The Giant of Castelnau - a genetic mutation or an echo of an ancient race? (8 photos)

Legends of giants are found in the folklore of cultures all over the world. The ancient Greeks had the Titans, who were born from Gaia (Earth) when the blood of Uranus (Sky) fell to the earth. The giants often fought the Olympian gods, and the defeated were said to be buried under stones.





In Norse mythology, giants broke into Asgard during the battle of Ragnarok and fought the gods until the world was destroyed. Perhaps the most famous of the giants was Goliath, whom David killed with a single blow from a slingshot.



Many proponents of the ancient giant theory believe that they were real and built many of the great stone monuments of the past, such as Stonehenge and the Pyramids. Even natural geological features such as the massive basalt columns of the Giant's Causeway on the coast of Northern Ireland have been attributed to giants.

However, there is no archaeological evidence that ancient humans were ever significantly taller than we are today. But in 1890, anthropologist Georges Vacher de Lapouge discovered three gigantic bones while excavating a Bronze Age cemetery at Castelnau, near Montpellier, France.





The photograph on the left shows a fragment of a femur of enormous size. It was 14 cm long and had a circumference of 16 cm. On the right is the upper part of the tibia. In the center is a normal-sized humerus, or upper arm bone, found in the same cemetery and positioned between the two finds to show how large the two adjacent fragments are. Below is a fragment that could belong to either the femur or humerus. Based on the size of the fragments, Lapouge estimated that the person to whom these bones belonged was 3.5 meters tall.



David and Goliath

These bones are undoubtedly human, despite their enormous size. The volumes were more than twice the normal ones they correspond to. Judging by the intervals between the anatomical points, they are also almost twice as long.



The environs of Castelnau

The giant's bones were examined by zoologists and paleontologists from the University of Montpellier, and then by Dr. Paul Louis André Kiener, professor of pathological anatomy at the Montpellier School of Medicine, who recognized that they represented "a very tall race."

Are the bones found in Castelnau evidence of pituitary hypertrophy caused by excessive levels of human growth hormone, or something else?



The Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland

By the way, there was a legend among the local peasants that a giant once lived in a cave in the valley. Could it be that the old tale is based on fact?



Anthropologist Georges Vacher de Lapouge

Interestingly, a few years later, the bones of giants were discovered in the same place. Workers excavating the reservoir allegedly found skulls up to 82 centimeters in circumference (for comparison, the average adult human head is about 55 centimeters). Other bones of gigantic proportions were also found, indicating that they belonged to a race of people "between 3 and 4.5 meters tall."



The bones were reportedly sent to the French Academy of Sciences for further study. That's where their trail ends. No mention of the supposed giant bone fragments from Castelnau ever appeared in scientific publications again.