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European Pyramids (Including the Bosnian Ones)

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OSMANAGAIC: WE HAVE ALREADY DUG OUT THE FIRST STAIR OF THE PYRAMID

VISOKO, October 26 (FENA) – Archeological activities have began on hill Visocica near Visoko, which holds the remains of the medieval royal town of Visoki, and the aim is to confirm the existence of the first European pyramid.

Hill Visocica hides the first European pyramid of monumental proportions, claims author of the book “Bosnian pyramid of the Sun” Semir Osmanagic, which was promoted yesterday in Sarajevo.

Osmanagic on Wednesday told Fena that this facility has an accession plateau wide 40 and long 200 meters built of stone plates. The access plateau is in the form of stairs leading to the pyramid.

The basis for the claim that Visocica holds a most valuable archeological monument is seen in a series of construction anomalies determined during research conducted in August. These anomalies indicate that the hill was not created naturally, but by man.

Apart from the “pyramid of the Sun”, Osmanagic claims that a smaller pyramid, which he calls “pyramid of the Moon” is located in the area opposite to Visocica, which again confirms that pyramids were always built in pairs.

“We have already dug out one stair of the pyramid and we will continue working on the second stair”, says Osmanagic.

Osmanagic was unable to answer when the pyramid would see the light of day, adding that digging out of the wider sections of pyramid only would depend on additional funds.
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8)
 
Doesn't say how old it's supposed to be.
Do you think it would be stretching the definition too far to say Silbury Hill's a kind of pyramid...? It's about from 2,600 BCE.
 
http://dino.avdibeg.dk/blog/2005/10/pyramid-found-in-heart-of-bosnia.html

Pyramid found - in the heart of Bosnia!!
Dino Avdibegovic: October 27, 2005

Near the city of Visoko, 30 km north of Sarajevo, there is a stone pyramid of monumental size, claims the Bosnian archeologist Semir Osmanagić, who lives and works in the USA.

After several months of geological and archeological research, Mr. Osmanagić concluded that under the present hill of Visočica hides a stairs-like pyramid, about 12,000 years old. Osmanagić, who intensively researched on pyramids in Americas, Asia and Africa for the last 15 years and wrote several books on the subject, says he's quite sure he found the first pyramid in Europe, which is quite similar to ones in the Southern America.

He believes that the project would completely change Bosnia's significance in the world of archeology.

On the top of "Bosnian pyramid of Sun" was a temple, built by pre-Illyrians, people who lived, according to Osmanagić, 27,000 years ago.

Mr. Osmanagić; thinks he will solve the "Bosnian pyramid of Sun" in the next five years, but also prove the existence of "Bosnian pyramid of Moon", lying under the neighboring hill of Križž.

According to BBC, the leading Bosnian newspaper "Dnevni Avaz" writes: [See below]

...

Watch Reuters TV-report at Politiken. Politiken
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Here's the BBC piece:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4377290.stm
BBC News Online, European Press Review: 26 October 2005

Europe's first pyramid?

Bosnia's leading Muslim daily Dnevni Avaz writes excitedly about "a sensational discovery" of "the first European pyramid" in the central town of Visoko, just north of Sarajevo.

Excavations at a hill site above the town have been going on for several months and initial analyses "have confirmed the original claim that this is Europe's first pyramid and a monumental building, similar in dimensions to the Egyptian pyramids."

"The pyramid is 100 metres high and there is evidence that it contains rooms and a monumental causeway ... The plateau is built of stone blocks, which indicates the presence at the time of a highly developed civilisation," the daily explains.

"Archaeological excavations near the surface have uncovered a part of a wall and fragments of steps," it reveals.

"Visocica hill could not have been shaped like this by nature," geologist Nada Nukic tells the daily. "This is already far too more than we have anticipated, but we expect a lot more from further analysis," she concludes.
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The Reuters news piece is in English and v. interesting: Politiken Site

When I was a young digger and we found an anomaly, like those sandstone slabs, or steps, we didn't just howk them out and pile them up like so much builder's rubble, until we'd photographed, mapped and trianglated them in-situ and we knew exactly how they all fitted into surrounding matrix.

