Legends and tales about giants- people of enormous stature, can be found among many ancient peoples. Stories about giants that claim to be authentic and told by travelers or chroniclers are much less common and the more valuable these testimonies are.

According to these records, once many hundreds of years ago in the territory Northern Urals And Siberia one could meet people of unusually tall stature. Moreover, these were not isolated cases of physical anomalies (gigantism), which sometimes occur in our time, since there are reports of entire tribes (!) of Russian giants.

One of the documentary evidence about the Russian giant belongs to Ahmed ibn Fadlan, who in 921-922, together with the embassy of the Baghdad caliph, visited the king of the Volga Bulgars, having previously traveled through Russian possessions. The book written by Ibn Fadlan is an invaluable source on the history of pre-Christian Rus', including the Urals, but the passage from it that interests us is usually bashfully suppressed. And it tells nothing more or less than about a giant who lived in the vicinity of the Bulgarian capital.

The Arab traveler told how, while still in Baghdad, he heard from one captive Turk that at the headquarters of the ruler of the Bulgarian kingdom, one giant was being held in captivity - “a man of extremely huge physique.” When the embassy arrived on the Volga, Ibn Fadlan asked the king to show the giant.

Unfortunately, the giant was killed not long ago before the Arab’s visit due to his violent and evil character. As eyewitnesses said, from one glance of the gigantic creature, children fainted, and pregnant women suffered miscarriages. The wild giant was caught far in the North, in the country of Visu [according to modern historians, this is the chronicle who lived somewhere in the Pechora region] and brought to the capital Volga Bulgaria.

He was kept outside the city, chained to a huge tree. This is where they strangled him.

Ibn Fadlan was shown the remains: “And I saw that his head was like a large tub, and his ribs were like the largest dry fruit branches of palm trees, and in the same way the bones of his legs and both of his ulnas. I was amazed at this and left.”

By the way, there is information dating back to the end of the 19th century: during the opening of one of the burial grounds in the Volga region (albeit, to the south of the places that Ibn Fadlan speaks of - in the Saratov province), the skeleton of a giant man was discovered there.

If anyone thinks that they want to mystify him, then let him become acquainted with another piece of evidence: it can be found in a book with the poetic title “A Gift to the Mind and a Selection of Curiosities.” It belongs to someone else Arab traveler, scientist and theologian Abu Hamid al-Garnati. More than a hundred years after Ibn Fadlan, he also visited the capital of Volga Bulgaria and met there the same giant, but only alive, and even talked to him:

“And I saw in Bulgar in 530 a tall man from the descendants of the Adites, whose height was more than seven cubits, named Danki. He took the horse under his arm like a man takes a little lamb. And his strength was such that he broke the horse’s shin with his hand and tore the meat and sinews, like others tear greens.

And the ruler of the Bulgar made him a coat of chain mail, which was carried in a cart, and a helmet for his head, like a cauldron. When there was a battle, he fought with an oak club, which he held in his hand like a stick, but if he hit an elephant with it, he would kill him. And he was kind, modest; when he met me, he greeted me and greeted me respectfully, although my head did not reach his waist, may Allah have mercy on him.”

Similar information has been preserved in Scandinavian sources. They relate to Varangian raids in remote areas of the Russian North. Here, tireless robber explorers repeatedly encountered tribes of giants, both ordinary male giants and tribes consisting exclusively of females (so to speak, Amazon giantesses):

“When they sailed along the shore for some time, they saw that there stood a very tall and huge house.<...>They saw that the temple was very large and built of white gold and precious stones. They saw that the temple was open. It seemed to them that everything inside was shining and sparkling, so that there was not even a shadow anywhere.<...>

There they saw a table, as befits a king, covered with expensive cloth and [filled with] various precious vessels made of gold and precious stones.<...>30 giantesses were talking at the table, and the priestess was in the center. They [the Vikings] could not understand whether she was in the form of a man or some other creature. They all thought that she was worse in appearance than words could express.”

Some time later, approximately the same picture was described by the Danish historian and chronicler Saxo Grammaticus (1140 - ca. 1208), talking about the voyage of a Viking squad along White Sea, with the difference that here we were no longer talking about the temple and the “Amazons,” but about the cave where the giants lived.

The Russian North is actually full of stories about giants. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, among the Pomors who sailed to Novaya Zemlya, there was a legend that there were giant human skulls with bared teeth.

