Blogs > Bosnian Pyramids: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Atlantis

Jun 15, 2006

Bosnian Pyramids: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Atlantis



Contents

I wasn't going to pyramid blog here, but I've new information and it might be handy to collate all the debunking into one post. If you've been following this at my site then skip on to the Geological and Archaeological results. Otherwise this is both really odd and something I would dearly love to be wrong about.

Late last year news broke of a pyramid that had been found in Bosnia. I didn’t give it any thought until Coturnix wrote about it in December at Science and Politics. Archaeoblog mentioned it in October and their comment “we predict it will probably blow over within a few months” pretty much summed up my opinion of pyramid story.

In mid-April the story exploded which is when I started posting on it because some of the claims were a bit odd. My posts have stirred up some ire, particularly in people who have only read one. What I'll do here is collate the reasons I'm sceptical about the pyramids and add some new information.

Introducing the Pyramid

Bosnian Pyramid
Visočica hill, a Bosnian pyramid? Photo by Siniša Subotić

The pyramid is Visočica hill which overlooks the town of Visoko in Bosnia-Herzegovina. If you want a closer look at where that is then you can download kmz files for Google Earth for the Pyramid of the Sun, Pyramid of the Moon, Pyramid of the Bosnian Dragon and , along with a map overlay which has all been kindly provided by the site BosnianPyramid.com.

Photographed from the right angle it does look like a pyramid. The initial claims that came with the photographs were odd though. Semir Osmanagić, the discoverer of the pyramid claimed that the pyramid was built at the end of the Ice Age, possibly by the same peoples who built the Egyptian and Mexican pyramids. This could have profound implications for our understanding of prehistory because previously Osmanagić has shown that the Mexican pyramids had been built with the aid of aliens from Arcturus in the Pleiades system. Not surprisingly archaeologists have been reluctant to embrace these claims. Professor Anthony Harding, President of the European Association of Archaeologists, wrote to the Times where he stated:

In most countries of Europe those with wacky theories about “hidden mysteries” on presumed archaeological sites are free to propound them but not to undertake excavation, which by its very nature destroys much of what it uncovers; let alone excavation by those unqualified in terms of training and experience.

There's been quite a few people inside and outside Bosnia condeming the excavation. Enver Imamovic of the University of Sarajevo, a former director of the National Museum of Sarajevo, said that the excavations would"irreversibly destroy a national treasure". But while claims might seem highly eccentric could there be some truth in them? Could Bosnia have a pyramid?

Silbury Hill

The idea of a Bosnian pyramid is not completely ridiculous. Above is a picture of Silbury Hill. This is a Neolithic construction close to Avebury in Wiltshire. It's about four and a half thousand years old and was buitl without the aid of metal tools in the Stone Age. It's an astonishingly weird place. Where would you build an impressive mound? Me, I wouldn't choose the bottom of a valley where it can be hidden from view. I'd have built it on top of a tall hill where everyone for miles around would be impressed. Nonetheless the bottom of the valley is where Stone Age peoples placed it. People in the past could be strange from a modern perspective. So why couldn't there be a pyramid in Bosnia? The hill was the home of the medieval capital Visoki, it had also been occupied by the Romans and Illyrians. There's even Neolithic flint scatters on the hill. If the hill was broadly pyramid shaped then any of them could have re-shaped the hill to make it a pyramid. The concept is not automatically daft.

To add to this the initial press coverage was amazingly uncritical. It's not surprising that so many people think this is a genuine pyramid. Various news agencies have described him as a scientist or archaeologist and haven't bothered asking any of the archaeologists in Bosnia what they think. If something looks like a pyramid, and every news source says it's a pyramid then you'd have to have a fairly good reason to think there might be something else going on.

