Have you ever heard of a pseudo-archaeologist? Well that’s just what Bosnian archaeologist Semir Osmanagic is, and he always has a lofty claim to make.

His latest involves a spherical rock discovered in a forest near the Bosnian town of Zavidovici, which he claims could be the oldest creation from stone carved by human hands.

While some support and others rubbish his claims, the rock itself is turning into a puzzle as it contains extremely high iron content and has a radius of between four and five feet.

Well into the 20th century, he claims, these spheres existed in the region. Rumours of hidden gold within these spheres led to their destruction in the 1970s, according to him.

Giving prominence to this discovery, Dr Osmanagic has his reasons to believe that this stone sphere dates back to more than 1 500 years ago, and points to the existence of an advanced civilisation which got lost.

Known as “the Bosnian Indiana Jones”, Dr Osmanagic made headlines back in 2005 when he allegedly claimed that Bosnia’s Visoko Valley has a cluster of hills that were the site of ancient pyramids, linked through a network of underground tunnels.

Obviously, there are those who strongly disagree with the Visoko Valley claims, such as the president of the European Association of Archaeologists, Anthony Harding. He has called the excavation “total absurdity”:

There is some genuine archaeology on the hill and I’m told it’s medieval, possibly Bronze Age or Roman. But the speculation that there could be a 12 000-year-old structure beneath is a complete fantasy and anyone with basic knowledge of archaeology or history should recognise that.

Dr Osmanagic’s latest discovery has once again lined up a barrage of critics: Mandy Edwards from the University of Manchester’s School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences claimed that the sphere in fact, may not be man-made at all.

Describing the process of ‘concretion’, he says that the sphere could have been formed due to precipitation of natural mineral cement within the spaces between sediment grains.

However, the origin of the spherical rock is still under doubt.

[source: dnaindia]