World's Largest Pyramid Discovered in Bosnia? 501
kieran writes "Archaeologists have apparently begun to unearth a massive pyramid which had been masquerading as a hill in the Bosnian town of Visoko. At an estimated 722ft in height, it is expected to be 1/3 taller than Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza."
The news they don't want you to know: (Score:2, Funny)
This 'pyramid' was actually discovered in October of last year, but all news was suppressed due to 'security concerns'...concerns that would appear to have merit, given Condoleezza Rice's bizzare change in appearance [splendoroftruth.com] and behavior [msn.com] after she visited the site on a U.S. fact-finding mission.
Dubya kree!
Re:The news they don't want you to know: (Score:3, Funny)
Condoleezza Rice's bizzare change in appearance
Oh really, did she get those teeth fixed? I can't believe a women so smart hasn't heard of braces! Mod me offtopic, see if I care. It needed to be said!!!
Its not a pyramid. (Score:3, Funny)
Location via Google Maps (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Location via Google Maps (Score:5, Funny)
Coincidence? I THINK NOT.
Re:Location via Google Maps (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Location via Google Maps (Score:3, Funny)
Bah! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Center of the earth (Score:4, Funny)
But the point is moot anyway. The Earth's core is made of creamy nougat.
Re:Maybe it was meant to be 45 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Location via Google Maps (Score:3)
Re:Location via Google Maps (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Location via Google Maps (Score:2)
Well. Billg only needs to use his personal stargate to get to any pyramid on the planet so there's no need to drive.
(eagerly awaiting CBGs rebuttal)
Re:Location via Google Maps (Score:2)
Re:Location via Google Maps (Score:5, Funny)
Color me dubious. (Score:5, Informative)
How can he know that with so little excavated? And his foundation has the rather fortean-timesish name of "Archaeological Park: Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun Foundation"
There's a far better (and longer) article at the art newspaper [theartnewspaper.com].
You can also the have a look at the photos of the hill (scroll down) in this bosnian forum [sarajevo-x.com] (yup, looks like a pyramid).
Re:Color me dubious. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/osmana
"Too bad that it is not a credible story at all. In fact, it is impossible. Who is the "archaeologist" who has taken the media for a ride? Why did the media not check the story more carefully? ARCHAEOLOGY will address these questions in depth in our next issue, July/August, but for now let's at least put the lie to the claims emanating from Visoko, the town 20 miles northwest of Sarajevo where the "Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun" is located."
Read on about his wacky book, and it becomes clear the media's not doing their job. AGAIN!
Re:Color me dubious. (Score:5, Funny)
While that archaeology web site makes some interesting arguments, they're completely ignoring the possibility that aliens constructed the pyramid. This theory, made popular by the film Alien Vs Predator, has not been discredited by serious researchers. They simply dismiss the theory without so much as communicating with the aliens to get their perspective. It's simply not fair that the crack pot viewpoint is completely disregarded by the so called legitimate research community. It's discrimination and it's wrong. =)
2,000 year old European pyramid (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefz/115233678/ [flickr.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Cestius [wikipedia.org]
As the photographer says:
"What makes my head spin is the thought that this was built 2,000 years ago, as a copy of the Great Pyramid which was built 2,500 years before that"
Re:2,000 year old European pyramid (Score:5, Funny)
Fuck that one, what about that giant pyramid right in the middle of Las Vegas?
Photo [quezonhigh.ca]
People sleep, work and play in it without even realizing the historical and architectural significance even though it's RIGHT ON THEIR DOORSTEP!!
Duhhh (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Color me dubious. (Score:4, Insightful)
Kind of amazing to realize how much skillful PR matters in getting media attention. Dude found a pointy hill and is calling it a pyramid, but he knows how to get reporters interested. It probably doesn't help that Americans love all that new-age Atlantis Secrets of the Pyramids BS.