Much as I'd like to believe in the antedeluvian pyramid theory of Mr Osmanagić, the whole thing oozes Von Daniken round the edges. :(
 
They could use that machine that sees lots of tiny particles falling through Earth from space - apparently this would allow them to see everything inside the pyramid without digging it up.

A similar machine was used by a research team in South America recently to study pyramids there.
 
The first mistake they did was to put the building of the pyramid to 10.000-30.000 years old.
This immediately made them the ridicule of the whole archeological community.
Perhaps there really is a pyramid there. I hope they will prove it.

A well known norwegian archeologist laughed out loud on national TV in Norway when he was asked about the findings in Bosnia and the claims made.

It's natural to think of Daniken and Hancock when reading this news.
 
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 · Last updated 4:35 p.m. PT

Bosnian town hopes to cash in on pyramid

By AIDA CERKEZ-ROBINSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

VISOKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Restaurants serving meals in triangle-shaped plates. Artisans crafting wooden key-chains in the shape of pyramids. Shopkeepers hawking T-shirts saying "I have a pyramid in my backyard."

Pyramid-mania has taken hold of this small Bosnian town as residents seek to cash in on claims by an archaeologist that it may host Europe's only ancient pyramid.

"Our expectation are high. This could be our oil well," Vehab Halilovic, who has started carving pyramids on wooden souvenirs like flutes and pipes.

No pyramids are known in Europe, and there are no records of any ancient civilization on the continent ever attempting to build one.

However, Bosnian archaeologist Semir Osmanagic - who has spent the last 15 years studying the pyramids of Latin America - claimed last year that there is evidence of one here in his Balkan homeland and conducted some research on the site.

He plans to carry out new excavations this week on a hill overlooking Visoko that may definitively prove or disprove his theory. Osmanagic says the hill has four perfectly shaped slopes pointing toward the cardinal points, a flat top and an entrance complex.

Under layers of dirt, Osmanagic found a paved entrance plateau, underground tunnels and stone blocks.

Osmanagic believes the hill was shaped by the Illyrian people, who inhabited the Balkan peninsula long before Slavic tribes conquered it around A.D. 600. Little is known about the Illyrians, but Osmanagic thinks they were more sophisticated than many experts have suggested.

Halilovic, who has been making wooden souvenirs for 30 years, says his last big windfall came during the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo when he sold souvenirs with Olympic motifs.

After the 1992-95 Bosnian war, he started making souvenirs for NATO peacekeepers. As Bosnia stabilized, the number of soldiers decreased and Halilovic's market shrank.

Then came the pyramid theory.

"We are people who adapt fast," he said, after testing a few tones on a new flute.

Another resident, Esef Fatic opened a souvenir shop two weeks ago and sells pyramids made of clay and wood and slippers displaying a pyramid.

"We already have buyers. Business is better since this pyramid story started. If scientists really confirm our hill is a pyramid, this place will become alive. People will come from all over the world," he said.

One local hotel called Hollywood has changed its name to Motel Bosnian Sun Pyramid.

Its Web site boasts: "While enjoying your meal in our restaurant placed on the 6th floor, you have the opportunity to also enjoy a magnificent view of the Sun Pyramid. You too can be part of the mystery and the miracle occurring in our area."

Satellite images show two more pyramid-shaped hills with 45-degree angled slopes, indicating three possible pyramids around Visoko - which were quickly named the pyramids of the Sun, Moon and Dragon.

The possibility that the hills are not ancient pyramids is not even considered in Visoko.

"The question whether there is a pyramid or not is not being asked," Senad Hodovic, director of the local museum. "People here believe there is one, are excited about it."
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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/ ... Dream.html
 
Dig for ancient pyramid in Bosnia

Archaeologists have begun digging for what they think might be a pyramid hidden beneath a hill in Bosnia.
Known as Visocica, the 650m (2,120ft) triangular mound, overlooking Visoko, has long been shrouded in local legend.

