More on the Bosnian "pyramids"

I was certain I had posted on the claimed discovery of ancient pyramids in Bosnia, but it looks like I never did get around to it. I'll try to dig up some proper links, but in brief, the claim is preposterous. Nor is it benign, as the sites being dug up with such enthusiasm do contain real archeological deposits that are being destroyed in the process. The self-proclaimed "Indiana Jones" of Bosnia behind all this, Semir Osmanagić, also has less than sterling credentials, having been quite effectively outed in an Archaeology article as a New Age nut who has expounded in print on the connection of the Maya with Atlantis and Lemuria, identifying their temples as gateways to "other worlds and dimensions".

In any event, I just ran across an article in The Register that at first glance appears to endorse Osmanagić's claims, but then demolishes them flat with an interview with Cambridge Professor John Parker -- a plant scientist, but one who knows his geology, and who identifies the "finds" as the remains of a fossilized beach, and one of considerable scientific value:

Geologically it was absolutely fascinating. I've never seen a better example of this. At the same time one of my colleagues, Dr Mary Edmunds, found the most perfect fossils in the material they'd excavated on the Pyramid of the Moon. They were simply beautiful – you broke open every piece of this supposedly man-made material and inside were things like pine seeds perfectly preserved with their wings so you could even identify the species of pine – Pinus nigra that grows there still – and also birch leaves: it was full of just wonderful sub-fossil material. That alone told us that it was clearly a post-glacial phenomenon, relatively recent – less than 12,000 years old.

And when asked by the interviewer if the site was thus worthless, Parker responds:

Absolutely not. I spent considerable time looking at the fossils because I've never seen any so good from a post-glacial site. It's very sad because you could have got the most detailed and intimate knowledge of the changes in vegetation patterns from the post-glacial era. It is so clearly a natural phenomenon that it should be investigated as a natural phenomenon rather than being shrouded in all this magic and mystery.

I am worried about it because the Bosnian people deserve better than this. They are a wonderful people who have suffered so much. In this site they have a fabulous natural phenomenon and the danger is that the people and the country could become a laughing stock if the site continues to be interpreted in this way.

ADDENDUM: Osmanagić seems to have alienated even those most predisposed to believe.

Posted by David on December 27, 2006 11:26 AM