A question for whoever knows. I don't know anything about geology, but I do know physics. How probable is the formation of pointy hill from geological perspective? I wouldn't suspect they are a geologocial impossibility but would need a couple of fortuitous conditions to form instead of the usual rounded hill, like a radial mudslide at the top or a pointy rock formation beneath the soil near the top -- something that would change the typical pattern of erosion. I'd wager there are even technical terms for pointy hills and round hills.
Re:Color me dubious. (Score:3, Interesting)
If Illyrian remains from 12,000 yrs ago are found on
Re:Color me dubious. (Score:5, Funny)
A couple of brief passages will convey the gist of Osmanagic's beliefs:
Ordinary watchmakers repair our watches and put them into accordance with Earthly time. It is my theory 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. And then we will be able to understand why all ancient peoples worshipped the Sun and dedicated their rituals to this. The Sun is the source of all life on this planet and the source of all information and knowledge. ...And with a frequency in harmony, the Earth will, via the Sun, be connected with the center of our Galaxy. These facts become exceptionally important when we realize that we are rapidly approaching December 2012, a date which the Maya have marked as the time of arrival of the Galactic Energy Cluster which will enlighten us.
Re:Color me dubious. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Color me dubious. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Color me dubious. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now there's a red flag if I ever saw one. Maybe there's more to this story than the archaeological establishment wants to acknowledge.
Cautiously optimistic (Score:4, Insightful)
"Too bad that it is not a credible story at all. In fact, it is impossible. Who is the "archaeologist" who has taken the media for a ride?
They said the same thing about the guy that found the lost city of Troy.
Let the nutjob dig up the site some, then we'll know. I'm really not happy about "real" archeologist simply declaring that something is impossible.
The train was declared impossible.
Meteorites were declared impossible.
Heliocentrism was declared impossible.
Heavier than air aeronefs were declared impossible.
The experts keep using that word, I do not think it means what they think it means.
Re:Cautiously optimistic (Score:3, Interesting)
I would also like to conclude with a quote from the archaeologist concerned, from http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/osmanag ic/index.html [archaeology.org]:
"Ordinary watchmakers repair our watches and put them into accordance with Earthly time. It is my theory that the Maya should be considered watchmakers of the cosmos whose mission it is to adjust the Earth
Amateurs and Nutjobs ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's not forget that most of the really great discoveries are found by amateurs and nutjobs. The experts cannot be everywhere.
The skepticism in the archaeological community is understandable, but there are being a little overbearing. All their models depend on having civilizations that create monuments, not monuments being evidence for civilizations. One need only examine the work of Shockley in regard to the Sphinx to see how aggressive the pros can get when their models are challenged.
Now, the really
Re:Color me dubious. (Score:3, Interesting)
I certainly find the notion of commonality with Mesoamerican "pyramids" somewhat ridiculous - since the Mesoamerican "pyramids" were not really pyramids (both geometrically, and in the egyptian sense). The Mesoamerican structures were not used for burials. They were used as platforms for temples, and had a completely different method of construction and religious significance.
I would think that this Bosnian "pyramid" (not geometrically a pyramid - the top is flat) more likely has more i
Re:Color me dubious. (Score:3, Insightful)
Seismic imaging
Wrong facts! (Score:4, Funny)
Whoops.
Re:Wrong facts! (Score:4, Informative)
Investing in growth hardly implies a pyramid scheme anyway, but if you're anti-government, I don't expect there's any way to explain that.
Quite right! Social Security is not a Pryamid Scheme. That's just silly!
It's a Ponzi Scheme.
Oh, and there are successful libertarian comedians. P.J. O'Rourke, for one, has about ten best-sellers. How many books have you published? Bill Maher also self-identifies as a libertarian, and there's little question that Penn Jillette is in the mix as well. Almost half of the episodes of Penn & Teller's "Bullshit" are straight-up libertarian think-tank critiques of society.
Magician!=Comedian (Score:2)
Re:Wrong facts! (Score:4, Informative)
You clearly don't know the first thing about the demographics of the situation. When SS was fist set up there were about 15 contributors for every retiree (and the age of eligibility was _above_ the average life span).
