Update on the Bosnian Pyramids

 

In 2011 when I went to the Glastonbury Symposium, I was blown away by learning about the work of  Sam Semir Osmanagic, the visionary amateur archeologist who is attempting to excavate what he believes is a pyramid complex in Bosnia.   I admire Dr. Osmanagic's dedication and vision, and have been rather disgusted by the way, as so often happens, he has been pooh-poohed and called a fraud, although in all fairness, there are many who support him, including the President of Malaysia who visited the site.  I love Wikipedia, but their dismissal of his work is very disappointing and I think reflects a prejudice.  The fact is, if he's right,  this is the highest pyramid in the world, and the complex is 10,000 + years old.  Such a discovery would re-write what we think we know about the ancient world, and what we know about ancient Europe.

One of the developments I've been following (oh, to be young, and go volunteer to dig for a summer!  What fun that would be!)  is the discovery of what may very well be a concrete/cement that was used to construct the (as yet unproven) pyramids.  This could mean that not only were the ancients creating intentional geomantic environments that were sacred landscapes***, but they had building technologies some 10,000 years ago that included making cement.

"Results released by the Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy of chemical and diffractometry laboratory analysis done on sandstone and conglomerate blocks taken from the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun show that the samples are an inert material with a binding, similar to that found in ancient Roman concrete. These results were confirmed by analysis on the samples done at the University of Zenica,Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Stone terrace made from sandstone plates on top of the Bosnian "Pyramid of the Moon", September 2008  More photos: http://www.bosnianpyramidofthesun.com/

In a separate independent test, Professor Joseph Davidovits,  member of the International Association of Egyptologists and author confirms this claim. “I performed electron microscopic analysis of the sample and I propose the geopolymer chemistry that was used to make this is ancient concrete,”  http://www.davidovits.info/34/the-pyramids-in-bosnia-europe-perhaps-in-roman-concrete

He further adds that the sample is composed of “a calcium/potassium-based geopolymer cement and that although he cannot date the sample, he can discern that it is not modern concrete, but more like the technique used by the Egyptians 3500 years ago.” In his book "The Pyramids: an Enigma Solved" ,Davidovits proposes that Egyptian pyramids were constructed using agglomerated stone (limestone cast like concrete)."

Outside walls of the Bosnian "Pyramid of the Sun" made of the concrete conglomerate blocks, Northern side, July 2008

Christopher Dunn, author of The Giza Power Plant (1996) writes that the pyramids were "ancient energy machines" or power sources that channelled geo-magnetic energy, which is currently a popular theory among researchers. The pyramids of Bosnia have the same elements that define the structure of an ancient "power generator system."

http://beforeitsnews.com/beyond-science/2013/04/30000-year-old-bosnian-pyramids-built-with-man-made-cement-2441772.html 

What do we really know?  What knowledge might we have lost?  Fascinating to speculate.  Atlantis rising.......... 

http://youtu.be/f1BOT928Jn4



***A great Blog that follows the Bosnian Pyramids excavation, as well as discussion on related themes is Old Europe   (http://bpblognews.blogspot.com/).  Here I've copied from an article:

"In ancient times architecture was considered not only a creation of form to limit or define space, but also inherently a sacred form that concentrated beneficial earth and cosmic energies and dispersed harmful earth and cosmic energies. The subtle energies of earth and cosmos were taken very seriously in the spiritually advanced societies of the past. The ancients were conscious that certain architectural features transformed invisible energetic fields that exercise subtle but predictable influences on the human body and on the environment.

In spite of our scientific progress in the modern day, we still know very little, in comparison to the ancients, about the relation of forms both natural and artificial to subtle and invisible but potent energies from earth and sky. Since 2006, researchers from many different disciplines have visited the Bosnian Pyramid Valley. These researchers have made pioneering discoveries that have allowed us to dramatically expand our modern understanding of the nature and purpose of the Bosnian pyramids and pyramid structures across the planet. A two-year study performed by biologist Dr. Sulejman Redžić from the Faculty for Natural Sciences at the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, has shown that the soil temperature on the Bosnian pyramids and nearby areas is 5 degrees Celsius warmer than elsewhere in Bosnia.

Astonishingly, Dr. Redžić was able to identify several plant species on the pyramids that are typical of warmer Mediterranean climate zones. This means that these ancient pyramid structures create an artificial microclimate in the Visoko Valley. U.K. scientist Dr. Harry Oldfield developed a photographic method similar to Kirlian photography that captures the "shapes" of electromagnetic energy in a two-dimensional photograph.

Images: rising energy fields of the Bosnian pyramids

Dr. Oldfield's photos of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun showed that the electromagnetic fields above the pyramids are oriented toward the vertical rather than the horizontal. This is unusual because the electromagnetic patterns above natural features such as hills and mountains are normally vertically oriented. Vertically oriented electromagnetic fields are characteristic of artificial (manmade) structures. In addition, Dr. Oldfield recorded more activity than expected, with strong electromagnetic fields above the Bosnian Pyramid of The Sun.

