The Pyramids of Bosnia

A Guest Post from Mira Kolar-Brown

This week we’re happy to welcome Mira Kolar-Brown, the author of the Simon Grant Mystery Series.

Born in what used to be called Yugoslavia, Mira’s work brought her to the UK in 1977  – and she’s called the place home ever since.

 

Hiding the Elephant and Lock Up your Daughters are the first two books in her Simon Grant Mystery series. Both are available on Kindle. The third, For the Love of Honey, is in the works.

Mira lives near Manchester and has two grown-up daughters.

Leighton - Monday

Visoko is a small town located at the center of Bosnia.

Throughout the turbulent history of the country, Visoko’s only claim to fame had been the coronation of the Bosnian king Tvrtko Kotromanic in the 14^th century.

After that, nothing of note in any shape or form. 

Until 2005, that is, when the shape turned up in the unlikely form of not just one but three enormous pyramids.

Dr. Semir Osmanagic, a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a Houston based millionaire, detected the curiously regular shape of three out of many hills surrounding Visoko.

                           

His curiosity was piqued, his explorer’s juices started flowing.

Now, in my humble status of a very ordinary person, I suspect that the ability and drive to turn an idle thought into a major international project must have something to do with being a millionaire. My own curiosity leads me to waste hours upon hours on the Internet searching for answers to whimsical questions.

Osmanagic simply secured a permit to remove thousands upon thousands of tons of top soil to see what’s underneath.

What he found were concrete slabs…

Or, so he said.

He claimed he'd discovered the first European pyramids and that they were built some 12,000 ago in the late Upper Palaeolithic era.

His claims, predictably, were met with suspicion, incredulity, ridicule and downright hostility in some quarters. Semir persevered.

Over time, dedicated teams and the growing army of volunteers, 

have dug up long tunnels

and paved paths.

All that in spite of the Bosnian government’s reluctance to issue the required permits or offer any sort of support.

At one point the Minister for Heritage turned up in person ordering the Project to close down because of the risks for the neighbouring mediaeval historical sites.

The established archaeology experts kept away too. That came as a surprise to me. I wouldn’t expect anyone to endorse a project like that out of hand, but how did so many of them manage to curb that most wonderful of all human traits – curiosity?

For Semir and his project it was a case of beg, steal and borrow and that’s what he was doing until one by one they came, they looked, they tested and they succumbed. Some of them, anyhow.

Arguments against validity of the Bosnian Valley of Pyramids:

1. Dr. Semir Osmanagic is not an archaeologist.
2. Dr. Semir Osmanagic is an unashamed dreamer with self-confessed Druid-like beliefs.
3. There is no evidence that anyone in the world was building anything bigger than a shack in the late Upper Palaeolithic. 
4. There are too few artefacts or articles in common use found in the excavations.
5. The tunnels/corridors could have been dug up though the hill at a much later date.

Arguments in favour of the Bosnian Valley of Pyramids:

1. About ten different artifacts have been discovered so far.

 including forged glass 

 

and a mould for  casting metal.

2. Electromagnetic and ultrasound tests indicate that the building work took place as long as 12,000 years ago
3. Tests confirm that the building material used was, beyond any doubt, manufactured, not produced by nature.
4. Quite independently from the work on the pyramids, a Bosnian writer found a great concentration of stone balls along The River Bosnia, the largest of them being 1.7 m high and 5.3 m in circumference.  An Egyptian archaeologist confirmed that they were man-made and of a similar age as the pyramids. The presence of the Bosnian stone balls was only established after an earthquake in the late ’90 but similar objects are commonly found in some numbers in South America.

If anyone wants more information and detail, or wishes to join the project as a volunteer, please go here:

http://www.pyramidsinbosnia.com/index.html

or watch Osmanagic’s video on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqYlHmS9hB0

Granted, whichever camp you’re in, there are still far more questions than answers. But it’s an incredibly intriguing, fascinating enterprise, very much worthy of attention.

The mystery to me is the noncommittal attitude of the Bosnian government.

