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Around the pyramids
This part will be devoted to certain side-issues of the Bosnian pyramids affair: questions about the lack of criticism from the medias, about the economical, nationalist, political stakes, as well as about the cultural and scientific impact of the affair in Bosnia.
 
This section's articles
Thursday 7 February 2008
by Irna
The Galileo Gambit
The supporters of parasciences consider the debate as the struggle of open, revolutionary minds, against the censorship of an omnipotent and sclerosed institution, which tries to suppress the truth in order to ensure the perenniality of its domination. This schematization, that will be called here "appeal to Galileo", is founded upon the drawing of a parallel between the present controversy about parasciences and Galileo’s trial - or rather the myth it generated.
Marianne Doury
« Le débat selon les partisans des parasciences II : L’appel à Galilée» , Chapitre 7, Le débat immobile, (...)

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Sunday 16 September 2007
by Irna
Real archaeology in Visoko
Since the beginning of the "pyramids" affair, one of the things Mr. Osmanagic, his team and his supporters, repeat again and again, is the idea that Visoko region would be "terra incognita" for the archaeologists; that enables them to claim 1) that the "official" archaeologists do not do their job; 2) that, thanks to Mr. Osmanagic, the archaeological wealth of the region will be revealed to the world. This idea is doubly false; first, even if there is certainly still much to research, Visoko region archaeology is much better known than Mr. Osmanagic says or hopes; second, it is more and (...)

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Friday 25 May 2007
by Irna
How the Bosnian scientific institutions see Mr. Osmanagic’s project - part 2 (and end?)
I have described a few days ago in this article (en) some official documents published on geolog-mrak (bs)’s blog. It appears that Mr. Osmanagic’s Foundation has asked from the Ministry of Culture an excavation permit (including for excavations in the protected area on Visocica, see here (en)) as well as some subsidies; and that the Minister, Mr. Gavrilo Grahovac, has, before answering, contacted various Bosnian scientific institutions in order to get their opinion on Mr. Osmanagic’s project. Geolog-mrak had already published part of these opinions (from the geologists of Tuzla University (...)

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Wednesday 16 May 2007
by Irna
How the Bosnian scientific institutions see Mr. Osmanagic’s project
The reader probably remembers (see this article (en)) that Mr. Osmanagic’s Foundation appears to have this year - contrary to the year 2006 - some difficulties in obtaining the necessary excavation permits in order to pursue their project. It seems that the responsible federal authorities, that is the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Physical Planning, have this year decided to ask for the opinions of various scientific authorities about Mr. Osmanagic’s projects. I have already mentioned (en) the very negative opinion of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments that, in its (...)

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Saturday 5 May 2007
by Irna
Mr. Osmanagic, protector of the Bosnian national heritage?
Is Mr. Osmanagic’s Foundation abandoning its pyramid chimeras, and beginning to devote itself to real archaeology and the protection of the Bosnian heritage? That’s what one could believe, at least for a moment, when one sees the news published on the 29th of April 2007 (en) on the Foundation web site. Indeed the Foundation announces a new "multidisciplinary project", with no less than "28 experts from 8 countries" in every kind of science, aiming at "studying, preserving and displaying the Old Town Visoki"; Visoki is an old town and fortress, once the political and economical heart of (...)

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Sunday 18 March 2007
by Irna
An open letter from the Bosnian scientific community
to Mr. Christian Schwarz-Schilling, High Representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Sarajevo, March 14, 2007
Dear Mr. Schwarz-Schilling,
For more than a year now, the Bosnian-Herzegovinian and the international scientific community has been following the development of pseudoarchaeological trend and project of search for the alleged prehistoric pyramids near Visoko in Bosnia-Herzegovina in utter appalment. Particularly worrying are the support given to this project by a part of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian political establishment and the politicized rhetoric applied to present the alleged discovery of Visoko pyramids as fundamental state interest to the public. Therefore, (...)

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