Problems in the press releases

This is not the first Pyramid to be discovered in Europe

The first puzzle which drew me in isn't very big in the scale of things and might even be due to a mistranslation, but it is odd. It was claimed the Bosnian Pyramid was the first to be found in Europe. This surprised me because I found one in 1997 in Rome. It didn't make the news because Italians have been finding it on a daily basis for the past two thousand years. The Pyramid of Cestius is a 100% genuine ancient pyramid near the train Terminal in Rome. It looks like an Egyptian pyramid and that's because Cestius thought they looked rather natty and wanted one for himself. From the news you'd think pyramids were unknown in Europe, but this isn't the case. The Bosnian Pyramid could be the earliest pyramid in Europe, but not the first to be found. If the Bosnian experts didn't know of this pyramid, then how expert were they? That got me looking more closely at the claims.

The figures don't add up

Looking more closely at the numbers given there are a few peculiarities which don't make sense. Take for instance this claim:

Bosnian Geodetic Institute (Geodetski Zavod BiH) is confirmed previous findings of the Foundation Archaeological Park: Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun. ‘If we connect a top of the pyramids (Sun, Moon, Dragon) by drawing a line. We can see that distance is equal. This lines are forming triangle. Sides of the triangle have equal lengths.’
Angles of this triangle are 60 degrees exactly (not any minute difference).

If you slept through basic geometry at school a minute is one-sixieth of a degree. It would be a difficult claim to check, the photos look quite convincing. Except if you download the placemarks linked above (and possibly have Google Earth Plus) you can check this next claim too. I measured the distance between the Pyramids of the Moon and the Dragon and got a distance of 2,250 metres.

moon-dragon-distance
The distance between the Pyramids of the Moon and the Dragon.
Click for a bigger image.

That's open to questions about accuracy, the sites haven't been excavated yet (which doesn't bother the Bosnian Geodetic Institute but nevermind) but they do give a ballpark figure. If the tops of the pyramids do describe an equilateral triangle then the distance between the Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun should be around the same.

sun-moon-distance
The distance between the Pyramids of the Moon and the Sun.
Click for a bigger image.

The distance is 2,060 metres. That's a 10% difference which makes you wonder quite how you can declare the angles are equal to within an accuracy of a minute. One reasonable objection I've had to this measurement is that the Pyramid of the Sun is higher I may have measured the flat difference between the summits. How much higher would the Pyramid of the Sun have to be than the other pyramids? 904 metres. The summit of the hill is only 767 metres above sea level, so the peaks of the pyramids would have to be around 150 metres below sea-level for the geometrical claim to work. I look at those results and assume I've made a big mistake somewhere, but I cannot see where. The measurements would have to be staggeringly inaccurate. Unfortunately...

The figures really don't add up

Ok, that's a bit esoteric. What about basic data. How old is the pyramid? It depends on who you listen to.

Semir Osmanagić told BosnianPyramid.com that"all three pyramids were constructed during the same period, with the Bosnian pyramid the last to be built".

However, Semir Osmanagić speaking to FENA news disagreed saying the Bosnian Pyramid was probably the first. Alas the orginal link has expired but you can see it at Bosnia News.

Semir Osmanagić has a different view. Speaking in the April/May issue of Nexus Magazine he was cautious on the dating, saying it was more likely to be Illyrian in date.

This has been flatly contradicted by the official site where Semir Osmanagić has said"The following year, 2007, will be marked by the astonishment of the world public how such colossal monuments could have been made before the end of the last Ice age." and"Regarding the age, there is more and more evidence that the main pyramid complex were built right before the end of the last Ice age, indicating that there was world wide plan for building these monuments." Though that Q&A session has been deleted, so it will only live on for a while in Google Cache.

The figures really, really don't add up

Well perhaps the dating is provisional what about the most basic data? How tall is the pyramid? It's 100 metres high. It's 70 metres high with a base 220 by 220 metres. It's 220 metres high (a claim which was on an official site now only available via Google Cache). Each side is 365 metres long, (which using geometry yields a height of 365/2 metres) so it's 187.5 182.5 metres high. (see note below on my own mathematical error)

When you put all those figures together the claims look laughable, so is anyone who still thinks this is a pyramid a fool? Absolutely not. No news agency has been putting these figures together, so the contradictions aren't obvious. The average person reading MSNBC, CNN or the BBC doesn't cross-check the information to check it. There's an assumption that journalism is a bit more than copying press releases. Besides, if you did you'd find that it is accepted by new agencies that Osmanagić is an archaeologist. All the blogs talking excitedly about the pyramid have good reason to be excited because the reporting of this story has been terrible.