Now there are 3 contributors for every retiree and the eligibility age is about 15 years lower than the average life span. With increasing life expectancy and declining birth rates, the problem is getting worse not better, and that will only accelerate. It won't be long until there are only two workers supporting each retiree, who is likely to collect for 20 years or more.
Social Security is undoubtedly an intergenerational Ponzi scheme and the fat part of the pyramid is looking for their cut! And this doesn't even take into account that the alleged Trust Fund is really just a big IOU from Congress.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Mafia couldn't pull off a scheme this brazenly unfair.
Re:Wrong facts! (Score:3, Insightful)
Back in the day, the ratio of workers to retirees (defined as over 65) was 25:1. Today, by the way, before the boom in retirees really happens (most of our old people were born back pre-penicillin, much
Re:Wrong facts! (Score:2)
That might be true, but what makes it a scheme there is nothing invested in Social Security. It has no real assets. All the "trust fund" holds are special-issue treasury bonds. The cash that was collected from taxpayers was spent on the bonds, and the money the treasury made on the bond sales went into - what else? - general revenues, and was spent long ago. The only value the bonds have is based on the ability of the treasury to buy them back w
Re:Wrong facts! (Score:3, Insightful)
But there's value in money, so long as people are willing to accept it in exchange for goods and services. And I think you inadvertently made my point about T-bills. The government sells a T-bill for something of value (cash, the result of goods or services produced by somebody else). The T-bill has value only because of the government's promise to pay it back later. This is how the government borrows money. That's why
Sure it makes sense ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Social Security has a MASSIVE surplus and it needs someplace to invest it's money. Congress has a voracious need to borry money to mean general fund obligations and it's cheaper to borrow money from a trust fund than to incur debt from external entities.
The fraud comes in when you include FICA revenues in for the caluculation of the deficit. The real deficit is quite a bit higher when you consider what the federal government owes to the Social Security Trust fund.
If the Congress and the President can get
Another Book for Graham Hancock? (Score:4, Interesting)
What I can say is that even if they were half baked theories they certainly were outside the box.
In it, the position and building of massive structures (like pyramids) are very important to his theories. He linked the Egyptian and Incan/Pima cultures via structures and similarities in creation stories (the latter being quite weak). The worst part is that at the end he alludes to a possible alien influence in the matter of building these massive structures (because we can't understand what technology they used).
With this (possibly) even larger structure, I'm certain that this will give him more ammo for another book.
If you're interested in things like this, it's a good read. You can take pieces of it like the famous Pirie Ries maps [wikipedia.org] that were coverd by Charles Hapgood [wikipedia.org]. A similar theory is the also famous 1421 Theory [wikipedia.org]. Be warned that many of these theories are unverifiable and can amount to simply someone's imagination running wild. They rely on events thousands of years old--a time darker than the the dark ages.
Be caution that most of the links below Hancock's Wikipedia page are just rebuttles disproving him as much of his work is a bit hard to swallow.
Re:Another Book for Graham Hancock? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Another Book for Graham Hancock? (Score:3, Informative)
Not Slaves (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.harvard-magazine.com/on-line/070391.ht
__
Elephant Essays [elephantessays.com] - Custom Research Papers
Re:Not Slaves (Score:3, Informative)
What's interesting to me, as a Bible-believing Christian, is how one academic can make his career on a hypothesis such as this. He's basically spent his entire life in the pursuit of undermining the thought that "slaves" built the pyramids. In support of this, the only two pieces of evidence that I can read from this article are 1) that some graffiti inside the pyramids referred to, perhaps, "holy" people that le
Re:Good post, but.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I spent far too much money on education, when all I needed was the five thousand years of common understanding gathering dust on my bookshelf. I mean, if you can't trust that the first woman was grown from the
Re:Not Slaves (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Another Book for Graham Hancock? (Score:3, Funny)
LISTER: They had whips, Rimmer! Massive, massive whips!
