Slashdot Mirror
World's Largest Pyramid Discovered in Bosnia?
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."
There's not much resolution from this satellite image, but here's the pyramid's location using Google maps.
I'm a little dubious here - the lead of this project, Semir Osmanagic says (from abc) he sees astonishing similarities between the structures and Mexican pyramids dating back to about 200 AD, which also come in pairs, one believed to represent the Sun and the other the Moon.
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.
You can also the have a look at the photos of the hill (scroll down) in this bosnian forum (yup, looks like a pyramid).
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Always right on top of things, eh, editors?
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 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.
... and if you have any doubt, take a look at this.
this story is utterly false and the dude who discovered it is a crazy. Here is a link with handy details. http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/osmanag ic/
See? See what happens? This is why there are no successful libertarian comedians.
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.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Egyptologists are pretty certain the Pyramids werent built using slave labour, but using Egypts entire labour effort as a massive public works project to honour the leadership.
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.
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.
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
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.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
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
At http://www.astreamagazine.com/osmanagic_serie_radi o_frm.html there are links to an interview with astraea magazine, good listen a direct link at http://www.astreamagazine.com/interviews/osmanagic /osmanagic_high.m3u
At http://www.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.
You always point your finger at the bad guy, but what if the bad guy points his finger at you?
Why do they always compare to the pyramids in Egypt? While they might be the most famous, they're not the largest. Cholula, Teotihuacan and Cahokia are much larger in size and volume than anything in Egypt.
/rant
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?
What?
Thanks for pointing to the article. I had heard this before, but had not read about it in depth.
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 led the efforts, and 2) that the camp that housed the what-seemed-to-be-skilled laborers were well fed.
Now, I understand his point about a civilization who wanted to honor their leader -- who, in terms of their religion -- represented an earthly vessel for the highest god of their pantheon. To me, that makes a lot of sense, and the comparison to an Amish barn raising seems apt, in that context.
But I still don't see how someone can look at just the 2 previously mentioned pieces of evidence, and come away with a conclusion that, no, contrary to thousands of years of common understanding, slaves had nothing to do with the construction of not just the pyramids, but most of the massive structures of Egypt in general. (I love how the article leads with how this idea is "rooted firmly in the popular imagination." No editoral lede there, huh?)
It would seem much MORE likely to look at this article and come away with a conclusion that the teams LEADING the effort -- who would naturally have been Egyptian -- would have made their mark on the buildings, and that the SKILLED laborers, whether they were Egyptian or Semitic, would have been well taken care of. They would HAVE to have eaten well to do good work. As far as the guy's initial supposition goes, he still hasn't figured out where "all the people" lived. He's still looking for where the rest of them lived. How can you not conclude that they must have lived in non-permanent structures, in what must have been sub-optimal conditions for living in a desert? Again, the actual evidence being uncovered (or NOT uncovered, as the case may be) points to slave labor factoring prominently into the equation.
The reason I thought that it was really interesting to see an actual article on this was because it's rumbled around in the back of my mind for awhile, and I had forgotten it. The way it came up years ago, i.e. the way it was reported, I would have thought that they found the grave yard where they buried the workers, did some DNA testing, and PROVED their case. Not so. Now I've looked for myself, and, if this is the best evidence, then color me even more convinced of the story, uh, just about everyone has believed for, uh, just about all of recorded history.
I think it's just another case of someone who wanted funding and a name, and came up with a shocking supposition to get them. Now he seems to be justifying the expense and the effort on the thinnest of evidence.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
To sum up the bleow article:
g ic/
1.When he claims these pyramids were build, the area was under a glacier.
2.The 15 years studing pyramids, were concocting crazy ideas about Alantis.
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/osmana
You can cut a sphere in half on EACH great circle. It doesn't have to be parallel to the equator or to a longitude. If the line Surface-Center is in the plane of the cut, it is surely cutting the sphere into two halves. The line Bosnia-Egypt then only fixes the acutal position of the plane.
a rapid decrease in the number of taxpayers vs the recipients or rapid decline of tax revenue. The first, given the population growth and immigration dynamics is exceedingly unlikely
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.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Here's a link to Sam Osmanagics website:
http://www.piramidasunca.ba/indexeng.htm