...but you've never been there

One of the more beguiling ripostes to criticism is that the critics aren't at the site. If people came and saw what was being done they'd change their mind. You have to be at the site to understand it.

If this is true then archaeology is going to tip on its axis. For example, there are thousands of ancient Greek sites. Do I have to visit them all to be able to write on Greek archaeology? Not only that do I have to be there as they are dug? Archaeological excavation is an inherently destructive process. What remains after a dig isn't the same as what was in the ground before the dig. There are three reasons why I think that think the idea this site is a pyramid will be rejected.

  1. You don't have to visit the Titanic to know it's a shipwreck.
  2. Basic geometry is the same the world over. If Osmanagić cannot measure the height of the pyramid then there's no reason to assume he'll be able to make any accurate record of the excavation. I don't have to visit the site to check his maths.
  3. The excavation report has to be of a usable standard.
  4. So far the photos coming out don't look like an archaeological dig. It could be that he's keeping the photos which will make him look competent back for the excavation report, so I may be disproved on this one, but I doubt it because there are opinions of people who are at the site - or claimed to be. This final point is the killer:
  5. Osmanagić's own experts say he is wrong

The expert on-site opinion is that this is not a pyramid

An example of the shoddy reporting of the site is in the geological reporting. You may have heard of the visit of Ali Abd Barakat of the Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority. I cannot track down that he is who he is claimed to be, I've had no reply from EMRA to my enquries - that might be important for reasons below. However he wasn't the first geologist on site. The Hall of Ma'at has also been following this story and they found a press release from professional Bosnian geologists working on the site at the request of Osmanagić:

8 May 2006, 15:30 (GMT+2:00) : Tuzla (FENA). Professors from the Faculty of Mining and Geology at the University of Tuzla, acting members of the Geological explorations team that did geological studies of the Visocica hill near Visoko (the locality of an alleged Bosnian pyramid), presented today at a press conference in Tuzla the final results of their research completed at the request by the Foundation"Arheološki park Bosanska piramida sunca" Visoko. The team leader Professor Dr. Sejfudin Vrabac said that they have concluded that Visocica hill is a natural geological formation, made of classic sediments of layered composition and varying thickness, and that its shape is a consequence of endodynamical and egsodynamical process in post-Miocene era. According to Professor Vrabac who specializes in paleogeology, there are dozens of like morphological formations in the Sarajevo-Zenica mining basin alone. The Geological team report on Visocica, based on the data collected in six drill holes at 3 to 17 m depths, is supported by the Research and Teaching Council of the Faculty of Mining and Geology, as well as the Association of Geologists of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Geologists trained and working in Bosnia find nothing out of the ordinary. If you only heard the later story then you might think there was a strong case for a man-made pyramid. Who is more likely to right? The Bosnian geological team with the Research and Teaching Council of the Faculty of Mining and Geology, as well as the Association of Geologists of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina? Or the Egyptian Geologist, if he is who Osmanagić claims. And this is the big problem. The archaeologists seem to be evaporating in the Bosnian Sun.

If you claim that an expert is on site when they're on the other side of the world is that fraud?

Again thanks to Google Cache it is still possible to see a press release from 18 Jan 2006. The relevant part is

Thanks to the interest of archeologists from the entire world, activities are already in progress on forming strong expert teams of the Project. Participation has been confirmed by the following archeologists: Grace Fegan, a leading Irish archeologist, Royce Richards from Austria, together with other archaeologists from the University in Innsbruck, Glasgow and Ljubljana.
So what can we make of the comment at from Grace Fegan?
I also received phone calls from two British journalists enquiring as to the nature of my involvement in the project. These gentlemen were kind enough to inform me that I was listed on the project website as being one of the 'foreign experts' taking part. When I logged on to the website I found that I was listed as Senior Archaeologist, Kilkenny (I am the senior archaeologist for the firm in which I work, but not for the entire county of Kilkenny!). Most worrying of all was a link through which people could supposedly contact me. When I clicked on it an email address came up of which I had no previous knowledge and to which I had no access.
Needless to say, I found this pretty unsettling. Mr Osmanagich used my name in connection with his project when he had no right to do so. He also seems to have made every attempt to make me into something that I am not. In addition he potentially misled those who visited the website that they could contact me, and that whatever responses they would receive would be from me.
The whole thing is at Piramidalna prevara.