Corroborating Dr. Oldfield's findings, Dr. Slobodan Mizdrak, a physicist from Zagreb, Croatia, led a team of experts who measured both electromagnetic radiation in the Bosnian pyramid complex in 2010 and 2012. The team also measured an unusual 28 kHz ultrasound phenomenon exiting the top of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun. A two-day experiment in April 2012 demonstrated that the source of the ultrasound "energy beam" is beneath the pyramid at a depth of 2440 metres (1.86 miles). Analysis of collected data has shown that a metallic plate located deep under the pyramid in combination with underground water flows and unexpectedly high concentrations of negative ions generates electric power of more than 10 kilowatts. 

Image: artistic reconstruction of the Central Fire

The presence of high concentrations of negative ions has also been detected also in other locations of the valley, namely inside Ravne tunnel labyrinth. Different measurements performed during the past six years have shown a tremendous increase in negative ions inside the tunnel system, reaching levels of up to 40,000 ions per cubic centimeter 200 meters inside the tunnel system. Negative ions are atoms or molecules that have more electrons than protons in their nuclei. Series of analyses in the last 120 years have proven that negative ions clean the air of dust, spores, mold and pollen and provide numerous health benefits to human beings. Thousands of people who have visited the underground tunnel labyrinth during the past six years have been able to experience the healing power of this negative ion-rich location.  

Janez Pelko, a Slovenia researcher who studied the effects on the human aura of a short stay in Ravne tunnel labyrinth, demonstrated that the human aura increases and reconstitutes itself significantly in almost 80% of cases among people after a one-hour stay inside the tunnel labyrinth. Janez Pelko's research is mainly inspired by the work of Prof. Konstantin G. Korotkov, a renown Russian scientist who invented the Gas Discharge Visualization technique (GDV), which represents a breakthrough beyond Kirlian photography, allowing direct, real-time viewing of human energy fields.

Thus we come to the conclusion that ancient cultures had developed an understanding of the subtle effects of various invisible life energies and created structures to both generate and magnify them."

February 21, 2013, The Invisible but Vital Life Energies of the Bosnian Pyramid Valley

In the Belly of the Goddess - Gobekli Tepe

Since posting about the Bosnian Pyramids, I received an email from my friend Susan about another megalithic mystery I was not aware of,  the buried temples of Turkey, Gobekli Tepe,  a ceremonial  landscape that may very well be 12,000 years old.  Gobekli Tepe  means  "Belly Hill" or "Hill With A Navel".   According to Wikipedia, 

"Göbekli Tepe is the oldest, human-made religious structure yet discovered. The site is located on a hilltop, and contains 20 round, (now) subterranean structures, four of which have currently been excavated. Each building has a diameter of 10–30 meters, and is decorated with massive (mostly) T-shaped limestone pillars that are the most striking feature of the site.  That neolithic people with such primitive flint tools quarried, carved, transported uphill, and erected these massive pillars has astonished the archaeological world, and must have required a staggering amount of manpower and labor.  In the structures, two pillars were placed in the center of each circle, possibly to help support the roof, and up to eight pillars were evenly positioned around the walls of the room.  Many of the pillars are decorated with carved reliefs of animals and of abstract enigmatic pictograms. The pictograms may represent commonly understood sacred symbols, as known from Neolithic cave paintings elsewhere."  Wikipedia

The structures on this site were built about 12,000 years ago (10,000BC) during the last ice age,  and intentionally buried about 8,000 years ago. No one knows who these people were, what the massive buildings were for, or  why they were buried. After 13 years of work only an estimated 5% has been uncovered.  Amazing........pyramids in Bosnia, and stone circles in Turkey, of such great antiquity.***

Turkey is near the area called the Fertile Crescent, until recently regarded as home to the earliest human civilizations of Mesopotamia, the "Cradle of Civilization".  These lands now so disturbed by conflict, revolution, war  and the struggle for  diminishing reserves of oil ,  the source of power for our civilization......are also the homeland of the ancient Great Mother, the lands of Innana, Ishtar, Astarte, Lilith, and the Shekinah, the feminine face of God in Judaism. 

As so often happens, a synchronicity, a thread from the Great Web,was thrown my way when I received an email from a colleague, Israeli artist Dorit Bat Shalom, inviting me to join a group of artists exploring peacemaking in the Mideast on the same page with Susan's link to "Belly Hill".  What came to mind immediately was a conversation Dorit and I had long ago, a conversation that has a resonance for me with this mysterious site. 

We were speaking of  the degradation of the feminine throughout western culture, religion, language.  When even God is gendered male to the exclusion of the other half of the human psyche, and further, defined primarily as a warrior god,  we are split and divided.  Humanity is divided against itself, and the Mother archetype is degraded.   Speaking beyond politics to an ancient wound,  Dorit asked,  

"How can there ever be peace without the Shekinah?  The Shekinah, the Goddess,  has been driven away from the holy lands. We  can not heal without Her."  

