Bosnian flood

It's surreal to think that we left Bosnia on Monday night, by Wednesday the floods began. 3 months of rain in 3 days with continued rain throughout the weekend. 3000 landslides unearthing land mines from the war. Damage comparable to that of the war (with less loss of human life). They say it is of almost Biblical proportions with 1/4 of Bosnia being affected. Please remember the Bosnians in your prayers

Bosnian Pyramids

There is something going on in Visoko that is causing a lot of controversy, Dr Sam Osmanagich - an archaeologist - noticed an unusually high degree of symmetry of some local hills when visiting the area in 2006. When investigating further, he found the hills were covered in concrete - a man made substance. Sending an embedded leaf for radiocarbon dating, it came back as being 30,000 years old!

It was looking like a pyramid so he decided to look for other signs. It had geometrically pyramid shape - unusually triangular for a natural hill. It's 4 sides pointed toward the cardinal points, with greater accuracy than other famous pyramids. And when he started digging he found a network of tunnels running around the pyramid site, a network which he believes will ultimately lead to the pyramids themselves.

Bearing in mind the ancient Egyptian civilisation is ~ 5000 years old, the Mayan goes back as far as 4000 years, this is a really groundbreaking discovery. A 30000 year old civilisation with the means to build huge structures. This would shatter the view of primitive man being ape-like and stupid, unable to take a bath never mind build a pyramid!

Then came the fallout, claims of falsified data and bogus science undermining Osmanagich's discovery. Claims he's made in the past (really unconventional claims) used to indicate that maybe he's coming out with crazy stuff again. Official archaeological boards publicly denouncing Osmanagich.

In any case, I felt it was worth visiting to see for myself. My first impressions of the pyramid, seeing it through the bus window, was that it wasn't as symmetrical as it looks in the pictures. The 'concrete' blocks covering the pyramid were interesting. I can verify that at the excavation sites on the side of the pyramid, I could see several large rectangular blocks of large pebbles bound with a clay-like binding substance. They did not look natural, but I am not a materials expert. Osmanagich has had a sample professionally tested and verified as man made, but critics say the sample was off a nearby hill (not the pyramid), and that the material is in keeping with the landscape i.e. it is natural.

Much more symmetry from the angle shown below:

Above: concrete blocks

Below: close up of concrete block

For 2.5 euro you get a tour through the underground cave found 3km away from the pyramid. The tour was fantastic and I would certainly recommend it, our guide was enthusiastic and willing to answer any questions I had. The cave contains a huge stone megalith, which they say is man made with an ancient form of ceramic. Covered in ancient inscription (which critics say were later added), it's purpose is yet unclear, but the guide mentions it functions as an air purifier. Independent measurements show that the oxygen concentration within the cave is higher than outside the cave - very unusual. There is also a very high concentration of negative ions - air which has therapeutic qualities and is produced in western countries by air purifiers. Still water within the cave has maintained it's purity - perhaps for over 1000 years - due to the purifying effects of the negative ions.

The tunnel network we waked through looked man made - layers of stones set in an arch pattern. Most of the tunnels today are filled with soil - a completely different soil to the stone arches lining the tunnels. This soil filler is 5000 years old. The theory is that the tunnels were made over 5000 years ago by an ancient civilisation, and a successive civilisation filled them up for an as yet unknown reason. Not only did they fill them with soil, but they sealed entrances to tunnels with dry stone walls. Whatever the theory, the dry stone walls were self evident as were the manufactured appearance of the tunnel arches. Not all tunnels have been filled with soil, after several hundred km of digging the researchers found a network of unfilled tunnels - a real progression in their findings.

Sam Osmanagich has opened the tunnels / pyramid to research for anyone who is interested. This attracts all kinds of people - scientists who are interested in empirical measurement and spiritually inclined people who feel the energy currents of the place. As such a lot is said about the pyramids from people of all persuasions, but the modern mind seeks to validate claims through empirical measurement alone before placing faith in something. Those who place no value on non-empirical measurements run risk of throwing the baby out with the bath water, ignoring all the empirical research that is being done on the pyramid.