Could this be faked by someone with a grudge? I don't think so, because I've been in contact with Royce Richards.

It turns out Royce Richards is in fact from Australia. He's also listed as being on the archaeological committee of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Foundation. He's also been heard from:

Its all a big load of b******s. The “Bosnian Pyramid” is just a shonky attempt by a shonky person to make a name for themselves, its not something I want to be involved with. Its quite annoying as I now get random emails from all kinds of kooks expecting me to be an authority on Bosnian pyramids!! The damage this will do to my professional reputation is yet to be seen..........!
I never gave Mr Osmanagich permission to give my name to any media organisation and I never gave any media organisation permission to put my name in print. For the record I am an archaeologist. For the record I am not involved in the Bosnian pyramid project. For the record I’m pretty annoyed with finding my name given to the media in relation to Bosnian pyramids.

You can read the whole comment at The Esoteric Blog (you'll need to scroll down a bit). I've emailed to check that this is indeed the Royce Richards listed by the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Foundation and I had a reply within a couple of hours. This is definitely a case where Osmanagić isn't simply mistaken or forgetful or changing his mind with new evidence. He is demonstrably trading on someone else's reputation.

Does the evidence remain convincing?

I wish it did. I would love for them to find a pyramid, though now my first question would be to ask how much of the reports are falsified. The past will always be throwing up new things to challenge our preconceptions. But in this instance there's no geological evidence there's a pyramid, there's no archaeological evidence there's a pyramid and the claims are either clearly nonsensical or fraudulent.

This is potentially a serious problem. There are plenty of remains on the hill. The context of these will be destroyed when they are excavated so excavation needs to be done adequately. Can this be done by Osmanagić who, if he isn't a con-man, has only a passing acquaintance with reality? It's certainly not being done by the people he claims are there. It looks like thousands of years of archaeological deposits are going to be ripped up for one summer of economic success. Is Bosnian Heritage that cheap?

You can follow the ongoing tale of the Bosnian Pyramid in the Hall of Ma'at

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Update Jun 15 2006: 365/2 is actually 182.5. 187.5 is the answer you'd get if you mistyped 375/2 into a calculator.



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More Comments:


josh h - 2/10/2007

This is an extremely interesting and perhaps equally important story. If nothing else, it shows how little we know about the ancient past and that of this region in particular. See http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4443738390504296376&;hl=en for some video of a large network of tunnels they are currently excavating. Unless this is an elaborate hoax, there was definitely some significant construction at this site for which there is no surviving historical record; and the hills/structures are shaped and positioned in the same very unlikely/unusual way as Egyptian pyramids. We’ve all seen that image from Mars of what seems to be a monument with what looks like a face, but in this case we have much better images and there are three such structures/hills situated exactly like some of the pyramids in Egypt. Admittedly this region of Bosnia has a lot of geometrically shaped hills, so perhaps there is some mix of the man-made and naturally occurring or perhaps it is even entirely natural, but it is definitely worth investigating. The bottom line is the experts are being very stubborn and completely myopic (a little knowledge is a dangerous thing but sometimes a lot of knowledge is even more dangerous). Their argument is that there is no supporting evidence to prove the date of the stones/structures that have been uncovered and no POSSIBILITY that an ancient civilization ever lived in that region capable of building such large structures (the logic being that if there was such a civilization we would have already found artifacts, even though they admit to knowing next to nothing about the region's ancient civilizations such as the Illyrians). The question is simply whether there is a pyramid there (because if there is then there must have been a LOST civilization capable of building it) or just some unknown man-made structures added to a set of very unusual naturally occurring hills (although that could still be very historically significant). So far there has been no conclusive evidence presented either way, but the experts are not going to help answer that question because they are sure they already know the answer and/or because they are afraid of damaging their reputations by being associated with a hoax or even an honest mistake. Osmanagić’s background and his reportedly fraudulent and mistaken claims and statements don’t help, but his background has provided the motivation for his undertaking, and the lack of expert involvement may explain the erroneous statements. He is a businessman and believer in a link between the pyramids of Eqypt and Latin America, Atlantis, and of course the alien visitors that tie everything together. He is most likely wrong about a lot of his beliefs and he may be partly motivated by profit, but again the question is simply whether there is a pyramid there, not whether it was built by or for aliens or whether it proves a link with other regions with similar pyramids. The far more likely explanation for the ubiquity of pyramids and certain religious beliefs (among other things) is that people traveled much farther and more frequently throughout history for trade routes than we previously believed (some people, including a lot of experts, would disagree but recent evidence from China and other locations strongly supports this idea), and that pyramids are the most obvious structure to build with limited technology. The fact is that civilizations around the world built pyramids (including but not limited to Egypt, Central America, South America, China, Rome, Spain, France, Africa, and the Ukraine) throughout ancient history, so it would come as no surprise if some lost civilization in this region did the same a little earlier than the biggest (non-Chinese?) ones, on a slightly bigger scale than the biggest (non-Chinese?) ones, or in a unique way (probably dictated by their natural landscape). So I am disregarding the "experts" and eagerly waiting to see if Osmanagić can prove his case. It seems like it should be an easy question to answer but according to Osmanagić it may take several years. If the experts are in fact wrong they will all be very embarrassed and, more importantly, Europe will take it’s rightful place as home of one of the world’s first real civilizations. Otherwise, perhaps Osmanagić is damaging an important historical site (which could be a pretty bad thing but wouldn’t be entirely his fault) but at least he’s doing something to answer a question that has been asked by people in that region for a very long time. -Josh


Alun Salt - 11/18/2006

via Ma'at I've learned there's another blog looking at the science or otherwise of the Bosnian Pyramids.


Neximuss S. - 11/16/2006

I found a text on http://www.bosnian-pyramid.net/ which says that they are digging near the corner but didn't dig out the real corner. The question is: Why aren't they digging out the corner if a corner exists?


Alun Salt - 11/4/2006

Thank you, it's a flattering request but I'm afraid I must decline.

The reason is I periodically get incoherent threats of action from people who I don't think are connected to the Bosnian Pyramid foundation. Nevertheless I need to be able to edit the entries promptly should it be shown there are legal reasons to do so. The fact Bosnian-Pyramid.net carries adverts complicates matters further as people may think I've been paid to write for your site.

Still, it appears not everyone thinks Osmanagic is making claims without proof. At least one person is thinks time will prove him right.


Neximuss S. - 11/2/2006

It's just another proof that they just claim something but don't dig it out.

I always mention there the corners of the pyramid. They are digging near the corner, but not the corner. Why?

I'd like to publish your article under www.bosnian-pyramid.net ! May I?

Thx in forward.


Alun Salt - 7/13/2006

The reason I won't be going there any time soon is I haven't the money and I'm booked solid till Christmas. If I were a lecturer then my schedule would probably be planned through to next summer. It's simply not possible to seriously work in Bosnia without dropping research elsewhere.

Bosnia doesn't need foreign experts, there are local experts who would know what they're doing. The money being given from the various government agencies to Osmanagic could be allocated to them if archaeological expertise is desired. But archaeological expertise might not be wanted when you read things like:

During the discussion about the interests and needs of county and town Visoko, there was a concret proposition of the Counsellor (?) Hamza Kaplan from the SDA, who said that "the local scientists" "opposing Semir Osmanagic" should be denied access to the research locations, and that "their diplomas must be teared to bits". (Source:Translation)

If I were going out as a director my first action would be to cease all digging and go through the paperwork to see what has been found and where it was. There's been stacks of things pulled of the hill in the past, and no datable artefacts according to Osmanagic, so the next phase would be to try and scour the spoil heaps and see what can be found.