(Side note: Agreed with the reply above that the pyramid labourers were likely paid)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Leaps of faith (Score:5, Insightful)
What I however find most amusing are on the one hand the leaps of faith were assumption after assumption is made only to then conclude the end result to be fact. In this case it is assumed the document was found in a certain part of egypt. They then use the fact that the document is in a certain style/era to then claim that because they found another cave with artifacts in that style/era that it could very well be the cave.
WTF? First off, just because the document was from an era/style DOES NOT mean it has to have spend all the time in a cave of the era/style. It could have been picked up before an buried somewhere else. Second of all just because some cave contains stuff from the same era that does not mean that the object must have come from that region.
Oh look. A pair of mickey mouse ears. They must have come from florida!
Eh? No? They could have come not only from one of the other disney parks but they in fact never have come from a park at all.
Then there is the other side. The entire program is about how there are more gospels then there are known today. It is shown that a mere human decided wich gospels would be included in the new testament.
It is even clearly shown that very simple political and marketting reasons lay behind the choice.
So then what do people think about the Judas gospel. Well it is funny but the "real" gospels are somehow still more real and have something holy about them.
WTF? Just goes to show that facts and believes have nothing to do with each other.
But I suppose that if you have to answer the question why and how did the egyptians build the pyramids the answer "bored, lots and lots of people with no tv to watch" just doesn't cut it. Better to get some fantasy going. Star people! Yeah, never mind that amazing as the pyramids are they seem kinda primitive for a star faring civilization.
I just go with the old prove for the fact that we have been visited by intelligent aliens in the past. They ain't been back. Smart move.
8th wonder then? (Score:2, Interesting)
escaped our vision (Score:2)
However, i agree about not being noticed in our history.. THAT is the odd part.. Something that large should have got at least a passing mention.
Re:escaped our vision (Score:2)
Re:8th wonder then? (Score:2)
Maybe Finally (Score:2, Funny)
But does it have a stargate? (Score:3, Funny)
News for the gullible, stuff from last year. (Score:5, Informative)
First: The Bosnian "pyramid" (a roughly four-sided hill where they've found nothing but a mound of dirt so far) hit the news last year, in Early November IIRC.
Second, the fellow cho claims it a pyramid ranks right up there with Uri Gellar as far as credibility goes, according to Archaology [archaeology.org] last week.
So +5 for topical, but minus a million for reporting on entirely the wrong end of the issue. They didn't just discover it, they just debunked the discovery.
Re:News for the gullible, stuff from last year. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:News for the gullible, stuff from last year. (Score:2, Funny)
How else would you make a proper Black & Tan? [johnsgrocery.com]
Re:News for the gullible, stuff from last year. (Score:3, Insightful)
1. If he's right about the time period, it's impossible.
2. He's a loon.
His personal views, of course, have nothing to do with the veracity of the story. And it's perfectly reasonable to assume that his wild-assed guess of 12,000 B.C.E. is totally wrong, while he's 100% correct about the pyramid's existance. Nothing in that article casts any doubt whatsoever on the pyramid itself -- only on the researcher. Ad hom
Re:News for the gullible, stuff from last year. (Score:5, Insightful)
You live in the US, correct?
We Americans have a somewhat different view of what it means to find traces of a civilization than do Europeans.
In the US, if you go out and dig in your backyard and find something man-made and more than a few hundred years old, you've most likely really found something of archaeological interest.
In Europe, you can set up a dig just about anywhere and find crumbled bricks, broken pottery, or some other traces of very very old human civilization.
Hell, for another recent news item to make my point, the UK Times Online [timesonline.co.uk] reports that archaeologists just found an almost perfectly preserved Roman city in Spain - Which the Spanish felt so impressed by, they promptly turned it into a parking lot.
And it's perfectly reasonable to assume that his wild-assed guess of 12,000 B.C.E. is totally wrong, while he's 100% correct about the pyramid's existance.
I agree that ad hominem doesn't disprove the existance of a pyramid in Bosnia. But when the town loony raves about aliens landing in his back yard, you don't call NASA to disprove him.
