast Asia and on the islands of Oceania.

Almost all peoples have legends about the Giants who lived in ancient times on the territory of a particular country. Armenia is no exception, but unlike other places, local stories cannot be dismissed so easily. And, although not all anthropologists and archaeologists believe that we are talking about a whole race of giants, and not about single tall specimens, attempts to find the last refuges of our distant ancestors or traces of their economic activity do not stop.

So, during the scientific and practical expedition that took place in 2011, a number of evidence was collected, from which it followed that rather 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 of such a size were found 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 the locals found skulls and leg bones of very large sizes, almost the size of a person. According to him: “Once it was last fall (2010) and 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 City of Giants program (Culture TV channel) 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. That was his size. The lower leg was higher than my lower back, it was about 1 m 15 cm. This bone was also not easy. In 1984, a new plant was being built near the city of Sisian. Tractors were digging the foundation. Suddenly one of them, discarding a layer of earth, stopped. An ancient burial was opened before the observers, where the remains of a very large man lay. The burial, in which the second giant lay, was littered with huge stones from above. Up to the middle of the ribs, the skeleton was covered with earth, there was a sword along the body, with two hands he held its handle, which was made of bone. Before that, I thought that the giants lived in ancient times. Maybe I would not have paid attention to it, but the sword was made of metal, because along the whole body there was a layer of rust left from 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 whole skeletons of the ancient period were found, which they showed him. “I was just taken aback, because, probably, the thumb of such a person would be thicker than my hand. I myself participated in the excavations and often met the remains of people who were much taller than me. Of course, I won’t name their height for sure, but more than 2 meters. Because the discovered tibia or hip bone, when I applied it to my leg, was much longer.

Human bone found at excavations in Armenia. Shot from the film "City of Giants". Although human growth, according to the authors, reached 2 meters, it still did not reach the “giant”

Movses Khorenatsi(a representative of Armenian feudal historiography, lived in the 5th-early 6th centuries) wrote that the cities of the 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 opened. already mentioned Vazgen Gevorgyan: “The entire population of the village of Khot talks about the skeletons of giants found there. In particular, many years ago, Razmik Arakelyan personally saw the graves of two giants during earthworks. The headman of the village also told about this, to whom his father showed the exact place. Everyone who saw it was very surprised at what huge people once lived here. There apparently was their cemetery, and this place should be explored.

In the neighboring village of Tandzatap, there are also witnesses who spoke of 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 side of the mountain many meters deep. Thanks to this, very ancient layers turned out to be accessible. The tractor bucket demolished the lower slab, and then the burial itself was opened, from which the bone of a real giant was removed. Mikhail Ambartsumyan, at that time personally supervised the work.

Mikhail Ambartsumyan, a former headman of the village: “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, it was not visible. So they left it. 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. In height, the 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 pour concrete again and put a beam. When the concrete was broken, a flat stone was found under it, and a hole was found under the stone. “And in the pit they found a skull, one-eyed, the eye was on the forehead, the 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 got it out of the pit. My husband was advised to take the find to the museum. He took the skull, I don’t know if he took the rest or not.” This suggests that the bones of mammoths or other animals may have been confused with human bones.

A scandal is also connected with the quoted film "City of Giants", so the leading researcher of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of History, Ph.D. Maria Borisovna Mednikova addressed an open letter to the Kultura TV channel and stated that her words were misrepresented in the film, since she is an opponent of 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 "alpine 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.

The finds of human skeletons significantly exceeding the size that modern science can imagine does not mean that it was a whole race, it may be more correct to talk about only some of its representatives, endowed with divine properties during their lifetime, and buried in special stone burials with more honors than their compatriots, who have not been touched by the hand of all the genetic advantages of the “alpine type”?

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

At first, the scandalous photo was distributed 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 Geographic 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 that were mentioned in the Mahabharata (Mahabharata) - an Indian epic of 200 BC.

The journal's editor, one P. Deivamuthu, later apologized to the National Geographic Society by sending a letter. Say, he fell for the facts obtained from sources, which, as it has now become obvious, were not trustworthy.

But the thirst for knowledge was already unsatisfied. Information about the "Indian find" climbed out of all Internet cracks with renewed vigor. And, of course, along with a photo of a giant.

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

There are so many skeletons

As shown by the investigation, the photo specifically of the "Indian skeleton" was made by a specialist in artistic photoshop from Canada, a certain IronKite. But not for malicious intent, but in the form of participation in the annual competition called "Archaeological Anomalies 2". Where the author was awarded the third place (which works were awarded the first and second prizes, it is not possible to determine now - access to the competition website is closed). Participants were asked to fabricate some amazing archaeological find. Some of them were very talented. And it fell on fertile ground - many do not doubt that giants once lived on Earth.

