The Bosnian ‘pyramids’ of Semir Osmanagić
The Hill of Visočica: supposedly the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun
This story has been around a while now, but I’ve been ignoring it for reasons I don’t fully understand, although I have suspicions that ought to become clear. The first anyone heard about supposed pyramids in Bosnia was in 2005, following a series of high profile public announcements based on a story carried by the popular Bosnian newspaper Dnevni Avaz. This ought instantly to set alarm bells ringing, as this is a typical tactic employed by pseudoscientists: rather than try out your new ideas on your peers (or, in the case of a discovery made by someone who is an amateur in a particular field, on acknowledged experts), you go straight to the mass media to instil your ideas in popular imagination. In that way, when the real experts begin to raise awkward questions, you can claim that they are trying to suppress your revolutionary ideas.
The origin of the hypothesis
Semir Osmanagić (born 1960), the American of Bosnian origin responsible for the ‘discovery’ of the pyramids, interviewed in Slovenija on 10 March 2011
Whose idea was it? According to the Wikipedia page on Semir Osmanagić, Senad Hodović, the director (muzejski savjetnik – direktor) of the cultural and historic heritage museum (Zavičajni muzej) in Visoko (Bosna i Hercegovina), first contacted him about the site. There is little information about Senad Hodović available on the web: most of it relates to the pyramid claims. However, the museum’s own website (which is entirely in Serbo-Croat, a language I do not speak: the language button in the header is not working), appears not to deal with the pyramids at all, although there is plenty of conventional archaeology as well as social history, art and folk life on display on its pages. We must leave the question of Professor Hodović’s involvement as an open question.
If he did approach Semir Osmanagić in the first instance, though, we should ask ourselves why he would choose to involve a metalworking contractor of Bosnian origin but living in Houston (Texas, USA) to investigate a potential archaeological puzzle. Although the Wikipedia entry for him describes him as an amateur archaeologist, his involvement in archaeology appears to date only from shortly before his interest in the formations around Visoko, to judge from his list of publications. It is entirely possible, of course, that the Wikipedia entry is in error and that it was Osmanagić who first contacted the museum.
The hypothesis itself
In brief, Osmanagić claims to have identified six ancient pyramids in the landscape around Visoko, of which the best known is the one he calls Bosanska Piramida Sunca (“Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun”), otherwise known as the hill of Visočica. This is a flatiron formation, standing some 341 m above the valley to its east, although its peak is only 77 m above the plateau to the west. He has named the five other sites Bosanska Piramida Mjeseca (“Bosnian Pyramid of the Moon”, the hill of Plješivica Hrašće), Piramida bosanskog Zmaja (“Pyramid of the Bosnian Dragon”, the hill of Bučki Gaj), Bosanska Piramida Ljubavi (“Bosnian Pyramid of Love”, the hill at Četnica), Hram majke Zemlje (“Temple of Mother Earth”, the hill at Krstac) and Šesta Piramida (“Sixth Pyramid”, the hill at Vrela).
The Illyrians by John Wilkes: one of the lesser known peoples of Iron Age Europe, but not pyramid builders in the remote past!
In initial press releases, the impression was given that a date of c 12,000 BCE was being suggested for the construction of the pyramids. When questioned, Semir Osmanagić clarified that he meant that they were constructed by the indigenous Illyrian population, whose culture he believes he can trace back to the Late Upper Palaeolithic of the region. It should be noted that this early date runs counter to the views of mainstream archaeologists who see Illyrian ethnogenesis as belonging to the Late Bronze or Early Iron Age, around 1000 BCE, while Classical writers located the people in coastal Dalmatia, not central Bosnia. Nevertheless, while Osmanagić has conceded that the pyramids could have been constructed as late as 500 BC, he seems a little ambivalent about so late a dating and still prefers to talk in terms of c 12,000 BCE.
Unlike a lot of Bad Archaeologists, he has actually gone out into the field and excavated sites to retrieve evidence in support of his hypothesis. This is unusual and he deserves respect for actually being prepared to put his ideas to the test. He claims to have detected evidence for artificiality in the pyramids. This consists of the identification of stone paving, terraces, tunnels, blocks and cement. This is the sort of evidence that would convince sceptical archaeologists of human activity in at least modifying natural geological formations to create pyramid forms. Why, then has the archaeological community failed to endorse his hypothesis?