Giants of Siberia

Siberian legends about meetings with giants were collected and recorded by the world famous archaeologist Alexey Pavlovich Okladnikov (1908-1981). Hunter and reindeer herder Nikolai Kurilov from the lower reaches of the Lena told him that a certain man, hunting arctic foxes in winter, discovered huge human footprints on the shores of the Arctic Ocean that came out of the sea.

The hunter decided to find out where the tracks lead on land. After two days of driving, he saw in front of him a mountain rising in the middle of the taiga like an island. There were especially many traces here. Suddenly a woman several fathoms tall appeared. She took Nikolai Kurilbva by the hand and led her into the house where the giant man was.

He said to the hunter: “It’s my own fault that I showed my tracks, otherwise you wouldn’t have come here. Go back home, but don’t tell anyone about what you took away. And I will help you return. Don't come out until I get the sledge ready. You’ll come out later.” After some time, the giant returned to the house and commanded: “Now come out.” There was complete fog all around, you couldn’t see anything. The giant put the hunter on the sledge, blindfolded him and said: “When you reach your land, let the dogs go.”

The return journey took the hunter only one day and without an overnight stay. When the hunter untied his eyes, he saw that he was being carried not by dogs, but by two wolves. Behind him rushed his own dog sled, loaded to the top. Arriving home, the hunter released the wolves, and they immediately disappeared. When he opened the cargo, he saw a mountain of expensive furs. The fact is that the giant asked the uninvited guest: “Why are you wandering alone along the seashore.” He replied that this is how he lives. That is why the giant, out of pity, gave so much fur.

Until his old age, Nikolai Kurilov did not say anything to anyone, and only told them when he was dying.

Various Siberian peoples have preserved many legends about taiga giants. There is a belief that they carry away burning brands from hunting fires. These giants differ from ordinary people not only in height, but also in their long thick eyebrows or in the fact that they are completely covered with hair. Therefore, their other name is “bearded people.” The “bearded” live not alone, but in entire villages. The shape of the houses is domed; inside they were illuminated not by stoves, but by an unknown “luminous stone”.

In many legends, the land of the giant tribe is associated with the islands of the Arctic Ocean. In the mid-19th century, the following story was recorded from an eyewitness. A certain industrialist was inspecting trapping gear on the islands near the Kolyma mouth. There he was caught in a snowstorm and got lost. He wandered for a long time through the icy desert, and finally the dogs brought him to an unfamiliar village, consisting of several huts.

Late in the evening, huge men came from the fishery and began to ask the stranger: who he was, where he was from, on what occasion and why he came here, had he heard of them before and, finally, had he been sent by someone? They kept the industrialist who told this whole story under supervision for six weeks, placing him in a separate house and not allowing him to leave a single step. He often heard the ringing of a bell, from which he decided that he had ended up in a schismatic monastery.

Finally, the owners agreed to let the industrialist go, but took an oath from him to remain silent about everything he saw and heard. Then they blindfolded him, took him out of the village and took him very far away. When we parted, they gave us a large number of white arctic foxes and red foxes.

At the same time, the Verkhoyansk police officer informed the Irkutsk Bishop Veniamin that there was an “island unknown to geography” on the Arctic Ocean. He is in good and clear weather from the island New Siberia to the northeast is represented by a point.

There are inhabitants on this island. They are called bearded men because, they say, the people are completely overgrown with hair. The wild Chukchi have relations with them very rarely and on pain of death, who convey this secretly to the Chukchi who pay yasak. They, in turn, and also in secret, tell the Russians about everything.

Popular legend says that bearded men lived on the islands of the Arctic Ocean a long time ago and that some bishop and his retinue were brought here and thrown ashore. It was as if he heard the sounds of bells on that island, but the bearded men did not allow him into their home. They trade only on the shore, and do not allow strangers near their islands.

In addition, already at the end of the 20th century, one Kolyma old man, having heard about Sedov’s expedition to North Pole, said: “Well, that means they’ll definitely visit the people who live in houses with golden roofs,” hinting at the mysterious islanders about whom the legends of the Russian and indigenous population of the Arctic Ocean coast speak.

From the book by V.N. Demina "Mysteries of the Urals and Siberia"

If you look at the Giant's Causeway from above, it really resembles a stone pavement and even a honeycomb.