IronKite reported by mail to National Geographic News that it was only for highly artistic purposes, and had nothing to do with subsequent fools. But he does not want to reveal his name. From sin.

The original photograph was also discovered, which served as a kind of background and archaeological entourage for the skeleton. The picture was taken in 2000 in New York's Hyde Park (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 skeleton of a giant”, only one thing remained unclear: whose bones played its role?

And the trailblazer IronKite seems to be followed by followers. And now the Internet is full of giant skeletons.

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

The tallest woman in history is the Chinese Tseng Jin-lian (1964-1982). She died at the age of 17 with a height of 2.48 m. The name of the 18-year-old Thai woman Mali 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 of the body. She is currently receiving expensive injections ($3,200 every three months) to control her rapid growth.

In our country, the most famous living giant is Uliana Semenova, the famous basketball player and Honored Master of Sports (2.18 m). She was born in 1952 in a small Latvian town and worked hard to get into a basketball school. As they wrote in the newspapers: “Passages under the shield, where Semenova is on duty, have no chance of success. Rivals either find themselves under the hands of Semenova, 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 in a family of poor bourgeois. This happened in 1877. At first, it was quite an ordinary pretty girl. But after three years, she began to grow "by leaps and bounds" and at the age of 9 she reached up to 2 arshins 11 inches (1.92 m).

The height of her parents was average, so those around her were vigorously discussing her unusual external data. But the girl continued to gain centimeters and by the age of 17 she stretched up to 2 meters 27 centimeters. Her weight reached - 8 pounds (132 kilograms). It is not clear, by the way, 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 older brother of the deceased, Mikhail Gavrilovich, decided to go on an adventure - to use Elizabeth's unusual external data to make money, showing her as a phenomenon (at that time, various "freak shows" came into fashion in Russia).

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

After her success in Russia, her uncle took her on a tour abroad. 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, then visited the cities of Great Britain: London, Liverpool and Manchester. In 1893, Elizabeth walked the streets of Italy - Naples, Rome, Milan, then visited Zurich, Munich and Vienna.

In Rome, the maiden Lisko was awarded an audience with the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich (the third son of Alexander II). The Don giantess was becoming more and more famous in high society, and it was considered good form to invite her as a guest to secular salons. In London, she was at a party 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 appearance and beauty. As a result of a foreign tour, she gained fame, became rich, and was predicted to be the husband of princes and barons.

Indeed, Liza 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, often a person cannot even move normally. Also, the cause of abnormal growth could be a brain tumor, but no pathologies were detected in the Krasnokutsk beauty during medical observations. She was examined by the doctors of Leipzig and gave a certificate that she is "an exceptional phenomenon in the world." This evidence was confirmed in Berlin in 1893.

In the same place, a forecast was made about its further development by Professor Rudolf Virchow. It was disappointing - the girl should grow another 13 inches (58 centimeters), that is, reach almost 3 meters! However, these predictions did not come true. Liza died under 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 gigantic growth, remained a mystery to everyone.

In the tales and legends of almost all the peoples of the Earth there are references to people of huge physique - giants. The fact that people once lived on Earth, whose growth was much higher than that of a modern person, 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 of the world you can find such strange cyclopean buildings. One of the most amazing buildings is the Baalbek Terrace in Lebanon.

Its grandiosity is emphasized by the size of the stones from which it is built.

In Baalbek lies the largest processed stone in the world. Its ancient name is Gayyar el-Kibli, which means "Stone of the South". The volume of the stone is 433 m3, the 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, one-time efforts of 60 thousand people are needed!

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 the weight is about 800 tons.

Who, except for the giants, could transport and process such colossus?

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 on the coast of Easter Island about 500 huge stone idols - sculptures up to 8 meters high and weighing up to 50 tons, which were carved from volcanic rocks, transported over a distance of several tens of 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 those that weigh 16 tons and reach a diameter of 2.5 meters.

Tales of the Giants

In a variety of sources there is a lot of documentary information about the giants. Let's take a look at some of them.

In South Africa, on the Okovango River, the natives talk about giants who lived in the past in these places. 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.

On the hunt, they walked hundreds of kilometers a day, and the killed elephants and hippos were easily thrown onto their shoulders and carried home. Their weapons were bows made from palm trunks. Even the earth wore them with difficulty.