They have spread responsibility for the project over five different departments, which makes it five times harder to obtain further permits and make way through the maze of red tape. 

Bosnia’s economy is in tatters with high unemployment and low average income. A properly supported and promoted discovery of that magnitude, no matter what it turns out to be in the end, has a potential of bringing in tourists to the country as a whole, not just the area of Visoko.

Back in 1981 the first reporters from Medjugorje (http://www.medjugorje.org/medpage.htm) talked about a handful of modest houses in the village and not a single public toilet.  Haven’t the Bosnian potentates learned from that phenomenon how much revenue there is to be had from miracles?

Real American Hero: Peter Tomich

In the middle of May in the year 2006 a moving ceremony took place aboard the USS Enterprise, one of America's powerful air craft carriers. At the time, the Enterprise and her crew were anchored at sea off the coast of the town of Split, Croatia. The story of who and what brought the mighty ship to this little corner of the world is that of yet another in our 'Real American Hero' series, all of which you can read by clicking in to that label below this entry. On board the Enterprise was Rear Admiral J. Robert Lunney, the judge advocate general of the New York Naval Militia, a World War II veteran, and now a White Plains, New York lawyer. It seems that a few years earlier, Lunney had embarked on a mission on behalf of a fellow WWII navy man, Peter Tomich, whom Lunney believed had been wronged. Peter Tomich you see was an American Medal of Honor winner for his actions at Pearl Harbor on that date that still lives in infamy of the Japanese sneak attack, December 7th, 1941. On that quiet Sunday morning the then 48-year old Tomich was serving as a Chief on the Utah, a U.S. battleship that was at that point being used as a training ship. He had been born in 1893 as Petar Tonic to a Croatian family in the Balkan village of Prolog, which is now a part of Bosnia. As a young man he came to America and settled in Queens, New York. As with many immigrant families his name began to morph, his first name from Petar to Peter, and his last from Tonic to Tomich. He joined the Army in 1917, and a year later he formally became an American citizen. After serving two years in the Army he was discharged in 1919, and days later Tomich joined up with the Navy where he built a modest career serving his new country. On that infamous Sunday morning, Tomach awoke as usual to a clear, quiet morning that promised peace and relaxation, but in the end would prove to be the greatest challenge of his life. Without warning, Japanese torpedoes struck the Utah. She would sink within minutes. Tomach was the chief watertender in charge of the engine room, and as others simply abandoned ship Tomach raced below deck to keep the ship's boilers from exploding and allow more men time to escape. This single action on his part allowed most of the Utah's men to escape safely, but because he was engaged in shutting down the boilers Tomach was among the 64 who did not make it out. Months later, after the dust had settled at Pearl and the U.S. was fully engaged in World War II, Peter Tomach received the highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor. The problem became that he had just one known living relative, a cousin from California, but this man could not be found. Tomach's medal became the only one never awarded to a recipient or family member. It became a wandering symbol, passing among various exhibitions until finally finding a resting place at the U.S. Naval museum. This is where Admiral Lunney comes into the picture. Not feeling it was right that the Navy had never tracked down family for Tomach, Lunney embarked on his own mission to find them, traveling on his own expense to Bosnia. After nine years of searching, verifying, and trying to convince U.S. officials, Lunney finally stood on the deck of the Enterprise and presented the Medal of Honor for valor to Srecko Herzeg-Tonic (pictured with the medal), a retired military man himself, and an emotional, proud Tonic family on behalf of his distant cousin, Peter Tomach. During the ceremony, Real Admiral Robert A. Rosen asked a valid question: "What makes a man, when the ship is hit with torpedoes and listing 40 degrees and sinking, what makes this simple and honest and straightforward man stay at his duty station, chasing the people in his command to get out? That is what is remarkable in human nature. That what we call valor is done by people who seemingly are so ordinary on the outside." That is the point. Real Americans, rising rather than running at the moment of decision. That is what makes someone like Chief Peter Tomach a 'Real American Hero'.
Special thanks to 'www.mishalov.com' for information on the medal recipients and other heroes.