As soon as this area is not called Northern Ireland! The Giant's Causeway, Causeway of Giants, Giant's Causeway. This place amazes not only with its size, but also mysterious legend origin. According to an Irish legend, once upon a time the warrior Finn MacKumalo was going to fight the giant Hall, who lived overseas. Finn decided to build a bridge across it to get to Hall's house. He hewed out stone columns and drove them into the seabed with a sword. When Finn was tired, he lay down to rest and fell asleep. At this time the giant himself came to him.

But Finn's wife was cunning. She passed off her sleeping husband as her son. She told Hall that she was waiting for her husband and began to treat the giant to cakes with iron pans baked in them. When Finn woke up, his wife also gave him scones, but without the pans. Hall became frightened when he saw how quickly the child ate them. He imagined how huge his father must be and started running. The bridge could not bear the weight of the giant and broke.

But that was the legend. And from a scientific point of view, the origin of the Giant’s Causeway can be explained as follows. About 60 million years ago, eruptions occurred in this area. powerful volcanoes. They raised columns of ash into the sky and threw boiling magma onto the surface of the earth. As the magma cooled, it turned into lava. Columns are vertical cracks formed when lava solidified. Moreover, the slower the magma cooled, the higher the columns turned out.

Today the Giant's Causeway area is National Nature Reserve Northern Ireland and a UNESCO heritage site. The columns here reach a height of 6-12 meters, and their length is 275 meters. Researchers have counted about 40,000 of these pillars that enter the waters Atlantic Ocean at 150 meters. The diameter of the columns is on average 30-50 centimeters. They have smooth tops and several faces, which have from 4 to 9 corners. The edges were also formed as a result of natural geodetic processes.

If you look at the Giant's Causeway from above, it really resembles a stone pavement and even a honeycomb. All columns are dark in color and incredibly hard. This is explained by the fact that the pillars consist of basalt rich in magnesium and iron, which contains a small amount of quartz. This composition helps the columns to successfully withstand the destructive effects of winds and stormy waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Giant's Causeway consists of three sites. The first is the Great Trail. In this area there are the tallest columns, originating from rocky mountains. They resemble a cluster of huge stone steps. Closer to the water, the steps level out and form a stone road, the width of which is 20 - 30 meters. The second site is the Middle and Small trails. They are located along the Great Path and are shaped like mounds. Moreover, each column has a flat top, which makes it possible to carefully move from one pillar to another.

The third site with a column is already located on the island of Staffa at a distance of 130 meters from the main shore and is a continuation of the unique formations. The island is home to a huge Fingal's Cave. Its height reaches 30 meters and length - 75 meters. The cave has indescribably beautiful acoustics. The waves crashing against the shore of the island create magical music in its hall, which is why Fingal’s Cave is also called “Singing Cave.” By the way, the Isle of Staffa is already considered Scottish territory.


In the folklore of different peoples of the world you can find many stories about giants. As a rule, these were creatures huge size who possessed superhuman strength and extraordinary abilities. True, these characters were almost always destined for a tragic fate. The five most unusual mythical giants are discussed later in the review.

1. Atlas - the giant who holds up the sky



In Greek mythology, Atlas (Atlas) was one of the Titans who went to war against Zeus, the supreme ruler of Olympus. When the Titans lost, Zeus punished Atlas by forcing him to hold the firmament above the Earth forever.

According to the legends about the 12 labors of Hercules, the hero met Atlas. Hercules shouldered the sky so that the giant could rest from his heavy burden.

Another legend tells of Perseus encountering Atlas in North West Africa. The giant wanted to drive Perseus away, but he took out the severed head of Medusa the Gorgon in his bags. Seeing her, Atlas turned to stone, becoming a mountain range.

2. Hrungnir - a giant in stone armor


There are many legends about giants in the Scandinavian epic. The largest of them is Hrungnir. Once he competed in a race with the supreme god Odin, but lost. Then Hrungnir declared that he would kill all the gods of Asgard. He donned stone armor and took a whetstone as a weapon. His head and heart were also made of stone.

Thor came out to duel with the giant. The hero threw a hammer, which broke the whetstone and broke Hrungnir's head.

3. Biblical giant Goliath



According to the Bible, Goliath was a Philistine - a representative ancient people who lived in the Middle East. The Old Testament describes a battle scene between a 2.77 meter tall giant, dressed in copper armor, and the Jewish youth David, armed only with a sling.