It was not only well-preserved... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Mass transit is infinitely superior to cars, anyway, and any "socialist" worthy of the title should know this. Wiping out a key piece of history is also about as anti-social as you can get. Besides which, the city can't take up that much space. Build the car park UNDER it. Spain does have mining equiptment, right? It's not totally deprived of technology, however bereft of wits it might be. Then you can have the ruins AND the car park.)
Re:It was not only well-preserved... (Score:3, Funny)
My son was always trying to get out of cleaning up his room, too.
Re:News for the gullible, stuff from last year. (Score:2)
Oh well, I supp
Re:News for the gullible, stuff from last year. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's all very well, but that Archaeology article spends all it's time slamming the person, not discussing his claims, and reads a lot like a personal attack. The guy may be a loon, but that doesn't mean we should dismiss this automatically.
The pyramid announcement does seem very premature and is probably something else (or a fake) but I'd like to see some discussion of what he's found, which is not in that article.
The guy is a loon... (Score:3, Informative)
this story was proven false already (Score:4, Informative)
Aliens on Earth (Score:2)
( yes its a joke )
Not very hidden. (Score:3, Insightful)
You'll find pictures of it. I'm kind of surprised nobody has considered the possibility before. If you see some pictures that give you a better 3D view of it, it very clearly has 4 slopes at 90 degree angles.
Very cool find, though.
European pyramid (Score:5, Funny)
U send me pyramid 4 ur outsourced job plz.
I hope that this doesn't turn out to be (Score:2)
Re:I hope that this doesn't turn out to be (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if your first thought upon discovering a pyramid is that it was "built by, or inspired by alien visitors" you are far saner, more rational, and down to earth than those religious "whacko group[s]"...
Is that a.. (Score:3, Funny)
Poor pyramid (Score:2)
Official website (Score:3, Interesting)
Geraldo (Score:4, Funny)
Much Bigger Pyramid found ... (Score:4, Funny)
Despite all the skepticism... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, I'd say that a majority of the archaelogical society hates new findings that contradict their old theories, and can often go out of their way to ostracize and decredit people that publish or support findings that would invalidate all the time spent writing papers on any particularly well-accepted idea.
Re:Despite all the skepticism... (Score:2)
Re:Despite all the skepticism... (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider it a "hazing ritual" that *all* scientists have to go through when they make extraordinary claims that aren't (yet) backed up with extraordinary evidence.
I'm a bit concerned about your meter for debunking. "Excavating the entire site", when the entire site is a *mountain*. It will never be debunked. This will probably fall into the realm of consipracy theory in a few years, probably when his funding is cut.
As for hating new findings, I think I'd be pleasantly surprised. I'm not holding my breath though.
For the record, my wife has a degree in archaeology. I would guess that archaeologists are far more defensive about known theories because there's been a fair number of charlaitians and hucksters in the past.
The Pyramidthropic Principle states ... (Score:2)
... that someone will eventually notice natural features that have vaguely pyramidal shapes, ignore those that do not, and write a book that sells well to people who are not good at science.
And dowsers have located... (Score:2)
conan (Score:2)
Wait for the Results .... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the pictures on the web-sites linked to, it does seem reasonable to assume that there is something there. Geography is rarely THAT regular and it seems like the people digging have found evidence of blocks, construction, tunnels etc. These might be Roman or Ottoman era remains, or they might not.
History is long and great periods are undocumented or forgotten. It seems absolutely reasonable that the ruins of great civilization could have gone unnoticed in Bosnia especially as this area has seen almost constant and vicious warfare for most of the modern era. I think it is very unfortunate that this discovery has been tarred with pseudo-science before real results have been developed.
Discredited Pseudo-science (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously, why must we have to read on every populist or pseudo-science story out there? Are we competing with the New / American Scientist and Fortean Times? This guy is a nutter and his 'research' has been widely criticised and discredited [wikipedia.org].
Is it too much to ask for the submitters and editors to do a simple Google/Wikipedia search on the articles and maybe include a hint of criticism and doubt when faced with such BS stories.