And Inca legends say that during the reign of Inca XII Ayatarko Kuso, from the side of the ocean on huge reed rafts, people of such enormous growth arrived in 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!

On one of the adobe tablets of ancient Babylon it is said that the priests of the Babylonian state received all astronomical knowledge from giants over 4 meters tall who lived in South Asia.

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

Only four- or six-meter giants were not the most gigantic. Conquering America, the Spaniards allegedly discovered in one of the Aztec temples a skeleton as much as 20 meters tall. This is the scale of the giants. The Spaniards sent him as a gift to the Pope. And a certain Whitney, who served at the beginning of the 19th century as 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 prints of their huge feet. The most famous of them is located in South Africa. It was found by a local farmer Stoffel Kötzi at the beginning of the last century. A “left footprint” is imprinted into an almost vertical wall to a depth of about 12 centimeters. Its length is 1 meter 28 centimeters. It is believed that the owner of huge 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 unique finds, otherwise Darwin's theory of evolution would have completely collapsed and one would have to change views on the entire history of mankind and its appearance on earth.

The history of Islam testifies that...

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

The Adites are the descendants of the Prophet Nuh. They were the tallest and strongest people on earth. But they, forgetting the Creator, began to worship idols, and wickedness and sins appeared among them, crossing all boundaries. Here is how the history of the Ad tribe is conveyed in the book of the venerable Sheikh Said-Afandi “The History of the Prophets”: “The lowest of them was sixty cubits tall, and they reached maturity only after a hundred years.

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

To instruct the tribe of Hell in faith, the prophet Hood was sent to them, but they rejected his calls. Disobeying Hud, 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 taught them, they rejected him and threw stones at him. So seventy years passed, but their delusion only intensified. Then Hud asked Allah to make their women barren and reduce their number. Not a single child was born that year. So they saw with their own eyes that Hud's prayer had been accepted. When this miracle did not work on the unfortunate tribe because of their recklessness, the Almighty sent them a drought, and for seven years there was no rain. Half of the tribe died of starvation.

At that time, everyone, believers and unbelievers, who were touched by misfortunes and misfortunes, had a tradition: to go to Mecca and ask Allah for deliverance there. And in the tribe of Hell, a group of people also gathered, who 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 a black cloud means rain, chose it, for they were going to ask for rain. After that, a black cloud flew to Yemen.

The tribe of Hell was very happy to see this cloud, but the wind was sent down on the unrighteous, who desired rain, by the power of Allah. A hurricane raged continuously for seven nights and eight days, uprooting trees, destroying dwellings, and there was no one left who could stand on their feet. Having made life unbearable and not killing them, Allah punished the giants with stone rain. 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 pain and suffering, the faithful among them survived.

Of the entire Hell tribe, no one was left alive, except for the people sent to Mecca.

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

It is noteworthy that in the summer of 2006, a human skeleton was discovered in Saudi Arabia, 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 shrink?

Dr. Karl Bohm believes that in the distant past, natural conditions favored the enhanced growth of a person, and then they changed dramatically, and people “chunked”.

"Optimal genetic development," Bohm says, "is when everything in an organism's DNA develops entirely through favorable atmospheric conditions." In his opinion, before the Flood, the ozone layer was much thicker, and after it only one-seventh remained. The decrease in the ozone layer led to a weakening of 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 allegedly supports the vault of heaven on his shoulders, or the Tibetan Avalokiteshvara, the eleven-headed giant, whom some researchers consider the embodiment of the forces that support the earth's axis in Tibetan cosmology.

Avalokiteshvara

These are the so-called world giants, that is, those who support the world in the truest sense of the word. And there were those who were smaller - they met with people and carried them when there was trouble, and when not. For example, in Greece there were legends about cyclops, huge, vicious, but stupid creatures. In Homer's "Odyssey" it is said that the Cyclopes were cannibals. So, one of them almost devoured Odysseus and the team of his sailors, but was fooled and blinded by the captives.

Cyclops

Giants are also mentioned in the Bible. The Old Testament says that the scouts sent by Moses to Palestine returned and said that they saw giants, in comparison with which ordinary people were like locusts. There are also references in the Koran to giants who were taller than the tallest palms and laughed at Noah, who began to build his ark before the Great Flood: they say, we are so high that we do not care about the flood. And they all drowned.