A well-thrown stone hit the giant, and he fell. David took his sword from the sheath of his defeated enemy and cut off his head.

4. One-Eyed Cyclops Polyphemus



Polyphemus is perhaps the most famous of the Cyclopes - the one-eyed giants in Greek mythology. According to Homer's Odyssey, Polyphemus was the son of Poseidon and the sea nymph Toosa. He lived on the island of Sicily with other Cyclopes, where he tended sheep.

When Odysseus and his crew landed on the island, they were captured. The cyclops locked people in a cave so that they could then eat them all. But the cunning Odysseus found a way out here too. He gouged out the sleeping giant's only eye, and then, together with a herd of sheep, got out and fled from the island.

5. Hungry and sleepy demon Kumbhakarna



Kumbhakarna is a giant demon from the Hindu epic Ramayana. Kumbhakarna was not initially evil, but by his own mistake he asked Brahma not for a blessing, but for a long sleep. As a result, the giant slept for six months a year, and when he woke up, he ate everyone in a row - both people and monkeys.

When an important battle began and Kumbhakarn's help was needed, only the trampling of a thousand elephants could wake him up. The giant opposed the army of Prince Rama, but was killed in battle.

Mythical giants are known only from the pages of ancient epics, unlike

Of course, in fairy tales, folk tales and legends. You can also read about them in some ancient manuscripts and even in sacred books. For example, in myths Ancient Greece, in the Iliad and Odyssey, in the Bible and in the Koran. There are many descriptions of giants, cyclops, various evil spirits, heroes, in a word, huge characters who are not like us. One of the most famous historical characters is the giant Goliath, who was more than three meters tall. Subsequently, King David fought with him and won.

In our area there is a legend that giant people not only lived on the banks of mighty rivers and in the mountains, but even after death they still continue to grow underground. Allegedly on ancient cemeteries, near dilapidated mazars, huge skeletons are found, the leg bones of which are extended about four meters from the skull.

It was believed that all this was fantasy, fiction. No smart historian will recognize a fact as scientific, relying only on ancient legends. Give them, historians, evidence - bones from mounds, shards, jewelry, ruins of giant buildings. Well, at least a huge tooth or jaw of a giant, which are found from time to time in different parts of the world.

Archaeological finds different years confirm: giant people lived on Earth in ancient times. There is evidence of finds of the remains of giants in almost all parts of the world: in Mexico, Peru, Tunisia, Pennsylvania, Texas, the Philippines, Syria, Morocco, Australia, Spain, Georgia, South-East Asia, on the islands of Oceania - everywhere there are such artifacts and there are legends similar to ours. You can believe in them or not.

Fairy tales? But here in Kazakhstan, quite recently, archaeologists made a sensational discovery. They found skeletons of two-meter people in the Aktobe region. These, of course, are not four-meter monsters, but still not our average height of 160 to 170 cm.

Kazakh scientists immediately came to the conclusion that in ancient times giants actually lived on the territory of our republic. In their opinion, age archaeological site“Kumsai”, where excavations are underway and skeletons of giants have been found, is more than 4 thousand years old. This is the time of transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. Scientists have counted more than 160 mounds there. So many have never been found anywhere in Eurasia. If there is a giant in each mound, it will be possible to assume that in ancient times there really was a country of giants between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea. And if so far only two have been found, then what a rarity! In the Guinness Book of Records, two-meter giants constantly compete to see which of them has more centimeters in height. Every country has its own giant. Now in the Book there are a dozen heroes more than 2 meters tall.

A couple of years ago in the Caucasus, in the mountains of the Borjomi Gorge, Georgian archaeologists also discovered the remains of mysterious creatures about which legends have been made for centuries local residents. The bones of fossil Caucasians belong to giant people who lived 25 thousand years ago. Georgian archaeologists claim that the height of their giant ancestor could have been from 2.5 to 3 meters.

From all the legends about giants, a general picture can be drawn. Firstly, giants, according to legend, had incredible strength. It was thanks to them that the world received many giant monuments, such as the Tibetan City of the Gods, Stonehenge, Teotihucan, the Egyptian Sphinx, etc. For example, in Lebanon, at the base of the Baalbek terrace there are three huge blocks, each weighing 800 tons. They were fitted to each other with amazing precision - down to the millimeter. And this is an impossible task even for the most modern construction equipment. Just to move one such block would require the effort of more than 40 thousand people. Who could manually build such a gigantic structure if not the giants?!