So to summarise, I will put forward some reasons to believe that something extraordinary is happening in Visoko:
-The pyramid faces toward the cardinal points
-The walls seem to be covered with artificial blocks of concrete
-There is a network of tunnels running near the pyramid complex, the structure of which appears artificial
-There are a high concentration of negative ions in the tunnel, this is measurable and self regulating
-There is a measurable beam of electromagnetic energy above the pyramid

And as we are not people who regard empirical measurements as the truest form of knowledge, it is important to note that we felt at peace in the tunnels. Mandeep felt that she resonated with the surroundings, leading to a feeling of contentment.

Reading around on the internet can be difficult sometimes, in that I never seem to get to the bottom of something. Seeing the pyramids in person was really worthwhile, helping to consolidate some ideas I had regarding them.

Bosnia, breakdown of Yugoslavia

Our initial plan when we left the UK was to spend a week in Croatia working our way up the coast and to do a day trip to Visoko, Bosnia to see the pyramids (oh, you didn't know about the Bosnian pyramids? More on those later!) After leaving Greece we decided on more time in Bosnia and just to pass through Croatia. I'm sure Croatia's really nice, but we kinda weren't feeling sun sea and sand, hotels and island hopping (crazy isn't it). This trip has been defined by the people we have met and we wanted to meet Bosnian people. They are famous for their kindness and hospitality, something laid in the foundation of their capital - Sarajevo. The first building in Sarajevo was a tekke. This is a place where travellers can rest for a few days before moving on, they traditionally had free kitchens and accommodation, with devotional activities (zikr - chanting) on offer for people to take part in. Old Bosnian cities - like all old Muslim cities - are filled with fountains, clean drinking water available to everybody. That priceless commodity recognised as a gift from God to all humanity, a stark contrast to the increasing privatisation of fresh water supplies today.

We wanted to stay in a tekke but unfortunately couldn't find one that runs in a traditional way. Many tekkes still function as centres for devotional activities but not as  places where travellers can rest. Sarajevo seems to have lost it's purpose somewhat. We had been told that there were more Sufis around the more rural areas of Bosnia, but as is the norm with Sufis there is no organisation as such, they can be somewhat elusive. A world of spirituality can very quickly blossom before you if you meet the right person - if you find the door - but that door is seldom found on the internet (a fact I kind of like) - and the Bosnian tourist office couldn't help either! It turned out that a zikr festival was on which we missed - thousands of people gathered to do zikr and no one we asked knew about it. It was a Bosnian Sufi in Zurich who told us - see what I mean about elusive!

So we took some time to learn about the history instead. Here is what I (loosely) gather regarding Bosnia after WW2.  After the war the 6 states of Yugoslavia were liberated from the axis powers (Germany etc) and became a communist republic under the rule of Tito. He dealt strongly with any hint of disunity among his people, which included several distinct cultural identities. While the Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats are all ethnically south Slavic, they have religio-cultural differences in that the Bosnians are Muslim, Serbs Orthodox and Croats are Catholic. After Tito, Yugoslavia became increasingly unstable leading to nationalistic tendencies among the 3 ethnic groups. Slobodan Milosovic, against the wish of his peers, played these tensions against each other. He eventually became president, and in his hopes to create a nation for Serbs led to a genocide campaign against the Muslims. Things got really messy, all 3 groups warred but the Muslim Bosniaks seemed the least prepared and suffered the worst for it. Torture, mass rape - you name it. Around 100,000 people died. Too often I hear of wars bringing out the most evil characteristics in people. Even if you really believe in the cause you're fighting for, why rape your opponents? Overnight, friends of different religions became enemies, we really couldn't understand why.

We met a 32 year old guy called Midhat. While walking around his home town of Visoko he pointed out, "Snipers would shoot and tanks would come down from that hill. School was closed, we stayed in all the time. My grandfather was killed in the war". It was hard to believe, hard to put ourselves in that position as we walked around the quiet village surrounded by hills. How frightening for a 6 year old boy to be faced with that. It all happened so recently - in the 90s! Walking round Sarajevo, we could see bullet holes in some of the buildings. Weird to think this all happened in our lifetime.