Poor quality evidence
It’s the nature of the data unearthed by Semir Osmanagić that has not impressed archaeologists around the world. During late 2005 and early 2006, Osmanagić mkade statements to the media about the involvement of other archaeologists from around the world, who would bring scientific credibility to his excavations. Unfortunately, several of those named by him denied any involvement in the project (one, Royce Richards, even describes his alleged involvement as “a big load of bollocks”), others (such as prehistorian Anthony Harding) who visited the site failed to see any evidence for artificiality, while yet others (such as Egyptologist Nabil Swelim) failed to present convincing evidence or left the project after discovering it to be a sham.
Interesting geology at Visočica that no archaeologist would mistake for human construction
One of those who might have been expected to uphold Osmanagić’s hypotheses was Robert Schoch of Sphinx-more-ancient-than-Egyptologists-claim notoriety. However, after visiting the excavations in 2006, he declared that all he saw was interesting geology. That is certainly the impression given by photographs published in documents available from Osmanagić’s website, which is public front of his Fondacija Bosanska Piramida Sunca (“Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Foundation”). The foundation has raised hundreds of thousands of (American) dollars to carry out its research, at a time when Bosnian archaeology is poorly funded and many monuments in the country are at risk following the devastation of the 1990s war.
An amazing resource for debunking the claims of those who promote Osmanagić’s ideas is Le Site d’Irna (it can be read in French, English and Serbo-Croat). Irna has collected just about everything you need to work your way out of the morass of claim and counter-claim about the “Bosnian Pyramids”. There is no real need for me to examine the “Bosnian Pyramids” in detail: everything you need is there.
Interestingly, the web has been the downfall of the claims about these so-called pyramids. In an earlier age, it was relatively easy to promote ludicrous ideas through traditional media and not have them subject to detailed scrutiny. The traditional press still seems to work this way: the lazy churning of press releases with minimal, if any, fact checking is a regular feature of even the quality press, and this is exactly what happened with Osmanagić’s original story. But it was being promoted just as bloggers were beginning to pick up the gauntlet and do the fact checking that journalists so often fail to do. It was bloggers who questioned those professional archaeologists who were said to be working on and even endorsing the sites; it was bloggers who began to unravel the mass of poor data being used in support of the hypothesis; it was the rapid sharing of genuine data around the web that showed how flawed the claims were; it was bloggers who flagged up the curious ideas that Semir Osmanagić has brought to bear on other archaeological questions (of which, more below). While the web is often derided by its critics as being largely populated either by pornography or by conspiracy theories, the advent of more interactive web technologies has taken us into an era in which genuine experts are able to contest the claims of pseudoscientists and fraudulent ‘alternative scholars’.
The cover of Alternativna Historija tom II leaves one in no doubt about how ‘alternative’ its history will be!
Semir Osmanagić
We can gauge something of Semir Osmangić’s understanding of the past from his publications and from his other website, Alternativna Historija (“Alternative History”). Although most of the site is written in Serbo-Croat, it includes the English version of his book The World of the Maya, which gives a flavour of his interpretive framework. He states that “the Maya should be considered watchmakers of the cosmos whose mission it is to adjust the Earthly frequency and bring it into accordance with the vibrations of our Sun. Once the Earth begins to vibrate in harmony with the Sun, information will be able to travel in both directions without limitation”. What on earth does this mean? Vibrations, of course, are a staple of pseudoscience, which pseudoscientists seem unwilling to define more rigorously or to explain how they can be detected. We are treated to discourses on the (fraudulent) crystal skulls, Atlantis and the Pleiadean origin of the Maya people. This is a long way from archaeology, even the shoddiest amateur archaeology! We are without doubt in the murky realm of Bad Archaeology.
Šemsudin Begović with his ‘fossil footprint’
Despite the implausibility of his claims about the “Bosnian Pyramids”, Semir Osmanagić has become something of a celebrity archaeologist in Bosna i Hercegovina, especially as one who can be called on to investigate unusual claims. A recent story (in Serbo-Croat, I’m afraid) involves an unemployed soldier, Šemsudin Begović, who claims to have discovered a billion-year-old fossilised human footprint. Ignored by most archaeologists, anthropologists and museum professionals, he has gone to the press, asking for Semir Osmanagić to validate it. Osmanagić has become something of a hero for Bosnian nationalists, whom they believe to have shown the venerable antiquity of Illyrian culture, making it the mother civilisation of the planet. This, I think, is the secret of his success.