Then there's a need to map the site. The publicity photographs show no evidence of any reference system I'm familiar with. If the site hasn't been plotted correctly then this will take further time before digging can continue.

Additionally, I'd want to know from the National Museum where the necropolis and other remains are. Osmanagic has claimed there are no burials in some releases and to have found a skeleton in others which suggests some work will need to be done sorting that out.

Doing things properly would be massively slower. Danebury was excavated for 20 seasons. That probably isn't fast enough for someone who wants to break a cloud of negative energy by 2012 (translation). Spending ten years of a life excavating someone else's hallucinations isn't attractive. Particularly if, at the end of the project when you can finally get back to your own work, you hear that someone else has discovered an Egyptian Pyramid under Cahokia or some other site.

It's a decision for Bosnians. Do they prefer reality or fantasy. They deserve to be informed that archaeologists in the rest of the world think Osmanagic is talking rubbish, but it's their heritage preserve or destroy as they choose.


Djamila N. - 7/11/2006

I've been to Visocica Hill this summer. I don't know if it is a pyramid or not, but there is something there. At one of the sites which has been excavated, there are rectangle-shaped stone slabs. They are very large, about the size of stecci tombstones (http://www.bosnia.org.uk/bosnia/viewitem.cfm?itemID=428&;typeID=302). Now, that's nothing really unusual to me - but these go about four or five layers deep - a distance, judging with my eyes, of at least 1.5 meters.

At another site there are small, stone squares - about the size of a person's foot - that compose something that seems to be a floor. These floors appear at several different depths, and looking at them these depths seem to be equal in distance from each other. But there isn't anything I could see that connects the different layers, there's no "sides" to these. It's just floor, dirt, another floor, more dirt, and so on.

I am not very worried about all these claims that Osmanagic will destroy an important historical site. The medieval town of Visoko, Bosnia's capital for a time, was on the summit of Visocica Hill. We already know where it exists and much of it has been mapped and set aside already, generations past.

All of these excavations at the foot and midway on Visocica Hill are things we never knew were there. Whatever it is - I can't say - but it's not something we knew was there and were trying to protect.

What I wonder is why the international experts won't come and just help us? Come and spend as long as necessary to disprove the pyramid claims or prove whatever it is. Osmanagic is crazy, but most people who find and discover new things tend to be this way. Discrediting him won't satisfy Bosnians, nor will coming for 15 minutes and holding a press conference without having ever held a single tool or taken a single measurement like the British expert. If the international community is so fussed about this, and it is so obviously nothing, then please come and prove it before it goes too far.

Bosnia is not a wealthy country and things such as this can be devastating. Who knows what family is putting their life's savings into some cafe or some hostel right now, and in a year Visoko will be once again the middle of nowhere. I just hope they will come and put and end to this for good, whatever the findings.


Alun Salt - 6/28/2006

AFP reported that he'd been sent to the pyramid on the recommendation of Zahi Hawass. Archaeology magazine contacted Hawass to see if this was true and yesterday published a response which categoriically denies this.


Alun Salt - 6/28/2006

I can see where the error occurs. Partly because I omitted some information which I used to derive the height and partly because I'm not any good 3D trig. For the 365/2 height. Osmanagić has said the sides slope in at 45 degrees.

The centre is halfway in from the edge and for a 45 degree angle this means for every step in you take a step up. This is the most likely interpretation of the linked news story, but there is another.

If it's the edges that slope in 45 degrees you get a different answer. The length of the diagonal across the base of the pyramid is going to be 365 x √2
so the distance to the centre will be 365 x √2/ 2
which is 365 / √2 which gives a distance of 258 metres,
which following the one step in - one step up gives a height of 258 metres.

Neither of which I see is the same as a pyramid where all the vertices are 365 metres. The formula I got from Dr Math is h=base/√6 (not √3 as the peak is in the middle of the pyramid). Which gives a height of 149 metres. I agree a 30 degree angle would give a 0.5 height, but the adjacent side would have to be half the size of the base because the opposite side of the 30 degree angle would be vertical.


