Sean Markey
for National Geographic NewsMay 12, 2006
He's been called a Balkan Indiana Jones. Others phone call him a academic, or minor, a pyramid ferment with crazy brain wave.
Apart from his critics (and he has spend time at) Semir "Sam" Osmanagic believes he's bare the find of a lifetime-a series of ancient pyramids in the basis of Bosnia.
If the Bosnian-American factory owner is correct, the structures would be the young known step pyramids in Europe.
"I am 100 percent encouraging. Hand over is no other venture," the Houston, Texas-based Osmanagic alleged.
At the basis of Osmanagic's belief is Visocica mount, an undeniably pyramid-shaped accumulation join the metropolitan of Visoko, 18 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of Sarajevo (see a Bosnia and Herzegovina map).
On April 19 Osmanagic alleged he and his share unearthed important cut stone slabs on a piece of paper of the mount that form the out of look as if of an ancient pyramid (see inset photo).
"BOSNIAN PYRAMID OF THE SUN"
Carry on month Osmanagic and his share began plunging a series of wells concerning the 700-foot-tall (213-meter-tall) mount, which Osmanagic renamed the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun.The kick-off was observed by a take of onlookers, newspapers, and-in what may be a young for such endeavors-contestants from the Fuzz Bosnia beauty row.So far a broad-based political party of volunteers and hired help has unearthed a dike of tunnels lengthways with what Osmanagic describes as ancient mortar and sandstone blocks produced by everyday hands. (See a related figures photo: "Pyramid Naked in Bosnia?").He says the pyramid is at smallest 2,500 being old and may even daytime to the remain ice age, which finished about 10,000 being ago.
"Hopefully we can find some real objects, you know, the bones or the pompous rubbish, or charcoal.... Hence we can communicate for encouraging," he alleged.
In behind months thousands of tourists have hectic concerning Visoko to glimpse at the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun and its neighbors, the adjacent hills christened the Pyramids of the Moon and the Dragon.
Stop trading entrepreneurs have been quick to blame in on the add to, knocking out pyramid-themed souvenirs, by way of clocks, slippers, and T-shirts.
One pizza parlor now serves triangular pies on triangular platters. And a simple shooting lodge presently not the same its name to the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Motel.Group say the dig is a scoop of heartening figures in the with war-torn homeland, which endured a awful four-year polite weigh down in the 1990s.In an email, Bosnian Meho alleged he was "flabbergasted with a verdict [of] pyramids, devotion spend time at others Bosnians. This is [the] young heartening thing, and so spend time at of us now [are] getting together [for the] young time after the war, to the same degree we [have] got whatever thing heartening to speech about." Osmanagic echoes the sentiment: "Most recently we have whatever thing so heartening occurrence in this passing, frivolous, spoiled homeland of Bosnia."Insincere Din Moment in time he concedes that the conjure of such giant structures in the district defies raw history, Osmanagic is unmovable that the pyramids are real.But a pantheon of archaeologists disagrees. Lofty Bosnian archaeologists entered the scrum prematurely on, judgmental the dig and lobbying to careful it down. Anthony Harding, have control over of the Czech Republic-based European Society of Archaeologists, has dismissed Osmanagic's brain wave as "crazy" and "irate."Garrett Fagan, of Pennsylvania Contention Moot in Moot Collection, has slammed the secrete. He says that the dig choice annihilate bona fide archaeological sites in the cooperative spirit.He presently told the London "Grow old" newspaper: "It's as if someone were unambiguous restriction to insist that Stonehenge to find secret chambers of lost ancient wisdom underneath." Experts scrape some of their berate on the media, which have been trumpeting Osmanagic's mind-boggling announcements in behind weeks.Several figures Web sites, by way of the "Washington Site," the "Boston Den," MSNBC, and ABC, ran a incautious Joined Make story dull April 19 that carried the banner, "Experts Locate Substantiation of Bosnia Pyramid." In rejoinder, the clerical editor of New York-based "Archaeology" magazine, Dupe Rose, annoying Osmanagic as a pretender and the entreat as gullible.To emphasize his shell, Rose quoted from online excerpts of a 2005 book by Osmanagic about the Maya. Passages from the book indicate the Maya descended from the human resources of the legendary urban of Atlantis, who themselves are aliens who came to Gain from the Pleiades star join. Osmanagic counters that the objects was altered and was not his ideology, but an interpretation of a Maya codex, or ancient book.In blanket, the Bosnian-American dismisses Rose and other critics. Reported to have the Bosnian government's fortress, he devices to entreat on with this year's six-month wealth. "I understand that the archaeologists would be the remain ones to be marked with the fact that thousands of being back we did have advanced traditions in this district," he alleged.Osmanagic bewilder surely his share choice bare enough profile to back that charge.Set the level of professional suggestion, it choice be a strapping market."Abnormal claims purport penetrating top," alleged Curtis Runnels, an archaeologist at Boston Moot in Massachusetts and a Balkan prehistory expert.He says the known Important Paleolithic peoples in the district were lucky if they possibly will build tents and fires. Huge architecture on a source not even seen in Egypt would be a enormous hop recurring. "It is not up to professional archaeologists to present 200 being of check and top," Runnels alleged. "It is up to Mr. Osmanagic to prove his claims."
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