The late twentieth-century history of Bosna i Hercegovina was not a happy one. Torn apart by the civil wars that accompanied the breaking apart of Yugoslavia (a creation of the twentieth century), it saw invasions by Croatian armies from the north-west and a desperate attempt by Serbian nationalists to retain control over what they regarded as “their” territory. Add to this the religious dimension (the Croatians are mostly Roman Catholic, the Serbians Orthodox) and the creation of ethnic tensions with the majority Moslem population of Bosnia, the appalling years of “ethnic cleansing” (a term invented for the mass murder of Bosnian Moslem men and boys) left a country devastated by internal and external tensions. Bosna i Hercegovina is yet to recover properly from this. If Semir Osmanagić is trying to use the heritage of his homeland as a means of reconciliation and fostering a sense of national pride, then he is to be admired. If, however, he sees a situation in which he can profit and make himself famous, then he is to be despised.
It’s my uncertainty about his motives that has held me back from writing about this fraud.
Hi Keith, thanks for your nice comments about my website! Did you see the controversy about Cornelius Holtorf inviting Osmanagic to a lecture at Linnaeus University at http://haecceities.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/2012-osmanagich-will-speak-at-a-swedish-university/ and http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2011/10/swedish_university_invites_ima.php ?
Yes, it was actually Johan Normark’s blog that got me into writing something about this nonsense. I’m also thinking about doing something on the baleful impact of postmodernism on the discipline. I gave an unstructured rant about it at TAG in Birmingham about twelve years ago and have been meaning to write up my thoughts in a coherent manner ever since…
Osmanagic was invited to a Swedish university not long ago. Cornelius Holtorf, who invited him, was interested in the way this site has become a tourist attraction (real or fake). It stirred the feelings among some of us Swedish archaeologists:
http://haecceities.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/2012-osmanagich-will-speak-at-a-swedish-university/
As I’ve said to Irna, I get really annoyed with the way postmodernism has tried to democratise knowledge production about the past. Cornelius Holtorf has done some interesting stuff over the years, but it’s clear that this invitation is just the sort of thing that Osmanagić loves, as he can spin it as academic endorsement of his nonsense.
Let them dig in peace and then we will see for sure
PS: have you been there ans seen the site?
The problem with letting them dig is that the excavating is unregulated. We know that there are Neolithic, Roman and medieval remains on the “Pyramid of the Sun”, some of which have been damaged irreparably by uncontrolled excavation conducted by people who do not know how to excavate and who do not know how to spot the difference between archaeological remains and geological features. No, letting them dig is not the answer.
I assume that your PS is meant as a criticism, along the lines of “you haven’t been there, so you’ve no right to criticise their findings”. Well, that’s not how archaeological research is conducted. No archaeologist can hope to see every archaeological site relevant to their interests: we rely on the data published by those who have done the fieldwork. We expect to read accounts of stratigraphic sequences, descriptions of features, analyses of artefacts, sedimentological reports, assessments of faunal remains and so on. We aren’t being given this very basic data, without which it is impossible to accept the claims being made. You can’t go around asking people to accept your hypothesis on trust: you need to show that the hypothesis is backed up by solid data. Semir Osmanagić is unwilling to do this.
Besides, when reputable archaeologists who have visited the site out of genuine interest for what might be there and return having seen nothing but geology, one has to suspect that the geology is all there is to be seen.
Thank you Keith. I’m not archeologist, but in the field of science (biology) that requires the solid evidence.
I just wonder, if the site is so rich in archeological remains, probably important for the European history, why solid archeologists are not there?
Do you remember that Heinrich Schliemann was an amateur archaeologist…
Another question for you:
What do you think about Yonaguni underwater structure? http://www.morien-institute.org/yonaguni.html
PS: yes, yes, I belong to the curious public
have a great week
Teresa: archaeology costs money and Bosnia is not the richest country in the world and few outsiders seem to have a sincere interest in the area. Osmanagic, on the other hand, have attracted large amount of financial support for his fake project.
Why is Schliemann brought up all the time? He lived in a completely different era when regulations were few and he did research in a foreign country. In addition he used a known Homeric story as a guideline. Osmanagic uses vivid imagination as a guideline.