The Bosnian archaeologist leading the project says it resembles pyramid sites he has studied in Latin America.

Initial excavations have revealed a narrow entrance to what could be an underground network of tunnels.

On Friday, a team of rescue workers from a local coal mine, followed by archaeologists and geologists examined the tunnel, thought to be 2.4 miles (3.8km) long.

The team found two intersections with other tunnels leading off to the left and right.

Their conclusion was that it had to be man-made.

"This is definitely not a natural formation," said geologist Nadja Nukic.

Satellite photographs and thermal imaging revealed two other, smaller pyramid-shaped hills in the Visoko Valley, which archaeologists believe the tunnels could lead to.

Cashing in

Workers also discovered a paved entrance plateau and large stone blocks that could be part of a pyramid's outer surface.

Semir Osmanagic, the project leader, initially made the suggestion the Visocica hill could be a pyramid.

If he is correct, it would be the first pyramid discovered in Europe.

He has already named the three hills the pyramids of the Sun, Moon and Dragon.

Locals have begun to trade on the excitement, selling pyramid souvenirs to tourists and visitors.

The work will continue for around six months, with the first results expected in the next three weeks.

Two experts from Egypt are also due to join the team in mid-May.

Medieval fortress

According to anthropologists there is evidence of 7,000-year-old human settlements in the valley.

German archaeologists also recently found 24,000 Neolithic artefacts one metre below ground.

Mr Osmanagic says the hill is a classic example of cultures building on the top of other cultures.

The town was Bosnia's capital during the Middle Ages, and a medieval fortress used by Bosnian kings sits atop Visocica.

The fortress was built over an old Roman Empire observation post, which in turn was constructed over the ruins of an ancient settlement.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4912040.stm
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If that is a pyramid, then it's the biggest one I've ever seen!

_41562884_pyramid_203_ap.jpg


After all, the tunnels could well be man made, considering there's coal mines in the vicinity, that doesn't mean the hill itself is.
 
rynner said:
Dig for ancient pyramid in Bosnia

...

Mr Osmanagic says the hill is a classic example of cultures building on the top of other cultures.

The town was Bosnia's capital during the Middle Ages, and a medieval fortress used by Bosnian kings sits atop Visocica.

The fortress was built over an old Roman Empire observation post, which in turn was constructed over the ruins of an ancient settlement.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4912040.stm
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Mr Osmanagic also seems to be suggesting that the hill is a sort of Tell Site. A sort of village mound, built up over millenia, through more, or less, continuous occupation.

Still, it is interesting though. Even if it all eventually turns out to be 95% hype. :)
 
Another article on the dig here

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12320566/from/RS.1/

quote

• Science
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By Aida Cerkez-Robinson
Updated: 6:28 p.m. ET April 14, 2006

VISOKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Archaeologists began digging Friday for what they hope is an ancient pyramid hidden beneath a mysterious Bosnian hill that has long been the subject of legend.

The Bosnian archaeologist leading the work says the 2,120-foot (650-meter) mound rising above the small town of Visoko resembles pyramid sites in Latin America that he has studied. It would be the first pyramid ever discovered in Europe.

Initial research on the hill, known as Visocica, found that it has perfectly shaped, 45-degree slopes pointing toward the cardinal points and a flat top. Under layers of dirt, workers discovered a paved entrance plateau, entrances to tunnels and large stone blocks that might be part of a pyramid's outer surface.
Story continues below ↓ advertisement

Satellite photographs and thermal imaging revealed two other, smaller pyramid-shaped hills in the Visoko Valley.

Friday's excavations began with a team of rescue workers from a nearby coal mine being sent into a tunnel believed to be part of an underground network connecting the three hills.

They were followed by archaeologists, geologists and other experts who emerged from the tunnel later to declare that it was certainly human-made.