Alun Salt - 6/28/2006

I can see where the error occurs. Partly because I omitted some information which I used to derive the height and partly because I'm not any good 3D trig. For the 365/2 height. Osmanagić has said the sides slope in at 45 degrees. The centre is halfway in from the edge and for a 45 degree angle this means for every step in you take a step up. This is the most likely interpretation of the linked news story, but there is another. If it's the edges that slope in 45 degrees you get a different answer. The length of the diagonal across the base of the pyramid is going to be 365 x √2
so the distance to the centre will be 365 x √2/ 2
which is 365 / √2 which gives a distance of 258 metres,
which following the one step in - one step up gives a height of 258 metres. Neither of which I see is the same as a pyramid where all the vertices are 365 metres. The formula I got from Dr Math is h=base/√6 (not √3 as the peak is in the middle of the pyramid). Which gives a height of 149 metres. I agree a 30 degree angle would give a 0.5 height, but the adjacent side would have to be half the size of the base because the opposite side of the 30 degree angle would be vertical.


peter dragic - 6/24/2006

Hi. I don't disagree with your conclusions, but I still think that the height math is incorrect.

If the pyramid-shaped hill is equilateral, then the height is 365m times the square root of 3 divided by 2 (=316m).

If the sides have 45 degree angles to the base, then the hill would have a height of 365m divided by the square root of 2 (= 258m).

To obtain a height of 365/2m, the sides would have to make an angle of 30 degrees to the base.

Could you clarify which of these is correct?





Ronald Anckaert - 6/10/2006

Hello All,

The pyramid-hallucination Osmanagich launched into the world is very strong !

But he doesn’t play the game fair. A pyramid has four equal flanks, so, didn’t you ever wonder why he does not uncover one flank completely ? This is the only way to show the real structure of e.g. the Visoko-hill and to prove he is right. A pyramid is a big thing, so if someone wants to prove that a hill is actually a pyramid, he should uncover it over extensive surfaces to demonstrate its vastness. I read about a lot of Meso-American pyramids, covered by the jungle and uncovered completely by field-workers. Osmanagich has been digging now for two full months, in my opinion time and volunteers enough to excavate one flank entirely. No, he prefers to dig one day here and another day there. This is very deceiving.


Another question : did you ever wonder how these people from this supposed vanished civilization ACTUALLY BUILT these ‘pyramids’ or how they covered the hills (yes, plural, because there are 5 (!) ‘pyramids’) with stone-slabs ? Osmanagich mentionned stone-slabs weighing 10 (!) to 30 (!) tonnes. Taking the angle of the hill into account, it simply is impossible to drag such huge and heavy stones uphill … Additionally, there are no traces whatsoever of transportation-roads, there’s not a single pottery-shell, not a single (genuine !) artefact, no ancient cities, … the place is clean … Impossible in a valley loaded with ‘pyramids’ …

If there are on some spots on the hills a few peculiar, man-made structures, I would rather believe they were made of natural formed breccia-slabs found IN SITU on the hill. But this cannot explain why the whole Visoko-hill SEEMS (we do not know, because the excavated area’s are to small …) to be covered with a breccia-crust. The only explanation is this crust being the uplifted, broken and eroded bed of an ancient lake …

I know why people believe there are ‘pyramids’ in Bosnia. They want to believe it, because, to most people, this is much more spectacular than an ordinary hill …

Kind regards,
Ronny.


Brett Holman - 6/2/2006

I didn't even realise "shonky" was Australian slang! Our colourful language is undoubtedly one of our glories ...


Ron Zeno - 5/30/2006

Picture Osmanagić as a sideshow barker shouting, "This way to Europe's first and biggest pyramid." From this perspective, it all makes sense: there's no need to be consistent, accurate, nor honest, only the need to get the tourists to come visit his roadside attraction.


Jonathan Dresner - 5/30/2006

I had to look it up.... sounds about right, though.