Have you visited the site? Have you seen this?
If you’d read my reply to Teresa, you’d know what I’m going to say next.
The reason you’re asking the question is to imply that because I haven’t been to the site, I have no right to criticise the findings. I could throw it back at you. Have you been there? Have you seen the discoveries? And, more importantly, do you have the background in archaeological fieldwork that allows you to assess the difference between geological features and archaeological features?
As with any science (and, yes, archaeology is a science, albeit a “soft” one), individual practitioners in archaeology rely not just on their own fieldwork but must set it against the results obtained by others. Hypotheses are tested against these results. It is impossibly for any archaeologist to visit every archaeological site and examine every artefact and ecofact relevant to their interests. Instead, it is necessary to use the data published by other archaeologists. We expect to read accounts of stratigraphic sequences, descriptions of features, analyses of artefacts, sedimentological reports, assessments of faunal remains and so on.
The problem with the Bosnian “pyramids” is that Osmanagić and his collaborators aren’t publishing this basic data. They are relying on the popular press and the internet to push their interpretations without allowing anyone else access to their data through academic publication, which means that everything has to be taken on trust. Given that few, if any, of Osmanagić’s team has relevant archaeological expertise, it becomes impossible to know how they are reaching the conclusions that lead to the interpretations they are publicising. Without the very basic data of stratigraphy, artefacts, ecofacts and so on, it is impossible to accept that the claims have any validity.
It goes back to the old principle that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary data”. Well, Osmanagić’s claims certainly are extraordinary. To date, he’s not provided a single extraordinary datum to back them up. As far as most archaeologists are concerned, the case is closed.
I have no information with which to choose one or the other, but can’t it be both? Mr Osmanagić would not be the first person to try and make a comfortable living out of a good cause. Of course, that intent would arguably distort his findings, as the findings must sell papers. This kind of problem has often affected historical DNA projects, as I’m sure you know.
Yes, of course he could be both. I sincerely hope that he is misguided and carried away with enthusiasm, blinding him to alternative (read ‘mainstream’) interpretations of his data set.
I’m not against the idea that there might be pyramids in Bosna i Hercegovina (indeed, it would be very exciting to discover that there are): it’s that I need better evidence than some photographs of obviously geological deposits unmodified by humans to convince me that Semir Osmanagić has discovered something truly amazing.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
– Arthur Schopenhauer
But what if the “truth” isn’t true? Where the data are so bad that the conclusion isn’t even wrong?
If his claims that all that massive amount of rock is synthetic and five times stronger than any concrete we can make today are true and this has actually been verified by three separate labs in three different countries then something is surely there. I was very skeptical about this project until I saw them trying to break this stuff with a hydraulic jackhammer mounted on a backhoe. I have spent many hours watching the same size machine breaking 6000 psi concrete and bluestone granite. I was impressed with how hard that stuff is to break. It pretty well turned me from a skeptic to a semi believer but validating the authenticity of the lab reports would make him a big winner in my opinion. Sometimes I tested cylinders of 6000 psi and when it reached full strength that stuff explodes when it breaks. We used to hide behind the machine and cover our ears when we broke them. I shudder to think what a 30,000 psi cylinder would do. The formula for making that stuff would be worth big money. Time will tell I guess.
Has he published these reports on “synthetic” rocks? Joseph Davidovits has an online ‘report’ that’s more like an informal newsletter piece, which identifies samples taken from a core as ‘ancient concrete’, but he is unwilling to suggest a date. There are also some emails from the Polytechnic University of Turin on a site that no longer appears to be active (the Internet Archive cache of the page is here). A third online ‘report’ is credited to the University of Zenica (Bosna i Hercegovina).
It should be noted that reports on the web, even in PDF format, are not academic reports. They have not been through a process of peer review and none of those I have seen meets even basic standards of academic reporting. Citing emails from a researcher is not acceptable!
Irna’s site has a good summary of the geology of the Visočica region, which places it in the Miocene, with subsequent uplift creating an anticline that forms the angle of one face of the “Pyramid of the Sun”. Even Robert Schoch, a geologist who is no stranger to controversial archaeological ideas, dismisses the Bosnian “pyramids” as nothing more than geological formations.
