Does That Look Like a Pyramid?

Day eighteen, Bosnia. „Does that look like a pyramid to you?“ I ask Nicky.

It sort of does. „The shape is right, anyway,“ she says.

We are standing on the bridge next to the Piramida Sunca hotel in Visoko, thirty-five kilometres northwest of Sarajevo, with a clear view of Visočica, the hill they call the Pyramid of the Sun.

Some people say the Bosnian pyramids are a well-made trick for bringing tourists to a small town. Others swear by the place and are certain it was built, by someone, at some point. The Pyramid of the Sun is 220 metres high and is said to be around thirty thousand years old, which would at least account for the depth of soil and the trees growing out of it.

The man who found them, Dr Semir Osmanagić, sees two more hills nearby as pyramids: the Moon and the Dragon. The northern face of the Sun is said to line up with the pole to within twelve seconds of arc. Volunteers have uncovered blocks on the slopes that look like very old concrete. The authorities take almost no interest.

Real or not, it makes for an afternoon. We walk the excavation sites, take photographs, talk to locals and to tourists. The place draws a particular kind of person: curious, and willing to be wrong.

In a bar we meet some Austrians. „Have you been in the tunnels at Ravne? You have to go.“ We hear that more than once.

Why not. The tunnels are tomorrow.