Can Gunung Padang be the oldest pyramid in the world?

Some believe that this is the oldest pyramid in human history, while skeptics give convincing arguments about other historical and geological meaning of this place. The story surrounding the holy place of Gunung Padang in Indonesia has been crazy for decades.

The debate is underway, over which the pyramid in the world is the oldest. However, an article in a specialized historical Journal archaeological prospection He claims that Gunung Padang in Indonesia may be such a place.

The media write that it is a Djoser pyramid in Egypt built around 2600 RPne, considered the oldest. However, according to the article, the said object in Indonesia may be at least 9,000 years aged, and its individual parts reach 25,000 years.

Gunung Padang is an archaeological place located in Karyamukti in Western Java in Indonesia. The place is located at the level of 885 meters (2904 feet) above sea level, includes a hill – an extinct volcano – in a series of five terraces of borders from stone walls, to which you can get 370 subsequent Steps of Andedesite, which grow about 95 meters (312 feet).

It is covered with massive hexagonal stone columns of volcanic origin. The Sunday people consider this a holiday and think that it was the result of an 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. Fragments of ceramics from 45 BC were found on dispersed terraces and pillar -like rocks.

A group of researchers from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, led by geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaj, believes that Gunung Padang was built by “highly advanced civilization” and that this object “can be” older than the Egyptian pyramids. “

The study reads: “This discovery questions the conventional belief that human civilization and the development of advanced construction techniques appeared only in the toasty period of early Holocene or at the beginning of the neolithic, with the arrival of agriculture about 11,000 years ago.

“However, evidence from Gunung Padang and other places, such as Tepe, suggest that advanced construction practices have already been present when agriculture has not yet been invented.”

Scientists say that evidence from Gunung Padang and other places suggest that advanced construction techniques were already on site “before the invention of agriculture.”

However, not everyone divides the opinions of scientists. In 2013, Guardian announced that a group of 34 Indonesian scientists signed a petition questioning the motives and methods of the team of Danny Hilman Natawidjaj. They said that the research was carried out without “observing the standards of scientific research”.

Critics claim that excavations threaten the behavior of the existing place and suggest that archaeologists, not geologists, should be brought. One, volcanologist Sutikno Bronto, says that Gunung Padang is simply a “crater of a nearby volcano, not an ancient pyramid.”

Other skeptics are even more sincere. One of the unnamed archaeologists says that local politicians were involved in the popularization of this view, using such speculation to obtain political assessments.

“In the Pawaw cave, which is to be created [about 45 km from Gunung Padang]My colleagues and I found human bones and tools made of bones. They are about 9.5 thousand years old, i.e. about 7,000 BC were created. So, if in the 7th millennium BC could only make bone tools, how could they get a pyramid construction technology 20,000 years ago? “The expert asks.

Since the 1980s, a number of deepened surveys have been carried out in Gunung Padang, but scientists still disagree about their age. In 1982

But even these estimates are bland compared to the most shocking assessment of everyone – that the deepest layers of Gunung Padang are 16,000 to 27,000 years aged. This will make Gunung Padang the oldest pyramid in the world.

Natawidjaja emphasized that the research and surveys of his team were multidisciplinary (not only volcanological) and although volcanic interference was actually present, more.

“Our comprehensive study, which includes geological, archaeological and geophysical research, has actually confirmed the existence of an underground” volcanic invasion ” […] According to Sutikno observations, “says Natawidjaja.” However, our discoveries also present convincing evidence that question the perception of Gunung Padang as simply the neck of a nearby volcano. “

“Our research clearly shows that it is indeed a mortar, not a by -product of natural ventilation. Our team of experienced geologists meticulously examined and analyzed the samples, leaving no room for doubt about their origin,” says Natawidjaja.