Some of the photographs of the alleged concrete are clearly of a type of puddingstone. I am very familiar with puddingstones, as they were used to make querns in the Late Iron Age and the Roman period. One source of puddingstone is in Hertfordshire, only 20 km or so from where I live, while the museum collection I curate includes around twenty querns made from both Hertfordshire and French puddingstones. I can confirm that it is extremely hard; harder by far than ancient or modern concretes, yet it is an entirely natural formation. I suspect that this is what Semir Osmanagić has been telling his geologists is ‘concrete’. Until we get properly peer-reviewed publications of the analyses undertaken to date, there is simply no way of knowing.
this video is with dr. Nabil Swelim
it might be interesting come and see :)
Very boring hearing articles like this, its clearly fake and personally i dont give a damn i was forced to research this by my school!
I’m a closet archaeologist. I studied it but then, shamefully, went to work in an office. Love your site and enjoy your take on things.
bosnia pyramids are something truly important and huge to ancient world history,but for some strange reasons science has decided to ignore its existence,first…..then its importance,trying to denigrate anybody involved in this incredible case…..i guess this is not a scientific behaviour,rather middle age hostile acceptance,almost similar to the holy inquisition….official science against the heresy,…but what the real heresy? trying to uncover the truth…or trying to cover the truth with the power of establisment?
You’re completely wrong (except in your use of the word “incredible”).
The problem that the “Bosnian pyramids” have is a serious one: a complete lack of evidence for artificiality. No evidence has been presented – not a shred – that these are anything other than hills.
As I keep saying in replies to comments on this blog, if these things were real, then archaeologists would be queuing up to study them, students would be writing their PhD theses about them, nobody would try to deny their existence.
These “pyramids’ really are “incredible”, though: I’ll grant you that!
maybe you are forgetting the fact that dr z.hawass from cairo said they are real pyramids……..we are talking about 3 pyramids,not hills………..unless you want to declare that colyseum in rome is a round rock levigated by the wind in a shape of ancient rome building………..c’mon…! hills have not any sort of pavement,never! they have never tombs and inner passageways,hills are never perfect triangle shaped structures like bosnia pyramids….unless you want to claim that even the giza pyramids are hills!……then,last but not least,pyramids are everywhere on this world: china,indonesia,india,italy,egypt,central america,……why not bosnia?
I think you’re muddling your facts. The publicity-hungry Zahi Hawass has indeed been linked with the Bosnian “pyramids”, but a quick check on Wikipedia reveals the following: “In June 2006, Zahi Hawass’s name became linked to the excavations as recommending a supposed expert, Ali Abdullah Barakat, to investigate the hills. Upon being contacted Hawass denied any involvement, accusing Osmanagić of “giving out false information”, and clarifying that Barakat “knows nothing about Egyptian pyramids”.” Hardly a ringing endorsement, is it?
I repeat, no sign of artificiality has been detected on the claimed “pryamids”: your “pavement” is a geological formation, no evidence for “tombs” has been presented, the only pictures available of “inner passageways” are of water-worn crevices in the rock, none of the claimed sites is “perfectly triangle shaped”. The Colosseum in Rome and the pyramids of Giza bear every sign of artificial construction: this is just not the case with the Bosnian “pyramids”.
Yes, there are pyramid like structures in many different places. There is no a priori reason why there shouldn’t be any pyramids in Bosnia. There simply isn’t any evidence for them.
I have now become facinated with “puddingstones”. I have lived in seven countries and seen the type of formation where they get their rock from time to time and been baffled by it but I really didn’t pay all that much attention to it. I must admit that I was starting to wonder if there really was anything to these “Bonian pyramids” after all. I did notice that his reports on the web site were lacking. This really made me wonder because if they were legitimate they would be framed in gold and shoved into every doubters face. The fact that they aren’t is damning. I’ve watched some of his recent presentations and he is definitely going the “New Age” route. I think New Age people scare me more than Gangster Rappers and politicians. It seems about 85% of the people have no real power of critical thinking and just believe what they want to believe. Our religions, our education and our media teach us what to think so we don’t have to.
I did find it interesting that Robert Schoch of Sphinx-more-ancient-than-Egyptologists-claim notoriety says it is natural and his buddy Chris Dunn of “Egyptian Powerplant” says they are man made. I’m not sure what convinced him because when I watched his explanation for evidence of ancient machining of stone in the ancient world I was quite convinced of his basic scientific engineering analysis and logic. Albeit he is a New ager on his off hours and nothing makes my eyes roll back in my head faster than a New Ager.