The prophesy of AVP realized (Score:3, Funny)
Crazy people are fun (Score:4, Informative)
For an example of his unique theories, here's an excerpt from his book, "The World of the Maya":
Ordinary watchmakers repair our watches and put them into accordance with Earthly time. It is my theory 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. And then we will be able to understand why all ancient peoples worshipped the Sun and dedicated their rituals to this. The Sun is the source of all life on this planet and the source of all information and knowledge. ...And with a frequency in harmony, the Earth will, via the Sun, be connected with the center of our Galaxy. These facts become exceptionally important when we realize that we are rapidly approaching December 2012, a date which the Maya have marked as the time of arrival of the Galactic Energy Cluster which will enlighten us.
Texas (Score:2)
(sometimes I am ashamed to be a Texan and as a sixth generation Texan, that is saying a lot.)
They mention the controversy elsewhere on MSNBC (Score:4, Interesting)
April 28, 2006 | 11:40 p.m. ET
Pyramid problems: Is the tale of the Bosnian pyramid too good to be true? Last week, The Associated Press reported evidence that a 2,120-foot-high hill in central Bosnia-Herzegovina might actually be a buried step pyramid. This week, Archaeology magazine questioned the scientific soundness of the operation and its leader, amateur archaeologist Semir Osmanagic. Archaeology quotes experts who say there's little more to the project than "sensationalism and grandstanding," and worry that it may be damaging legitimate artifacts from medieval, Roman and Illyrian times.
There's certainly a good deal of kookiness surrounding the story. Osmanagic, for example, links his pyramid theories to Atlantis and the Maya, while an online petition aimed at stopping Osmanagic's dig refers darkly to U.S.-orchestrated conspiracy theories. Stay tuned for further twists in the tale, and feel free to send in your comments after you read Archaeology magazine's report.
The reason it stayed hidden so long? (Score:3, Funny)
It's only after they excavate the soil and rock from around it that the true shape and size of the pyramid will be apparent!
Satellite Picutures, and and interview with lead (Score:4, Informative)
I have been following this story since October of last year, there has been a lot of information published and a lot of time spent on either side of 'piramidasa' and 'antipiramidasa' arguing whether the former pyramid believers and later pyramid non-believers are right. Here is a link to a satellite analysis of the region http://piramidasunca.ba/ajaxfiles/epodmeni/eizvjes taji/Geophysical%20Analysis.pdf [piramidasunca.ba]
At http://www.astreamagazine.com/osmanagic_serie_radi o_frm.html [astreamagazine.com] there are links to an interview with astraea magazine, good listen a direct link at http://www.astreamagazine.com/interviews/osmanagic /osmanagic_high.m3u [astreamagazine.com]
At http://www.piramidasunca.ba/ [piramidasunca.ba] you can find the official foundation site and more pictures, click on the British flag for english version :).
Also googling "sarajevo-x piramida" will get you a link to a forum that's been going since last year, with posts mainly in Bosnian with some in English.
Why compare to Egypt pyramids? (Score:3, Informative)
Do people just have a hard time admitting that the people who inhabited the Americas before Europeans showed up might have actually not be inferior? Perhaps it's just more comfortable to imagine them as haphazard small groups of primitive people running around in the forest than to realize they had just as advanced civilizations and cities as Europe, but mostly difference in appearance. And that their technology, while it took a different path, wasn't necessarily "inferior" at all?
Re:Oil (Score:4, Insightful)
Also we consume less pyramids than oil. That makes finding them a lesser strategical objective.
Re:Oil (Score:2, Funny)
I'm calling Gene Ray,the cube specialist.
Re:Oil (Score:2, Interesting)
Oil and Archaeology (Score:3, Interesting)
As to the bosnian pyramid, it has long been known/suspected there in the locals handed down oral histories. It was more accurately RE-discovered. Just like whe
Re:How do you miss a pyramid? (Score:5, Funny)
How do you miss something like that for so long?
The same way the idiot on his cell phone misses the red light and slams into you: inattention to your surroundings.
Re:How do you miss a pyramid? (Score:5, Insightful)