Secondly, also according to legends, the giants possessed knowledge that modern science has not yet reached. For example, Atlas, who revealed to people the mysteries of astronomy, which is why he was immortalized in the image of a strongman who supports Earth. True, now these same qualities are usually attributed to aliens who supposedly once visited the earth, built giant structures and shared their knowledge with earthlings. Our ancestors themselves, apparently, were stupid! They couldn't think of anything!

Height of two meters and a few more centimeters is a lot. But it's not that uncommon either. For example, Peter the Great and his associate Lefort were exactly like that - more than 2 meters tall. They write about Peter differently: sometimes he was 204 cm, sometimes 240. Obviously, no one approached the Tsar with his arshin. But in the museum “Peter’s House” there is his bed – very large!

The king clearly had health problems. Usually tall men have large feet, but the two-meter Peter had only size 39 feet, which is why Peter, although Great, was unstable - he walked with a swing, with a cane (he often beat bribe-takers with it), stumbled and even fell. Now most of our contemporaries wear shoes like his. It turns out that this is the most common women's shoe size in the world - 39.

The famous boxer Nikolai Valuev has a height almost like Peter the Great - 213 cm, but the shoe size is proportional - 52 (paradoxically, the mythical Bigfoot "Yeti", judging by the footprints, has a smaller foot size).

The boxer also refutes the assertion that heroes are not smart. Nikolai is a deputy of the State Duma, from the United Russia party, a cheerful and witty TV presenter.

The information that all tall people are strong is doubtful. On the contrary, doctors say that modern giants usually grow up as a result of brain disease, and their bones, and especially joints, cannot withstand the enormous weight and also suffer. Many heroes walk on crutches, and in old age they suffer from various diseases and rarely do any of them live long.

However, not all tall people are necessarily sick. Human growth is influenced, among other things, by environmental factors, and sometimes by inherited diseases from parents. Height can be influenced by belonging to a particular race and nation. For example, the average height of urban Chinese is 165 cm (men) and 155 cm (women), and the average height of the Dutch is 178.7 cm and 168.7 cm, respectively. Living conditions, in particular nutrition, are also of great importance. For example, prosperous South Koreans on average 7 cm higher than northerners living in poverty.

Movies often show heroic knights. Meanwhile, their armor preserved in castles and museums is very small. Our contemporary even of average height cannot put them on. Such a “hero” mounted a horse with the help of servants.

Like all people, nothing human is alien to giants. Almost all of them dream of a soul mate, who, given their enormous stature, is difficult to find and charm. For example, a resident of Mongolia, Bao Khishun (height 2.36 m), only at the age of 56 met his life partner, with whom he got married. The giant's wife is a 29-year-old Chinese woman, who, with a height of 1.68 meters, barely reaches the elbow of her chosen one. Bao Hishun became famous for saving the lives of two dolphins from the Chinese Dolphinarium. With his long arms, he pulled out the plastic bags stuck there from the throats of the marine mammals.

Big people experience a lot of inconvenience in everyday life. Plus size clothes are made, but usually only in the USA, where there are a lot of tall and fat people. Their feet can be up to size 60, but where can they get shoes like that? In the luggage department?

Seats on airplanes, compartments on trains, furniture in hotels, doorways, bathtubs and showers - all this is designed for middle-aged people. The only way a giant can get into a car is by crouching down.


President of Ukraine V. Yushchenko and Mayor of Kyiv V. Klitschko

How can you stand up straight on the bus? In addition, most giants have serious health problems. Both ordinary people and historians, especially doctors, have always been interested in this mystery of nature - gigantism. But not all the reasons for it have been revealed.

Lovers of all sorts of ratings, the Americans recently found out that they are no longer the highest in the world: they are ahead of the Europeans, or rather, the inhabitants of Northern Europe - the Dutch, Norwegians, Danes and Germans. The height of Americans is declining for the first time in 300 years, while the height of Europeans is clearly increasing. Today the palm belongs to the Netherlands, where men are taller than Americans by an average of 4.7 cm, and women are taller than Americans by 5.7 cm. Next to the Dutch, whose average height is 184.3 cm, are Norwegians, Danes and Germans. Americans with a height of 179 cm dropped to 4th place in the ranking, but they are the most well-fed. The Italians occupy an even lower position with 174.5 cm. The French are ahead of them.

