Bosnian pyramids

These are the pioneer steps which can turn the wheel of history in some other direction.

The Bosnian pyramids are a bunch of hills in Bosnia and Herzegovina that rose to international notoriety in 2005 after Semir Osmanagić, a Bosnian businessman who runs a company in Texas, proclaimed them to be man-made pyramids. Much to the dismay of the international archaeological community, Osmanagić enjoys some support from the Bosnian government, which gave him permission to excavate the site and partially funded an "expedition".

The main claim relates to the 213-metre (699 ft) Visočica hill, near the town of Visoko (various maps and satellite imagery), which according to Osmanagić is a buried pyramid, the "Pyramid of the Sun". He has dubbed other nearby hills the "Pyramid of the Moon" and the "Pyramid of the (Bosnian) Dragon". How he knows what these ancient structures - hitherto completely unknown to science - were named is anyone's guess. (The so-called "pyramids" are in fact the product of tectonic uplift.) Furthermore, Osmanagić used a backhoe for part of the excavation, conveniently shaping the earth into a more pyramid-like appearance (and simultaneously undertaking one of the least professional archaeological excavations ever).

In 2006 (known for promoting  alternative Sphinx theories and  alternate historical chronologies) examined the pyramids at Osmanagić's request, and in a  stopped-clock moment concluded that the site held "absolutely no evidence of pyramids per se or of a great ancient civilization in the Visoko region".

If the above crankery wasn't enough, Osmanagić decided to throw in some crystal skullduggery "quartz head skull technology" too, just to make certain that no one should mistake his crank magnetism for an example of Poe's Law. Amazingly, Osmanagić managed to get this published in his 2007 Ph.D. thesis — in Political Science — by presenting it as part of a  sociological comparative study of the (lack of) technology in Mayan and modern (Western) civilizations. Adding to his store of crank magnetism, Osmanagić apparently also subscribes to other pseudohistorical nonsense surrounding the various (actual) pyramids, e.g. the  ancient-astronauts claptrap, and also peddles wholly unrelated pseudohistory, such as a claim that  Antarctic-dwelling Nazis really  control everything, as well as a grab-bag of other assorted nuttery involving Freemasonry  conspiracies and Atlantis myths. He even cites crank extraordinaire David Icke with approval.

In September 2016, Jason Colavito wrote on his blog that Osmanagić was now claiming that his Bosnian "pyramids" possessed the same kind of wootastic powers that New Agers have ascribed to the genuine, Egyptian variety.

Mainstream

 * The great Bosnian pyramid scheme, Anthony Harding, British Archaeology, Issue 92, January/February 2007
 * Mad About Pyramids (1MB PDF), John Bohannon, Science Magazine, 22 September 2006
 * More on Bosnian "Pyramids", Mark Rose, Archaeology, Jun. 27 2006
 * Bosnian Pyramids: Absence of Evidence is Not Evidence of Atlantis, Alun Salt
 * The Bosnian Pyramid: A Brief Summary, A Hot Cup of Joe