New agers have been getting main stream media prime time for many years now in MSM’s incessant mission to convince us that little Green men are going to come and save us from our evil governments.
I do have a question for you. On this ancient Aliens program they have this little Greek guy with the funny haircut and an irritating way of speaking breathlessly about anything at all. On one of these shows he makes the spectacular claim that somewhere in India a 400 ton (more or less) rock served as a bridge between two sides of a river chasm and that the rock had been quarried miles away. Of course he skipped on to other blurbs and never specified anything or any proof. Or even an exact location. I have never been able to find any mention of this anywhere else.
I much enjoy this blog and your web site and hope that you and yours are enjoying a nice holiday.
I read the “Illyria” article you linked in this site, I found out to put it mildly, a very controversial case. There are at least fix countries that claim Illyrian ancestry: Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Albania, and Slovenia. The Bosnian Pyramids are supposed to be buildings of ancient Illyrians. I read this thesis http://cambridge.academia.edu/TeraPruitt/Papers/118276/Contextualising_Alternative_Archaeology_Socio-Politics_and_Approaches and I was intrigued on how the need for an identity leads in these frauds.This is an example of bad archeology by Bosnia. What about the other countries, do they have examples of bad archeology based on this ancestry claim, and if they do could you post these, please?
u can not say that serbia bosnia croatia macedonia and slovenia claim illyiran ancestry ….for 1 simple reason they are slavic countrys of russian origins like any other slavic countrys so they can not be of illyrian origin ..the illyrians date before the roman empire….the illyrians have lived in these countrys that i stated above …but these country do not have illyrian ancestry …exept present day albania which do not have slavic dna in them …so the only countrys that have illyrian dna is present day albania …….(fact to prove that—-no relationship to the slavic country’s—different language that has links to any other language -they did emmigrate to any other country accordin to historians ….and they have different body structure and facial differences)
well,i don’t understand your special crusade against the bosnia pyramids………frankly it is quite strange to me !…are you forced by someone to pretend to be blind around this subject???……i guess you are a truly clever guy…..so why this crusade against these pyramids? is this fact so important to you to be rejected at any cost……?….what about italian,chinese,indonesian,indian……….pyramids….???? do you have something to say about these pyramids???…umhh let me guess …..your theory is : even all these pyramids are hills……right?….i knew it….! how original……
I don’t have a “special crusade against the bosnia pyramids: my criticism is directed at poor techniques, deliberate misinformation and the passing off of geological phenomena as human products. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing, that looks in the slightest bit like human architecture in the evidence presented for these alleged structures.
Insult me all you want. It doesn’t matter. I’m much more concerned with exposing frauds.
i told you i thought you were a clever guy……….is that an insult?.i don’t think so…..your criticism is reasonable but in the end what do we have…? 3 hills-pyramids……underground tunnels…..a burial system, pavements, people who dig in there everyday, and on the other hand people like you who repeat: there are no pyramids,there are no pyramids,there are no pyramids……………i guess facts should not be washed away by religion-science of yours………science is not gospel,it’s not religion, it should be a more wide opened point of view…..you truly believe your establishment would never ever lie to you?…never……?……i guess you are brain washed……so much ,you would deny even the most obvious fact…….but it’s not your fault…..you have been built like this,exactly like they wanted,..without self criticism……do a favour to yourself:get a shovel and come with me,in bosnia,then, on the field,we’ll see what’s wrong and what’s right…. …..it’s the only way to know……….believe me…..real archeologists were people who risked their skin and their reputation……..don’t try to explain something you have never touched or seen for real……..it’s too skin deep ………no offense…..thanks!
I’m pretty sure if keith was alive hundreds of years ago, he would have thought that the Earth was flat. This inane ‘blog’ greatly illustrates his lack of critical thinking and pendant to unchallenge the status quo of our historical heritage.
I relish the day when these Bosnian Pyramids completely alter our knowledge of mankind and your vapid blog and life will disappear back into oblivion where it rightfully belongs.
I’m pretty sure if Bob were alive today,the best critique he’d be able to come up with is insults. Oh, wait… he is, and he has.