Two heroes were especially famous among Kazakhstanis: the famous Kazakh wrestler and circus artist Khadzhimukan Munaitpasov (1871-1948), and in the 50s of the last century, basketball player Uvais Akhtaev amazed fans with his height - 236 cm. He was the best center in the USSR, and perhaps in the world, given that at that time there were no players even two meters tall in the country.

Khadzhimukan Munaitpasov, although he stood out among his not very tall fellow countrymen, was still “only” 195 cm tall, weighed 139 kg, and had a shoe size of 54. But he was beautifully built and strong, and was not famous for his tall stature. Khadzhimukan is the first Kazakh to win the world champion title in French wrestling, and has repeatedly won the world, Russian, regional, and then all-Union championships in classical wrestling among heavyweights.

It is generally accepted that heroes are kind and sympathetic people. The strongman Khadzhimukan was just like that. He founded the first professional theater in the history of Kazakhstan, from which many famous artists of that time emerged. And already elderly, during the Great Patriotic War, participating in various championships, he collected money and donated an airplane to the front, named in honor of Amangeldy Imanov.

Of the Soviet female giants, the most famous is the famous basketball player Ulyana Semenova, who was born in Latvia in 1952 and has a height of 2 meters 13 centimeters. Russian Ekaterina Gamova, who twice won Olympic silver medals as a member of the volleyball team, is 7 cm shorter than Semenova - her height is 2 meters 6 centimeters. Katya is the daughter-in-law of actress and director Svetlana Druzhinina and cinematographer Anatoly Mukasey.

No “heroes” were found among Kazakh women. Although we have tall girls, the champion in height is called by wits the tallest “lady” in Kazakhstan... the chimney of the Ekibastuz State District Power Plant-2, which has a height of 419.7 m. This “young lady” was built in 1987 and is still Pore ​​is the tallest chimney in the world.

Interesting Facts:

* The ancient historian Herodotus wrote that the warriors of Sparta carried the skeleton of the giant Orestes on a pole during military campaigns. The skeleton reached 3.5 meters.

* The books of Pausanias say that in Syria, a human skeleton was raised from the bottom of the Sront River, which reached 5.5 meters.

* There is information about the four-meter skeleton in a medieval book called “History and Greed.” This skeleton was found in military garb, and a huge sword and ax were found nearby.

* In 1912, three-meter red-haired mummies were found in Nevada in the USA.

* In Turkey in the 1950s, road builders accidentally stumbled upon skeletons whose femurs alone were 120 cm long.

* In Southern Mongolia in 1999, British paleontologists found the fossilized skeleton of a giant. The length of the bones of his legs reached 7 meters, and the total height of the giant was 15 meters.

* Archaeologist Ralph von Koeningswald in Hong Kong in 1935 discovered human teeth that were 5 times larger than the teeth of an ordinary person.

*On the island of Ponape in the 1970s, an American expedition of archaeologists raised from the ground the skeletons of people who were twice the size of modern humans.

* Not all of these amazing finds have been preserved and are available to researchers. Some have disappeared, others are in museum storage rooms. However, most scientists do not take the tales of giants seriously.

About human growth

*During the day, a person’s height changes by an average of 0.5-1 cm. The greatest growth occurs immediately after sleep: during the day, the intervertebral discs settle, and during the night they restore their original height.

* For astronauts, during a long-term stay in weightlessness, their height increases by 5-8 centimeters. However, this is quite dangerous, as the spine loses strength. After returning to Earth, growth gradually returns to its previous value.

* On average, men grow up to 18-25 years old, and women - up to 16-19 years old.

*In general, humanity is gradually “growing.” If 50 years ago the average height was 165 cm, now it is 2.5 cm more. On average, his weight also increased by about a kilogram. In teenagers, the changes are even more noticeable. The average height of a modern teenager is 3-5 centimeters greater than that of his peers in the 30s.

*An epochal change in human growth is called acceleration. For example, Neanderthals were almost no different in height from modern humans (160-165 cm). During the Middle Ages, human height began to decline. But over the past 100 years, the length of the human body has increased dramatically.

