Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun and Ravne Tunnels
Semir Osmanagic announced in 2005 that the hill above Visoko is a pyramid tens of thousands of years old, and started digging the following April. In December 2006 the European Association of Archaeologists published an open letter calling the project a cruel hoax with no place in genuine science. The digging did not stop, the tunnels are ticketed, and the town gets the visitors.
Field Guide Entry
The claim
Visocica is a steep hill with straight-looking faces above the town of Visoko. Osmanagic, a Bosnian American businessman and author, said in 2005 that those faces are the sides of a buried pyramid, that it is older than anything in Egypt, and that a complex of other pyramids and tunnels surrounds it. Excavation began in April 2006 with volunteers, a foundation, and a great deal of press.
What geologists say it is
Geologists who examined the hill reported a natural landform. The shape is a flatiron, produced where tilted layers of hard rock erode into triangular faces, and the slabs presented as paving are the layered breccia and conglomerate the hill is made of. The 2006 open letter from the European Association of Archaeologists went further than a technical disagreement and asked the Bosnian government to stop supporting the work, on the grounds that it was damaging real archaeology in the area.
Visoko does hold genuine archaeology. The medieval town of Visoki sat on the same hill, and that site was disturbed by the pyramid excavations, which is what the archaeologists were protesting about.
The tunnels
Ravne is a network of passages near the hill, cleaned out, widened, and timbered by the foundation and sold as the tunnels of the pyramid complex. Visitors are told about energy beams measured at the summit, air that heals, and water with unusual properties. None of that has been demonstrated in any published work.
What it did to the town
Visoko had lost its industry. The pyramid brought guesthouses, guides, cafes, and a summer volunteer program, and it is one of the few places in the region where tourism arrived rather than left. Reporters who go there, including Radio Free Europe, tend to come back with the same finding: the archaeology is not in dispute among archaeologists, and the money is real.
Visiting Information
The Ravne tunnels are entered only with a guide. First entry is at 9am and the last is at 6pm, and tickets are 20 convertible marks, or 8 for citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Helmets are issued at the entrance, the floor is uneven and wet in places, and the air inside stays cool whatever the season.
The hill itself is open, with a marked trail up through the excavated terraces to the summit, and it takes a couple of hours at an ordinary pace. The terraces are trenches cut into the slope, and the interpretation boards beside them present the pyramid account as settled.
Day tours from Sarajevo run through the year and bundle transport with tunnel entry. Visoko is a short drive from the city, and the old town is worth the walk once the tunnels are done.
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