This blog is all about critical thinking and I’m not some 1970s porn star to go round displaying his pendant. The fact that you get words wrong, invent new terms (what on earth is “unchallenge”??) and have to be insulting doesn’t inspire much confidence in your ability to sift fact from fiction, evidence from wishful thinking.
If you want to trade insults, I wish that people like you would learn how to use your brains instead of repeating the ridiculous claims of people who are out to bring fame and glory upon themselves rather than investigate their heritage properly.
Loser.
Of course everyone will deny the pyramids being real because it would change everything and we dont want that. I say we keep them burried or blow them up and focus on how to start another war down there. Since the last one ended with unexpected results. Muslims in Europe? How is that possible?
Your lack of archaeological understanding is matched only by your lack of historical understanding. Muslims have been in Europe since the early medieval period. Should I mention el-Andalus? Cordobá? Sicily? Malta? The Ottoman Empire? But you don’t want to know: just keep your prejudices to yourself, please!
Thanks for straitening things out in a sober way !
I got very curios about the “pyramids” when I first found a reference to them on youtube.
When trying to find more Information about them on the internet, I could only find speculations about ufos, healing energies and an oncoming apocalypse.
Of course that raised my level of suspicion, but the existence of weird speculations doesn’t disprove anything, However: There doesn’t seem to be any intresting artifacts, or even wooden splinters or bones for dating in those tunnels, so I have come to the conclusion that it isn’t really bad archeaologists on a good site, but bad archeaologists on a bad site.
Thanks for your post, very interesting. I arrived here by chance, from an article in a newspaper talking about new pyramids in Egypt. Then someone said in the comments that the newspapers should inform about the pyramids in Bosnia, and I thought : “What? Why have I not heard about this?” When I started to investigate, I realized why. I saw the photos of the excavation and I didn’t understand why they were showing the bedrock, no structures at all.. As, for all the comments I have seen, the “pro-pyramids” only complain about you not wanting to see. Well, I think they just want to believe. And, from archaeologist to archaeologist, as you say, we don’t need to be on site to know what is real and what is not. Pyramids of Gyza are there, in every photo, they are obvious. These are not.
Dear Readers,
This rhetoric is a perfect example of why people like Dr Osmanogich have to rely on the media to get their message out. This website is full of what is wrong with modern science. I do not see any comments on this website that confirm that the person that wrote the comment has visited the site and done research to confirm his/her opinion. (And I don’t mean a walk by.) As long as scientist are happy with quoting other peoples opinions we will remain in the dark ages. Their arrogance is only exceeded by hiding behind a pseudo name.
I don’t know if you are accusing me of “hiding behind a pseudo name”: I’m not, my real name is given on the blog.
History need to be rewritten that is only reason to deny mr Osmanagic discovery !!!!
Jokers attacking Keith, use the powers of your ‘brains’!! Keith, thanks for this blog. You must have some serious patience (oh wait, of course you do! You’re a fucking professional archaeologist) to respond so calmly to these nitwits (David, wow). I watched these youtube videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPYZH1W_hBk and must admit they were very compelling (although fishy at parts) for an average interweb surfer such as myself. “Sam” is a good speaker. I was pretty excited, tbh. I figured I’d check out the story more before I sent links to my friends and came across a bunch of folks claiming it to be a giant hoax. This blog has also helped form my opinion. So far it seems like “Sam” has engineered this whole project to raise money for Bosnia, WHERE HE WAS BORN, so I can’t give him too much shit. Their country needs it. He could believe his own story though, too, and if so, he’s going to be sad when he realizes he’s wrong, after all of the effort. It would be killer if the pyramid were real and 12,000 yrs old but I don’t see that evidence either. If it were legit, why would they be digging around a little here and there on the hill and spending a lot of time in the mines instead of focusing on REMOVING THE EARTH COVERING THE PYRAMID? Let’s see a clean face of pyramid! Or a quarter of a clean face… It’s been 6 years or so, right? I see random rocks and tunnels, a host of professionals disproving this man, and a freshly booming local tourism industry. What do you gents have to say about that?
Keith, you either know what you have gotten yourself into and were very brave, or you had no idea what you’re dealing with and you were just stupid.
It does seem like several Bosnian Muslims found your site (the guys staunchly defending Osmanagic with poor English), so by now you’re in the know. And you thought new agers were bad, he, he, he…
On the serious question you posed, about each country claiming an Ilyrian heritage, the answer is varied. Albanians make the claim in the mainstream, and appear to be right as there are significant differences between them and their Slavic neighbors, also no evidence of large migrations to the area that can be linked to ancestors of modern Albanians.
