Field Notes The Bosnian Pyramid Phenomenon Olav Hammer and Karen Swartz Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/nr/article-pdf/23/4/94/385414/nr.2020.23.4.94.pdf by guest on 27 May 2020 ABSTRACT: The Bosnian town of Visoko has in recent years become a New Age pilgrimage site. Several formations in the landscape have been branded as ancient pyramids and tunnels. These purported monuments from bygone times are administrated by a private founda- tion led by the Bosnian American entrepreneur Semir Osmanagic´. His claim is that the structures at Visoko were built tens of thousands of years ago by an advanced civilization that mastered a technology that enabled the concentration of healing energies. This controversial assertion is supported by invoking the supposed scientific proofs for the existence of these energies and by prominently displaying various legitimizing visual and material props. The prospect of coming into contact with the mys- terious powers emanating from the site attracts numerous visitors and has led to the commodification of the pyramid and tunnel complex. KEYWORDS: Bosnian pyramids, alternative archaeology, New Age, religious entrepreneurship, religion and science, legitimation of religion he city of Visoko, located in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, is roughly a 45-minute trip by car from the country’s capital, T Sarajevo. It lies in the midst of a spectacular mountainous land- scape and attracts tens of thousands of visitors every year. They are, however, less drawn there by the breathtaking views than they are by the so-called Bosnian Pyramids and the Ravne Tunnels.1 We chose to adorn the previous sentence with a cautious “so-called” because, as will Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Volume 23, Issue 4, pages 94–110. ISSN 1092-6690 (print), 1541-8480. (electronic). © 2020 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, https://www.ucpress.edu/journals/reprints- permissions. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2020.23.4.94. 94 Hammer and Swartz: The Bosnian Pyramid Phenomenon soon become apparent, opinions about the nature of these sites differ wildly, and various positions regarding the authenticity of these massive, and massively expanding, structures have been fought out in bitterly polemical language. Visoko has in recent years morphed into a New Age Mecca, and this Field Notes essay considers the ways in which the site is branded, legitimized, and commoditized. In late September 2019, we had the opportunity to visit Visoko and experience some of what is on offer first-hand. This exploratory journey turned out to be exceptionally fruitful and has inspired us to make plans to return in the near future for a more substantial field trip. Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/nr/article-pdf/23/4/94/385414/nr.2020.23.4.94.pdf by guest on 27 May 2020 There is an obvious nationalistic potential lying in wait in a story that casts Bosnia and Herzegovina as the site of the world’s oldest and largest pyramids. For a recently war-torn country (1992–1995), this was appar- ently a very attractive message. The nationalist (and occasionally aggres- sively chauvinistic) discourse surrounding the Visoko complex has, however, been documented and need not concern us further in what follows.2 What is perhaps most striking for the present-day visitor to the Visoko area is the way in which the so-called pyramids and tunnel com- plexes have morphed into New Age pilgrimage sites. Rather than attempting to convince a skeptical academic audience of the veracity of his archaeological claims or persuade visitors that Bosnia and Herzegovina is the cradle of human civilization, Osmanagic´andhis supporters now principally brand the complex as a place of meditation, healing, and spiritual development. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BOSNIAN PYRAMIDS AND RAVNE TUNNELS In 2005, Semir Osmanagic´ (b. 1960), a Bosnian American business- man who had made a career in the import-export and metal manufacturing sectors, visited Visokoanddeclaredthattwohillssitu- ated on the edge of town are in fact pyramids. He returned the follow- ing year and began exploring the two locations of interest, which he subsequently dubbed the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of theMoon.Landatthesitewaspurchased and excavations were begun largely carried out by volunteers. Financed by private funds, portions of land continue to be procured and excavated to this day. These and other activities occurring at the site are managed by the Foundation of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun, a non-profit organization established by Osmanagic´ in 2006 for which he continues to serve as executive director.3 The Visoko area, according to Osmanagic´’s current understanding of it, is home to several other ancient structures as well. In addition to the aforementioned Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon, he