A Pyramid Scheme

In 2005 Semir Osmanagić, an expatriate Bosnian metalworker living in Texas, made a most startling announcement. The hills that surround the central Bosnian town of Visoko were not—as had always been thought—mere hills, but were in fact pyramids, man-made and ancient, built by a prehistoric civilisation that rivalled the ancient Egyptians in technological and cultural sophistication.

That Osmanagić's own consulted experts found his theories to be riddled with inaccuracies did not dissuade him. Nor did the fact that Bosnia was in an ice age 12,000 years ago, the time when the pyramids were supposedly built. Nor, either, did the fact that Bosnia's inhabitants at the time were itinerant hunter gatherers, who built no permanent structures—let alone huge monoliths. Five years on, the archaeological digs continue unabated, and the tourists arrive in droves.

The pyramids have taken over every aspect of the town; they have become its identity. Stepping out of the bus station when I arrived in Visoko, looked up at a cluster of roadsigns; all of the local Visoko ones bore on their left side a stylised pyramid, yellow on white. Crossing the bridge into town, I saw what used to be the Motel Hollywood; now, inevitably, it has become the Motel Piramida Sunca. Local restaurants serve "pyramid pizza". The town is gripped with pyramid fever.

I headed towards the "Pyramid of the Sun", the most overtly pyramidal of the four claimed pyramids and the closest to the town. A large white sign welcomed me to the "world's largest complex of pyramids", and a perspex box filled with coins invited donations to help fund further research. Eventually, I came to the dig site. Inside trenches, Malaysian archaeologists carefully probed the ground, scraping the soil from what looked simply to be ordinary rocks. To the side, a large section of hillside was fenced off, its exposed stone on display to the world: made up mostly of breccia, it looked perfectly natural, and did not have even the illusion of design about it.

As I prepared to ascend again past the dig site and to the top of the pyramid, a guide approached me and asked what I was interested in. I mumbled something awkward about the pyramids, but also mentioned Visoki, the ruined medieval fortress town that sits atop the so-called pyramid. "Visoki? You don't want to go there," the guide snorted. "All it has is some old walls and views of the valley. You must go to the tunnels; to go to Visoko and not see the tunnels would be madness!" He insisted that he drive me the two kilometres in his car—for €10, of course—but I declined; I had wanted to see Visoki for far longer than I had the pyramids. Visibly frustrated, he left me and headed back to his tourist group, and I resumed my ascent.

The route was treacherous, and barely a path at all; the forest grew more dense the higher I went, and the loose, sandy loam beneath my feet offered little traction. In places, the hill became near vertical, and its ascent more a process of rock-climbing than ofhiking; I thought with bitter amusement of the idea that this colossus had been crafted by human hands.

Eventually, bursting through a thicket, I found myself on a loose stone wall, its cement crumbling. Was this Visoki, I thought? Surely it would have some notice, some fence surrounding it? But it was; I was standing on one of the outer walls. Climbing further up, I eventually summited the hill and saw the rest of the structure. The sandy rock blazed yellow-white under the early afternoon sun, and as I walked further I saw the remains of one of the fortress's towers, covered in a plastic wrapping but otherwise neglected. There was no fence, not even a notice warning of the site's importance; it was thoroughly exposed, to the elements and to human interference.

Looking around, I saw why its location had been chosen: the fortress offered its defenders an unimpeded view of the whole Bosna valley, and approach to it was restricted to the shallower side of the hill. I thought of the bustling groups of tourists I had seen at the mock archaeological sites, barely metres away from where I stood; none had thought to ascend the hill any further, to see Visoki.

This seems to me the great tragedy of the pyramid hoax. I can understand its motivation, of course. Bosnia is not a rich country, nor Visoko a rich town; in the wake of the "discovery" the increase in tourist visits to the otherwise-overlooked Visoko must have been welcome. But Visoko has real history, real wonder, that is being neglected and ignored in the hurry to capitalise on the fame of the Bosnian pyramids. Osmanagić has shown himself to be a canny operator, able to mobilise and orchestrate the press with ease; that he felt the need to do so in promoting a false history of his own making—rather than the rich history to which Visoko was already legitimately home—says much of his ego, and is far less than Visoko deserves.