However, the giants were not always arrogant or hostile to people. For example, Russian epics keep the memory of Svyatogor, a giant hero who was so great that he could hide the rider in his pocket along with his horse. Svyatogor, as it is clear from his name, lived in the mountains, more precisely, on the mountains, because ordinary earth could not bear his weight. Therefore, Svyatogor never traveled to Russia 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 therefore did not touch the affairs of Russia because he had nothing to do with it. Sometimes they see in him one of the first ancestors who possessed unheard-of strength and power - but their time was already running out, and people of much smaller sizes appeared on earth, and they already had their own heroes and heroes.

Actually, this is what the epic about Svyatogor tells about. Allegedly, he met Ilya Muromets, put him, as it was said, in his pocket, and began to carry him around. Yes, and I forgot, until his horse (as it should be in fairy tales, speaking) reminded him that, they say, it’s hard to immediately carry so many people on himself. Svyatogor brought Ilya into the light of God, and they began to travel together until they stumbled upon a giant stone coffin.

Here Svyatogor committed a strange and subsequently suicidal act. He lay down in this coffin, which was 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 none of the mortals could kill him, fate itself did it. Before his death, Svyatogor transferred part of his strength to Ilya and wanted to transfer all of it, but he did not take it: there was no more place on earth for such a gigantic power. Thus ended the era of giants in Russia.

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

Some researchers explain that Russian nature itself did not favor this. Plains and forests - well, where in such a landscape would a giant go? But where there were mountains, they often and a lot talked about the giants - they say, the giants sketched these same mountains. In this case, the myth of the giants was just 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 reports, Makhnov was even taller - about 2 meters 70 centimeters).

Makhnov was born in Belarus in 1878 and from adolescence he began to show fantastic strength: he could raise the roof of a house, break or, conversely, unbend a horseshoe, and so on. The strong man was found by entrepreneur Robert Cook and went with him to conquer Europe. At this time, in 1903, the journal Nature and People wrote:

"The tallest man in the world is now unanimously recognized as the Russian giant Feodor Makhnov. At present, 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 among the tallest giants that have ever existed on the globe. In many ways, he is of great interest to science. "

Two and a half meters is, of course, a phenomenal growth, but still the giants are spoken of as fantastically tall creatures. Moreover, there is a version according to which all people without exception were once fantastically tall, that is, giants. They say that before people were larger, then they became smaller and continue to decrease. And when they reach the size of an ant, then the end of the world will happen - predictions frighten.

Could our ancestors be bigger than us? On the one hand, nature, of course, at times gravitates towards megalomania. In prehistoric times, the living creatures that inhabited the earth were huge, so why shouldn't human ancestors also be gigantic in size? So thought 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 allegedly reached 40 meters, and Eve - 35.

There are unusual and strange finds that support Linnaeus's theory. Allegedly, huge skeletons were found in Egypt, Africa, China, Australia and the USA, but then these finds were classified for no apparent reason - maybe so that the theory of evolution would not be rewritten. Most scientists make faces at such conversations and say that all this is just unscientific tales.

The only huge humanoid creature, the reality of which they are ready to admit - Gigantopithecus. Gigantopithecus - a species of great apes that lived in Southeast Asia in the late Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene, possibly adjacent to the so-called "upright man".

Gigantopithecus really were giants, only they walked on four limbs. In dictionaries, they write about them that Gigantopithecus had a height of up to 3 meters 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 the meeting with Gigantopithecus gave rise to myths about giants. But no one can answer this question for sure.

As for the version that once people were larger, and now they are only decreasing, it does not withstand any criticism. Rather, everything happens the other way around. Our ancestors were not giants, but rather, we would have seemed to them beings of extremely tall stature, because before people were much smaller. Evidence can be found in any historical museum, where among other exhibits there are clothes. The armor of a medieval knight is suitable for the current sixth grader. Camisoles and dresses today are unlikely to fit on the average adult.

When did we manage to make such a leap in growth? Seems like very recently. I was told a story about how one of the London theaters started to restore the performance that was on its stage in the 1950s. It seems to be not so 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 are not suitable for modern actors. And it would be okay for one or two - things did not fit the whole troupe! Sleeves, trouser legs and skirts were too short, and limbs protruded ridiculously from under them. The clothes were small in the shoulders, narrow in the hips - in short, they could not be adjusted at all to the artists, and after all, only half a century had passed since the costumes were sewn.

It became obvious that during this time the outlines of the human body have noticeably changed: we have become taller, our arms and legs have lengthened, our shoulders have become wider ... In a word, acceleration is the changes that have been taking place over the past 100-150 years. So, for five generations, from 1880 to 1980, the French grew by 8 centimeters, and the Swedes - by 15. Acceleration applies not only to European countries, but also to many others: residents of the Seychelles are getting taller.

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

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

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