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Could Gunung Padang Be the World’s Oldest Pyramid?
Some consider it to be the oldest pyramid in human history, while skeptics make compelling arguments about the other historical and geological significance of this location. The story surrounding the sacred site of Gunung Padang in Indonesia has been raging for decades.
Debate continues over which pyramid in the world is the oldest. However, an article in the specialized historical journal Archaeological Prospection claims that such a place could be Gunung Padang in Indonesia.
The media writes that it was the Djoser pyramid in Egypt, built around 2600 BC, that was considered the oldest. However, according to the article, the mentioned object in Indonesia may be at least 9,000 years old, and its individual parts date back 25,000 years.
According to Guinness World Records, the title of world’s oldest pyramid is shared between the Djoser Step Pyramid of Saqqara, Egypt, built in approximately 2630 B.C.
Gunung Padang is an archaeological site located in Karyamukti, West Java, Indonesia. Located at 885 metres (2,904 ft) above sea level, the site covers a hill—an extinct volcano—in a series of five terraces bordered by retaining walls of stone that are accessed by 370 successive andesite steps rising about 95 metres (312 ft).
It is covered with massive hexagonal stone columns of volcanic origin. The Sundanese people consider the site sacred and believe it was the result of King Siliwangi’s attempt to build a palace in one night.
Gunung Padang literally means “mountain of enlightenment” and has been visited by people for hundreds of years. Pottery fragments dating back to 45 BC have been found on scattered terraces and pillar-like rocks.
A group of researchers from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, led by geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, believes that Gunung Padang was built by a “highly advanced civilization” and that this object “may be older than the Egyptian pyramids.”
Gunung Padang or mount Padang is a giant pyramidal megalithic site lies on a hilltop. The site consists of 5 terraces that form a pyramid with an elevation of 885 meters above sea level on its base.
The study reads: “This finding challenges the conventional belief that human civilization and the development of advanced construction techniques emerged only during the warm period of the early Holocene or the beginning of the Neolithic, with the advent of agriculture approximately 11,000 years ago.
“However, evidence from Gunung Padang and other sites, such as Gobekli Tepe, suggests that advanced construction practices were already present when agriculture had, perhaps, not yet been invented.”
The researchers say evidence from Gunung Padang and other sites suggests that advanced building techniques were already in place “before agriculture had possibly been invented.”
However, not everyone shares the researchers’ opinions. Back in 2013, The Guardian reported that a group of 34 Indonesian scientists had signed a petition questioning the motives and methods of Danny Hilman Natawidjaja’s team. They said the research was carried out without “adherence to scientific research standards.”
Critics say the excavations threaten the preservation of the existing site, and suggest that archaeologists, not geologists, should be brought in. One, volcanologist Sutikno Bronto, says Gunung Padang is simply “the crater of a nearby volcano, not an ancient pyramid.”
Other skeptics are even more outspoken. One unnamed archaeologist says that local politicians have been involved in popularizing this view, benefiting from such speculation in order to gain political approval ratings.
Researchers suggest Indonesia’s Gunung Padang pyramid could be 25000 years old.
“In the Pawon Cave in Padalaranga [about 45 km from Gunung Padang], my colleagues and I found human bones and tools made from bones. They are about 9.5 thousand years old, that is, they were created around 7 thousand years BC. So, if in the 7th millennium BC people could only make tools from bones, then how could they have obtained the technology to build a pyramid 20 thousand years ago?” the expert asks.
Since the 1980s, a number of in-depth surveys have been conducted at Gunung Padang, but researchers continue to disagree about its age. In 1982, B.M. Kim dated the site to 300 to 2000 B.C.E.
But even these estimates are mild compared to the most shocking evaluation of them all — that the deepest layers of Gunung Padang are 16,000 years to 27,000 years old. That would make Gunung Padang the oldest pyramid in the world.
Natawidjaja stressed that his team’s research and surveys were multidisciplinary (not simply volcanological), and while volcanic intrusion was indeed present, there’s more to the story.
“Our comprehensive study, which includes geological, archaeological, and geophysical surveys, indeed confirmed the existence of the underground ‘volcanic intrusion’ […] aligning with Sutikno’s observations,” Natawidjaja says. “However, our findings also present compelling evidence that challenges the perception of Gunung Padang as simply the neck of a nearby volcano.”
“Our research conclusively demonstrates that it is indeed a mortar, not a byproduct of natural weathering. Our team of experienced geologists has meticulously examined and analyzed the samples, leaving no room for doubt regarding their origin,” says Natawidjaja.
The post Could Gunung Padang Be the World’s Oldest Pyramid? appeared first on Anomalien.com.
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