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Saturday 11 October 2008
by Irna
Of transparency and scientific integrity
Mr. Osmanagic’s "Archaeological Park: Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun" Foundation claims that its work is "transparent" (en) (see also its statutes (bs)). One particularly notable example of this "transparency" and scientific integrity is that of the report by the archaeologist Andrew Lawler. I have succeeded in obtaining from the author (who left the Foundation, partly because of this same episode) the original of the report whose subject was the radiocarbon dating of a piece of fossil wood found in Ravne tunnel. This original report can be found below:
But, under pressure from Mr. (...)

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Monday 22 September 2008
by Irna
Tunnels, fossilized wood and radiocarbon dating
So, the great "international scientific conference" (en) that Mr. Osmanagic organized in Sarajevo has come to an end; the Chinese archaeologists talked about the Chinese pyramids, the Egyptian archaeologists talked about the Egyptian pyramids... and Mr. Osmanagic’s associates gave their usual "arguments": perfect geometry, proto-script, and other pseudogeological analyses, even if they had to set aside part of the New Age fantasies and deliriums à la Goran Cakic; after all, it was a scientific conference. The conclusions (en) of the conference are polite, and prudent: there is a need to (...)

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Saturday 13 September 2008
by Irna
One more, one less...
One more
Mr. Osmanagic definitely has no luck with the archaeologists. He could not obtain, from the few Egyptian archaeologists and egyptologists he managed to invite to his "international scientific conference" (en), more than a few vague conclusions (en) saying that it is necessary to "answer the origin of the Bosnian pyramidal hills" and postponing any "scientific validation" of his theories to a possible second conference in 2010. At the same time, BHDani magazine published, in its 5th September 2008 issue (bs), the translation of an interview given, at the end of August 2008, to (...)

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Tuesday 26 August 2008
by Irna
Some thoughts about Dr. Nabil Swelim’s report
After Dr. Barakat’s report in November 2007, a second report from Egypt about the "Bosnian pyramids" was published in March 2008 by the team of Mr. Osmanagic’s Foundation. This one is Dr. Nabil Swelim’s report (en), written in February 2008 following his visit to Bosnia from the 30th August to the 12th September 2007.
Dr. Swelim, a former Admiral come to egyptology after his retirement, is a respected scientist, having published several texts (en), and member of various institutions; he is also a part-time guide or lecturer (en) for various tours (en) in Egypt. So, he may not (...)

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Saturday 16 August 2008
by Irna
"What happened to the objective and unbiased journalism?"
"WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OBJECTIVE AND UNBIASED JOURNALISM?" was the title of an article published on Mr. Osmanagic’s Foundation website (en) in December 2007. It was an attack on the journalist Vuk Bacanovic, of the magazine BHDani (bs), following the publication of articles disclosing various facts that proved of some embarrassment for the Foundation, in particular this article about an interview with the former geologist to the team. The Foundation article accused Vuk Bacanovic of both dishonesty and incompetence: unable to write his articles of his own, he supposedly produced (...)

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Thursday 14 August 2008
by Irna
Beneath contempt
Beneath contempt: what other way is there of describing the events of the last few days at Visoko? As can be seen here, during the night of 6th-7th of August, the excavations of the mediaeval fortress of Visoki, at the top of the hill of Visocica, which Mr. Osmanagic persists in describing as “the highest pyramid in the world”, were subjected to criminal vandalism. It was the second such attack suffered by the fortress; during the Autumn of 2007, these vandals, or others of the same ilk, had already damaged part of the walls revealed during the excavation. The attack (...)

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Monday 11 August 2008
by Irna
The fortress that just wouldn’t go away…
«There’s nothing up there at all! Not so much as one stone on top of another! When the Turks burned it to the ground 500 years ago, they left nothing standing.»
These were the words that, whilst giving a presentation about the  “pyramids” of Visoko at the end of the summer of 2006, Mr. Semir Osmanagic used to describe the mediaeval town of Visoki, the royal stronghold at the heart of the mediaeval kingdom of Bosnia.
On several occasions during the last three years, in two different situations, he has used very similar words:
when defending himself from attacks by (...)

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Saturday 26 April 2008
by Irna
In which the "proto-Bosnian" alphabet is mentioned again
Readers will perhaps recall that one of the most outlandish claims of Semir Osmanagic’s Foundation was the discovery of certain symbols in the Ravne Tunnel, three kilometres from the Pyramid of the Sun. Muris Osmanagic, their "finder", considers them to be a proto-Bosnian alphabet, "the ancestor of all European alphabets", from Phoenician to Teutonic runes. Muris Osmanagic claims to have identified 52 different symbols:
and the Foundation secured the services of a distinguished "hierolinguist", Mr. Paulo Stekel, who also happens to be an expert on another controversial script, (...)

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Wednesday 13 February 2008
by Irna
Frauds, myths and mysteries: Feder on "Bosnian pyramids"
Extracts from Kenneth L. Feder’s book, "Frauds, myths and mysteries - Science and Pseudoscience in Archeology", sixth edition, pages 276-278.
Pyramids in Bosnia?
The charismatic archaeologist, expedition leader, project director, fund-raiser, and author, Semir Osmanagic (in his day job, he’s a metalwork contractor in Houston, Texas), has labeled the features the “Pyramid of the Sun,” the “Pyramid of the Moon,” the “Pyramid of the Dragon,” the “Pyramid of Love,” and the “Temple of Earth” (Bohannon 2006; Kampschror 2006). (...)

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Sunday 10 February 2008
by Irna
Brick-a-brac...
In lack of "scientific reports", quite rare these last months (and that’s not surprising, see here), and in lack of new "discoveries", the Foundation website doesn’t offer these days, beside some promotional material about Mr. Osmanagic’s presentations in foreign countries, more than a few revivals of old photographs: "extracts from the photo documentation" or "details from the Bosnian valley of the pyramids". On this last page, however, appears a photograph that, as far as I know, has never before been published on the Foundation website:
What is it? The Foundation doesn’t give any (...)

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Wednesday 30 January 2008
by Irna
In search of the lost reports
Under this title was published on the 11th of January 2008, in the Bosnian magazine BHDani, an article by Vuk Bacanovic. It seems that the magazine has been sent some interesting documents, ones that Mr. Osmanagic’s would probably have preferred never to see revealed to the public. I have translated below the most part of this article; the original text (bs) can be found in the online archives of the magazine, or, for the non-subscribers, on Stultitia’s blog (bs).
What did, even in the beginning of the research on Visocica, conclude the geologist Stjepan Coric? What are the (...)

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Thursday 24 January 2008
by Irna
A correspondence with Dr. Barakat
About a month after the publication of this article (en) on my website, containing a few comments about Dr. Aly Barakat’s report, I received a mail from the Egyptian geologist. Following this first contact ensued an interesting correspondence that I publish here, of course with Dr. Barakat’s authorization.
I will copy/paste this entire correspondence, with a few editing as it is sometimes difficult in Dr. Barakat’s texts to distinguish between his text and his quotations from the previous mail. However I give along with this edited text the original messages and documents.
2007/12/30: (...)

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