"This is definitely not a natural formation," said geologist Nadja Nukic
 
Timble2 said:
"Doesn't say how old it's supposed to be."
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Timble, within just the past five to seven days I've seen two quite clashing dates given in news reports - "2,000 years ago" AND "10,000 BC"!

So I think that the current Fortean answer has to be "nobody really knows."

But I'm opting for the earlier date. A mere 2,000 years doesn't seem anywhere near long enough to completely render a pyramid into a naturally-appearing hill.

And we are talking about EUROPE. for heaven's sake. Had this pyramid actually been constructed around the time of Christ, there'd be RECORDS or at least legends of this great structure that generation-by-generation degraded or eroded into "just another hill." And it would almost certainly have still been partially recognizeable as a pyramid as recently as 1,000, 750 or even 500 years ago.

I think we've got yet one more proof of our previously-unknown Ice Age civilization.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Timble2 said:
...

I think we've got yet one more proof of our previously-unknown Ice Age civilization.
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Or, a suspicious looking, but natural, limestone hill that's been mined and exploited since the Stoneage. ;)
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
"Or, a suspicious looking, but natural, limestone hill that's been mined and exploited since the Stoneage."
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Yes, but even THAT would seem to present us with some unexpectedly large-scale and surprisingly-sophisticated MINING during the Stone Age.
 
Large-scale mining in the Stone Age isn't uheard of - neither is it for the Bronze or Iron Ages. There are a fair few examples just in the UK.
 
Jerry, what I meant is that it seems unusually intensive for Stonge Age mining techniques to RESHAPE a MOUNTAIN.
 
If that is indeed the case - we'll have to see what happens with the excavations and what Osmanagic's peers have to say about it.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Jerry, what I meant is that it seems unusually intensive for Stonge Age mining techniques to RESHAPE a MOUNTAIN.
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I'm not suggesting that the hills were reshaped, merely that they'd been mined and had some settlements on top.

The shapes are probably quite natural, since arial shots show hills similiar contours and different shapes (not just pyramids).

P1010248.JPG

http://www.gospic.hr/baze/album/detail.asp?iType=42&iPic=365

A somewhat more sceptical critique on a blog:
http://sciencepolitics.blogspot.com/2005/12/pyramid-in-bosnia_07.html
 
Stone blocks may be part of Europe's first step pyramid

Visoko, Bosnia-Herzegovina
19 April 2006 03:39

Researchers said on Wednesday they have found geometrically cut stone blocks covering a central Bosnian hill that a hobby archaeologist claims is a pyramid.

Archaeologists and other experts began digging on the sides of the mysterious hill near the central Bosnian town of Visoko last week. On Wednesday, the hill revealed geometrical stone blocks on one side that Semir Osmanagic, the leader of the team, claims are the outer layer of the pyramid.

"These are the first uncovered walls of the pyramid," said Osmanagic, who studied Latin-American pyramids for 15 years and who proposed the theory that the 650m mound rising above the small town of Visoko is actually a step pyramid -- the first such found in Europe.

"We can see the surface is perfectly flat. This is the crucial material proof that we are talking pyramids," he said.

The huge stone blocks appear to be cut in cubes and polished.

"It is so obvious that the top of the blocks, the surface is man-made," Osmanagic said. He plans to continue the works throughout the summer, "after which the pyramid will be visible", he said.

The research on the hill, known as Visocica, found that it has perfectly shaped, 45-degree slopes pointing toward the cardinal points, and a flat top. Under layers of dirt, workers discovered a paved entrance plateau, entrances to tunnels and large stone blocks that might be part of a pyramid's outer surface.

Satellite photographs and thermal imaging revealed two other, smaller pyramid-shaped hills in the Visoko valley.

Last week's excavations began with a team of rescue workers from a nearby coal mine being sent into a tunnel believed to be part of an underground network connecting three pyramidal-shaped hills.

They were followed by archaeologists, geologists and other experts who emerged from the tunnel later to declare that it was certainly man-made.

The work will continue for about six months at the site just outside Visoko, about 30km north-west of the capital, Sarajevo. Two experts from Egypt are due to join the team in mid-May.