In Croatia, there was a 19th century movement claiming Ilyrian origin of all Balkan nations which called for their unification – the founding ideology for Yugoslavia. Although the movement was politically successful, this had fallen into obscurity as a scientific theory in favor of a Slavic origin for the nations in question.
I am not sure about the prevalence of this theory in other countries scientific historians’ circles, but I do know quite a few political ‘historians’ (Which BTW outnumber the scientific ones in all these countries by at least 2:1) make such claims. This is then followed by the assertion about “barbarians and savages who stole our lands and who must be forced out, bla, bla”… You get the idea.
In serious scientific circles, it is accepted that native Romano-Ilyrians who survived successive invasions after the fall of the western Roman empire assimilated with the latest wave of immigrants, the Slavs. Whether this happened in Medieval or as early as the Dark Ages is a matter of debate.
You are however mistaken about Ilyrians being associated only with Dalmatia. Tribes the Romans dubbed Ilyrians were spread at least as far north as the Danube before the Celtic invasion of the area. Afterwards, their domain was limited to the area south of the Sava, so it encompassed the entire modern day Bosnia. The Ilyrians in Dalmatia are just more renown because of their more extensive contact with Greeks and Romans and the establishment of a centralized state there prior to Roman conquest.
I am another extremely curious member of the public . The problem for me is to sort out the wheat from the chaff so to speak. There are so many reports out there of strange and wonderful artifacts being unearthed all over the planet. We have I believe some incredible tools at our disposal, very learned minds and above all curiosity. All I ask of you is to get out there in the field and once and for all either prove or disprove these claims with hard scientific evidence. Speculation has no real wash with me even from the greatest of academic minds.
I have recently come across this controversy, as I did not know these pyramids even existed. With that said, I am sort of astounded by some comments on here. I would assume (but you know what they say about that) that if you were on a website about archaeology, you would know a thing or two about the science and its past. For one, why in the world would you encourage this man to keep digging! Everyone who has ever turned on the television has seen a real dig site. Not to mention, you can look pictures of them online at any college website that has a program.. What do you see missing here? You see no gridding, you see pieces being moved around without care or consideration for the importance of its position, you see supposed “ancient caves” made out what looks like river stone that literally they are digging though with shovels. What I see is someone desecrating a mountain. What I see is a very hazardous work site, what I see is an “open” dig with absolutely no regulation what I see is nothing that suggests man-made. As far as asking this writer to visit the dig himself, why don’t you, the asker, visit it yourself? I mean apparently you can even volunteer to be a part of the dig with no previous background or education. It is open to tours as well. Have it!
And why do I say what I “see”? Because, I can literally find nothing other than weird ramblings on his website about the actual site. I am ahving a hard time even finding quality pictures of the entire site to get an idea. I see no peer-reviewed articles. There is basically no information on this at all anywhere!
Furthermore more, why not “allow him to dig”? Well the answer to that question would lie in a basic understanding of the processes of previous excavation. First of all, during the 1800 and early 1900 hundreds, they were allowed to just dig with no guidelines. They completely destroyed sites, took objects from them and in some cases totally wiped out any meaning we could derive from the site. Their findings were totally based on ethnocentrism and has no baring on anything we now know about those people today. That is simply why he should not be allowed to dig. Regulations exist from tried and true mistakes.
Thanks for your time!
The reason that the Team has do do the digging without professional archaeological supervision is because the academic community has told people such as yourself, I assume that with all the criticism you are an accredited arcaeologist, that any participation at the site might damage your professional reputation.
It was not too many years ago that Dr. Osmanagic was called a fool for even suspecting that the site was real. Now those same people are criticising him for not performing a professional dig.
The site is real and if you want it done right, take a risk and get involved. That will also give you the opportunity to prove it is a hoax, but no one, such as yourself, wants to take a chance that they might be wrong.
As long as people keep giving lip service, without SCIENTIFIC evidence to back up their rhetoric, there will continue to be volunteer digging. By the way I do not know of a site that does not use volunteers to do the hard work. Where are the professionals to set up the grids on this site? They are sitting behind a computer making unverified comments.
Arthur