claims 95 Nova Religio Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/nr/article-pdf/23/4/94/385414/nr.2020.23.4.94.pdf by guest on 27 May 2020 Photo 1: View of Visoko and the reputed Pyramid of the Sun, 13 July 2014. Courtesy of TheBIHLover and Wikimedia Commons. that two other similar structures have been discovered; these have been dubbed the Pyramid of Love and the Pyramid of the Bosnian Dragon. References are also made to various tumuli, a Temple of Mother Earth, and a vast system of underground tunnels. According to his reports, the entire complex is very ancient. Suggestions for dates of construction have been pushed back in time gradually over the years. At first, Osmanagic´ stated that the structures are 12,000 years old.4 In 2013, however, a text published online by the foundation claimed that the purported pyramids had been built 29,000 years ago, plus or minus 400 years.5 Another estimate was offered in 2018 when the newspaper Dnevni avaz printed an article in which Osmanagic´ is quoted as saying that the Pyramid of the Sun was constructed 32,000 years ago.6 The discovery of a number of large spherical boulders found at Podubravlje, another site in central Bosnia and Herzegovina managed by the same foundation, similarly requires, according to Osmanagic´, that the timeframe be pushed back, here to a vaguely formulated “tens of thousands of years” ago.7 The insistence that the Visoko hills are actually pyramids that are both much larger and much older than the Egyptian ones at Giza has, to put it mildly, not stood unchallenged.8 Geologists who have visited the area, for instance, have declared that the hills are completely natural formations that resemble any of the numerous other vaguely pyramid- 96 Hammer and Swartz: The Bosnian Pyramid Phenomenon shaped features that dot the Bosnian landscape.9 Well-understood and completely mundane processes of sedimentation, erosion, and tectonic activity have, according to these experts, created the hills, and material that Osmanagic´ identifies as an extremely durable and resistant con- crete made by an ancient civilization is dismissed by them as instead being a natural conglomerate produced by sedimentation over vast stretches of time. Mainstream archaeologists and historians similarly dismiss Osmanagic´’s claims that the Ravne tunnel complex was con- structed by the same ancient civilization and that it was filled up with debris roughly 5,000 years ago by another, slightly less ancient, culture Downloaded from http://online.ucpress.edu/nr/article-pdf/23/4/94/385414/nr.2020.23.4.94.pdf by guest on 27 May 2020 from bygone days. The conventional explanation is that the tunnels are in part mineshafts that were used from the Middle Ages until relatively recently by locals and in part the natural result of the digging carried out by Osmanagic´’s volunteers.10 Concerned voices have been raised about the risks that the excavations pose to genuine paleontological and archaeological material.11 For example, perched on the summit of the purported Pyramid of the Sun are the ruins of the fourteenth-century Visoki castle, an important structure linked to what is documentable Bosnian history. Quite unsurprisingly, Osmanagic´ and various others involved in the excavations have their own interpretations of the resistance they face from mainstream archaeologists and geologists. We experienced this first-hand at the site of the Pyramid of the Sun when we, while huddled under our flimsy umbrella, listened to our local guide eloquently repro- duce three key elements of insider discourse about those who criticize the pyramid project. For instance, we were told that the antiquity of the pyramids and tunnels is disputed by people who have a vested interest in protecting the Egyptian tourist industry. Shortly afterwards, he asserted that the prospect of having our current view of history completely rewrit- ten makes conventional archaeologists blind to the facts. Additionally, before being escorted to the next point of interest on our tour, we were told that although the ruins of the Visoki castle currently serve as an obstacle standing in the way of a complete excavation of the Pyramid of the Sun, given enough time, money, and effort, it will one day in an admittedly distant future be fully unearthed. It is not our aim here to attempt to disprove Osmanagic´’s claims (an activity undertaken numerous times on various websites), but instead to discuss a particular case of what recent literature increasingly refers to as alternative archaeology. In short, one could regard the genre of alternative archaeology as a series of modern-day myths about the ancient past. The myth-like characteristics of these narratives are readily apparent if one compares the accounts of the past constructed by alter- native archaeologists with such classical understandings of myth as those formulated by American folklorist and anthropologist William A.