The Goddess has many faces - the Trilogy of Maiden, Mother, Crone, the Divine Feminine, the Dark Goddess, and Mother Earth.  Archeologist Marija Gimbutas pointed out the cultural bias of our time when she suggested that so called "fertility fetishes" (read that "paleolithic pornography") such as the famous Venus of Willendorf were not

 just fetishes, but probably represented instead the prime Deity, the "Great Mother".   Here is the immeasurably ancient womb/tomb idea, the original source of burial ritual, as well as death/rebirth ordeals of being buried alive  in shamanic societies.  New life, the primal mystery,  our ancestors observed, comes from women,  thus, life comes from Mother Earth as well, and returns to her womb again for rebirth. The Belly of the Mother.

Once again, one can only ask in awe, why would ancient peoples go to such difficulty to create vast megalithic ceremonial structures, charting and coursing the land with circles, pyramids,  avenues, creating sacred landscapes that were, perhaps, hundreds of years in the making, and thousands of years in use?  Gobekli Tepe, and possibly the pyramid complex being discovered in Bosnia, make Stonehenge, and Avebury, and the strange Callenish stones of the Hebrides.....seem modern.  Still, there seems a continuity.  I speculate that these sacred landscapes  were sited with a knowledge of, and reverence for,  the energies of the earth, the  geo-magnetic and spiritual forces.  They sited them to contain and utilize the "Geomantic Source"  for their spiritual life, which might very well have included the primal mystery or enactment of the   birth-death-rebirth cycle ( a relatively "recent" example of this was the Eleusinian Mysteries which lasted some 2,000 years, and whose origins may go back to Minoan, and even Neolithic times. ****)  The site's Turkish  name,  which means  "Belly Hill" or "Hill With A Navel"  is an interesting coincidence  when one considers this so ancient site in the "cradle of civilization".  "Navel of the World"......certainly, a site with revered circled enclosures,  which could have imitated the circles of planetary, seasonal life, perhaps, the round womb of the earth Mother.   Perhaps, a complex dedicated to the first and most ancient of human rites, coupled with an experiential understanding of the power of earth energies that we need to reclaim.   

"Ancestral Midwives" (2009)

The author of one of the articles about Gobekli Tepe  I read made some (annoying) conjectures about the "Garden of Eden". 

("Do these mysterious stones mark the site of the Garden of Eden?"

By Tom Knox   Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1157784/Do-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html#ixzz1eRkv1W6r)

I wish mythology was a part of all curriculum, because so few people take the time to explore some of the origins of the very mythologies that inform our culture and religions.  But then, people don't like to have their myths disturbed, because, after all, it's quite disturbing.  You just might end up having to change your worldview!

Long before there was a "Garden of Eden, original sin, or snakes that seduced Eve and hence left her responsible for all the miseries of mankind" there was the Great Mother and Her circular rites.  Gimbutas has suggested that before the Goddess was even personified as Hathor, or Isis, or Inanna,  She was the mysterious place and force of birth and death, Mother Earth. 

In Biblical lore, the snake is "Eve-ill".  Sometimes the evil snake is personified as Lilith, the shadow Goddess who is a temptress in the Tree of Life, talking Eve into disobeying God.  When Patrick drove the snakes from Ireland, he drove out the earlier Druidic religion, and their reverence for the magical forces of nature.  But what is the snake in antiquity, why is this symbol so very  ubiquitous, once sacred, then with the advent of Patriarchal religions, profane?  In ancient Egypt we see the snake mounted at the forehead (the third eye or vision center) of all images of gods, goddesses, and royalty.  In fact the most ancient word for "goddess"  in Egypt was the same word as that for cobra. 

The snake (sometimes represented as dragons)  represents the sinuous, serpentine, moving energies of the earth - which move across the land like the passage of the wind, the  passage of water currents, like rivers undulating across a plain.  Since apparently early cultures always identify the Earth with the feminine, with the Great Mother and Her womb/tomb/rebirth cycle - hence the relationship between goddess and snake.  I believe the snake was also identified with geomagnetic phenomena, the leys and  invisible movements or currents of esoteric earth energies.

It may well be that we lost "Eden" not for disobeying  the rather arbitrary rules of a God who often displayed a bad temper, but rather, when human consciousness changed, along with the mythic structures that supported culture.  What might the ancients teach us now, in the 11th Hour of a civilization that is not sustainable, and has lost its primal reverence for the Great Mother, for Gaia? 

*****

"Eleusis" probably derives from a pre-Greek (Cretan)  Goddess of Childbirth, Eileithyia or Ilithyia who was adopted into Greek religion.  "According to some authors her name does not have an Indo-European etymology, which for R. F. Willets strengthens her link with Minoan culture. "The links between Eileithyia, an earlier Minoan goddess, and a still earlier Neolithic prototype are, relatively, firm," Willets wrote. "The explanation is as simple as it is important. The continuity of her cult depends upon the unchanging concept of her function. Eileithyia was the goddess of childbirth; and the divine helper of women in labour has an obvious origin in the human midwife".  Wikipedia

***

I never rains but it pours, and another friend brought to my attention another possibly 12,000 year old monument complex, discovered off the coast of Japan.  What do we really know of  history?