* In itself, high growth is not a sign of gigantism - a serious illness caused by excessive production of somatotropic hormone. Healthy people with gigantic height (200 cm or more) differ from people of average height only in their height. And people with gigantism also differ in proportions.

Does tall mean smart?

IN different time researchers have tried to establish a connection between the height and talents of different people. But it was not possible to derive patterns. It turned out that among the geniuses there are many “little ones”, which is explained by their inflated demands on themselves, ambitions and the desire to prove to others that they are no worse than the “long ones”. As Napoleon said to his adjutant, “you are not taller, but longer, and I can easily match your height by shortening you by a head.”

Here is more or less reliable information about the height of famous people.

Tamerlane - 145 cm. Genghis Khan - 145 cm. Alexander the Great - 150 cm. Charlemagne -150 cm. Nestor Makhno - 151 cm. Dmitry Medvedev - 162 cm. Joseph Stalin - 163 cm. Vladimir Lenin -164 cm. Nikita Khrushchev - 166 see Alexander Pushkin - 166 (or 161?) cm Winston Churchill - 166 cm Nicholas II -168 cm Napoleon I - 169 cm Vladimir Putin - 170 cm Konstantin Tszyu - 170 cm Adolf Hitler - 175 cm Leonid Brezhnev - 176 cm. Ivan the Terrible - 178 cm. Alexander I - 178 cm. Alexander III- 179 cm. Alexander II - 185 cm. Boris Yeltsin - 187 cm. Arnold Schwarzenegger - 187 cm. Jacques Chirac - 189 cm. Bill Clinton - 189 cm. Alexander Marshall - 193 cm. Charles De Gaulle - 196 cm. Philip Kirkorov - 198 cm. Vitali Klitschko 201 cm.

Famous women were also not all of basketball height: Queen Victoria - 152 cm. Catherine II - 157 cm. Elizaveta Petrovna - 180 cm. Tennis player Maria Sharapova - 188 cm.

It’s interesting how everything works in the world... Not so long ago, just in 2016, scientific information spread around the world, mind you, that on Canary Islands, namely in Tenerife, mummies of Giants were discovered. It would seem a sensation, but only a few years have passed and this is already a secret of history, since no more information about these mummies and research results has been published.

It was reported that Spanish scientists are making a 3D scan of a giant mummy of one of the ancient representatives of the Guanche people - the aborigines who lived on the Canary Islands. The mummy itself was provided for research by the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid.

Using scanning technology, experts hope to learn more about how people lived, what killed them, and the funeral rituals they went through when they were buried. The mummies were carefully transported to the University Hospital of Quironsalud Madrid (HUQSM), the only facility with the latest scanning technology.

As part of this process, the mummies were scanned and ready for examination by a team of doctors that included Vicente Martinez de Vega, Javier Carrascoso and Silvia Badillo Rodriguez, Carmen Perez Dee, Teresa Gomez Espinosa and Esther Pons.

The group was accompanied during the examination of the mummies by a film crew from the national channel RTVE. A scanner that has low radiation levels but is very a high resolution, allows X-rays to penetrate an object and extract a huge amount of information in just one shot.

More than 2,000 cross-sectional images are acquired, which are then used to construct a volumetric and 3D image that can be studied by the team.

So, what is next? Where are the research results? Where is the answer to the question why the aborigines of the island of Tenerife were Giants? Just look at the hands of this “native”! There were people this tall in the Canary Islands?!


Guanches from the island of La Gomera. Drawing from “Description and History of the Distant Kingdom of Canary” by Leonardo Torriani (1592) Judging by the drawings of contemporaries who still found the Guanches alive, they somehow do not look very much like the usual image of “natives and aborigines.”

The origin of the Guanches is unknown to scientists. In the north of Tenerife there lived people with dark brown hair, and to the south there were brunettes. According to reports from Spanish and other conquerors, in the 15th century the island of Tenerife was inhabited by light-skinned people of the Caucasian type, among whom there were people with gray and blue eyes and with brown or reddish hair. The French Norman (Norman) Jean de Bettencourt described in detail the strange language of the Guanches, who supposedly could understand the speech of their fellow tribesmen without uttering a sound and only moving their lips, and also communicate by whistling at a distance of up to 15 kilometers.

Existed in the past and now hypotheses are put forward about their connection with ancient myth about Atlantis. Maybe the “Guanches” are representatives of the disappeared Atlantis?