"It will be a very exciting archaeological spring and summer," Osmanagic said. -- Sapa-AP
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Source
 
OldTimeRadio said:
Pietro_Mercurios said:
"Or, a suspicious looking, but natural, limestone hill that's been mined and exploited since the Stoneage."
Click to expand...

Yes, but even THAT would seem to present us with some unexpectedly large-scale and surprisingly-sophisticated MINING during the Stone Age.
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The mining could have happened anytime in the intervening 4000yrs, since the Stoneage. ;)
 
A friend of mine many years ago, always wishing to sound profound, had this private stock of neat little potted phrases including "This [the subject under discussion] either means very much or else it means very little."

That's an apt phrase for the Bosnian "pyramid."

I would be inclined to be much more skeptical myself if it was not for the fact that there have been more than a dozen putative discoveries of this general type made in just the past five or six years.

So the weight of accumulating evidence at least SEEMS to be pulling the scale downwards in the direction of the existence of a previously- unknown culture or civilization which apparently suffered severe reversals or in fact went almost totally moribund around the end of the most recent Ice Ages.

Please note that I am NOT talking about some super-scientific fantasy of glassite towers and space ships, but rather what might best be described as an age of barbarian splendour Neolithic.

And it still may turn out that I am merely flat-out WRONG.
 
That's a perfectly reasonable, and utterly Fortean attitude, OTR.

By all means speculate, and tentatively accept conclusions based on available evidence as presented, but be openly prepared to be wrong.
 
The thought occurs that, so far, Pyramids don't tend to be found in isolation - other cultures who built them didn't tend to stop at building one - or even three, if the Bosnian claim is correct.

Following on from that thought, and assuming the claims that they are man made, I'd expect similar claims to be made further across the European continent.

OT - did anything much come of the reported Chinese pyramids?
 
Lets not forget that the age of mans occupation of the Americas has recently been put back thousands of years, and the direction of the entry to that continent has also been put in doubt with the stone age Columbus theory. The date and location of farming and organised religion is also being put under doubt with the discovery of cities submerged off the coast of India, so I see no reason to doubt this merely on the grounds that we didn't have that technology at that time. I was reading a mag in WHS over lunch this week that was arguing that the orthodox times and location of civilisations advent owed more to Victorian religious sensibilities than science. However this particular pyramid seems awfully big so I wait to be persuaded, though the dig evidence appears to be mounting.
 
ProfessorF said:
"The thought occurs that, so far, Pyramids don't tend to be found in isolation - other cultures who built them didn't tend to stop at building one - or even three, if the Bosnian claim is correct. Following on from that thought, and assuming the claims that they are man made, I'd expect similar claims to be made further across the European continent."
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There were news reports a year or two back that very eroded ITALIAN pyramids had been discovered through examination of satellite photographs.
 
Jerry_B said:
AFAIK, Osmanagic isn't a professional archaeologist and is carrying out excavations at his own expense. I have the feeling that it would be a somewhat unwise to take his claims at face value.

Seems I'm not the only one with doubts... ;)
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That's not really the problem. Amateur archaeologists can do very acceptable field work, no problem.

The real problem is, Mr Osmanagic has made some extraordinary claims about the pyramids, with dates ranging from 12 to 27,000 years old, taking them well back into the last Ice Age, with nothing to back them up, except some vague, 'Eye of the Beholder' photos, some stone slabs that could easily be natural features, some tunnels that could have been made, any time in the last several thousand years, into a natural hill (for a mutiplicity of reasons), lots of highly imaginative interpretations, and not much else. It all suggests von Daniken, rather than Caernavon.

I haven't seen anything so far that gives me hope that conventional archaeology will be overturned. Much as I would like it to be.
 
Sure, but most amateur archaeologists tend not to make such big (perhaps wild) claims ;) The word 'expert' has been bandied about too, WRT this story, but it's tricky to tell if anyone involved is actually an expert in any academic sense.
 
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