Gunung Padang – the oldest pyramids on the Earth?
The nation of Indonesia is situated in Oceania and spans approximately 6,000 kilometers from west to east. It is also split between the northern and southern hemispheres. The common person knows very little about this nation, other than the fact that it has strange plants and animals. No, of course not; everyone is familiar with the names of the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java; nevertheless, very few people have given any attention to the question of what these islands are or where they are situated.
For a significant amount of time, the geographical isolation of the nation from the rest of the “civilized” world made it difficult for practically all of the scientists to go there. Even the two World Wars, which swept through this area, did nothing to aid in the research and complete study of the region’s culture and history… What can I say about the fact that the first institution of higher education in Indonesia didn’t open its doors until after sixty years?
And despite this, naturalists still sometimes ventured into the depths of the tropical Amazon, and when they did, they discovered a great deal of fascinating things there. A local planter on the island of Java in 1914 made the decision to search the surrounding jungle in an effort to locate the palace of King Silawang, who it was said had the ability to transform into a tiger and who was said to have resided in the area approximately one and a half thousand years prior. It should be brought to everyone’s attention that the search was swiftly fruitful: on top of one of the hills in the area, a fortunate farmer discovered the ruins of a magnificent edifice that had been overgrown with beautiful flora.
After he finished his mission, he wrote a letter to the government of Holland, whose colony at the time was the island of Java. In the letter, he provided specific information about the discovery of the remains of the palace of an unidentified ruler and offered to send a real expedition there for research, as opposed to an amateur expedition. This offer was made after he returned from his mission.
However, for a variety of different reasons, the trip was continually pushed out to a later date. In summary, it took archaeologists armed with specialized equipment more than sixty years to climb to the peak of Gunung Padang. 1979 was the year when it occurred.
However, even the expedition that was conducted back then reportedly did not uncover anything significant. All that was discovered were the remnants of some edifice that consisted of a large number of stone bricks that were cut into elongated shapes. The unfortunate archaeologists assessed the age of the discovery to be 1,500 years by measuring the chips on the stones. They arrived at the conclusion that the indigenous people of Australia began using tools of this kind at the beginning of the 5th century. It seems that is all there is.
However, the findings of the study conducted during the voyage did not please many of the fans. Michael Becklard, an archaeologist from Australia, was one of those individuals. The fact that the expedition paid more attention to the bricks than to the edifice as a whole instantly disturbed him, and he took urgent action to address his concern. In addition, nobody even tried to carry out a radiocarbon study; instead, they were pleased with only doing a visual assessment of the evidence of stone processing.
After making a trip to Java and collecting a number of samples, he then carried out an investigation at the Indonesian University, which one might argue was “on the spot.” The findings of this analysis shocked the local “bohemia” from the Faculty of History; it turned out that the age of the stones from which the palace of the mythical Silavange was built is 1500, which is more than 4500 thousand years, and that in terms of their status they can be even more important than the pyramids of Ancient Egypt because they appeared several centuries earlier.
Archaeologists all around the globe reacted with something very near to horror when they learned about new digs that had been carried out so early in the 21st century. When the archaeologists first started clearing the foliage off the peak of Padang, they uncovered a massive platform that was more than 20 hectares in size and included the ruins of a number of different types of structures.
What came next was an even more fascinating turn of events. Analysis using ultrasonic waves revealed the presence of something else underneath these structures: At a depth of around 10–15 meters, a total of five enormous subterranean rooms with unmistakable signs of artificial construction were found.
Archaeologists were able to recover a significant number of relics once the rainforest had been cleared. These artifacts included everything from jewelry and tools to household goods and weaponry. A great number of scientists could only shrug their shoulders and say that they had not yet come across anything like it. The theory that the inhabitants lived in the Stone Age was instantly disproved by the findings of the excavations, which uncovered several artefacts made of gold and bronze that dated back to the 26th and 28th centuries BC. In point of fact, for the first time since ancient Egypt, researchers have been confronted with the discovery of a new undiscovered civilisation, the existence of which humanity has forgotten…
In addition to this, it was discovered that the enormous edifice has the appearance of a number of terraces created in an architectural style that is very similar to the type that was utilized in the construction of the fabled Machu Picchu. Even odd was the fact that, in comparison to the artifacts discovered at Gunung Padang, Machu Picchu is essentially a “new construction” due to the fact that it is just approximately 600 years old.
Stones made of granite that were discovered by archaeologists measured more than 30 cubic meters and weighed between 60 and 90 tons each. Unsolved is the question of how ancient architects managed to raise such constructions to a height of approximately 900 meters.
But that was not the end of it. Zoya Waldenberg, one of the researchers, brought to everyone’s notice an unusual fact: the majority of the megaliths were situated on the eastern portion of the peak, and some of them drove down the hill and could be seen on the east side of Gunung Padang.
On the western slopes, however, different sets of megaliths were discovered, and there was simply nowhere to remove them from. While Waldenberg was constructing a model of the mountain in an effort to answer this mystery, he made a discovery that no one had ever made before: the fact that the mountain itself was nothing more than a huge pyramid!
On our planet, representatives of no more than two or three civilisations were able to construct artificial buildings of this magnitude, and even then, the task was accomplished by simply employing an enormous number of employees. This was the case with the early Chinese kingdoms, which were responsible for the construction of enormous burial mounds. It’s also possible that representatives of the Mississippian culture in North America were responsible for the construction of their enormous structures, which took the form of enormous earthen pyramids.
In both instances, however, it came down to the construction of a crude berm made of man-made hills without giving them any kind of shape, and even more so, the construction of stone buildings on top of those hills. And once again, the very same thing, that the Chinese and the Indians poured their mounds far later than the architects of Gunung Padang did.
Who were these people who were so far ahead of their time, particularly considering that they lived on an island that was considered to be “isolated”? There is a wide range of opinions on this topic, and there is no clear solution to the issue. This is perfectly understandable, given that history as a scientific discipline has only been around for a relatively short period of time in this region, and every year, new facts are unearthed that can serve as the basis for some of the strangest hypotheses…
Some of them believe that the people who currently live in modern states that are located somewhat north of Indonesia (ranging from Thailand to China) are the descendants of unknown people who once lived in the Indonesian Archipelago several thousand years ago and migrated to the north as a result of natural disasters. Since the high level of volcanic activity in this region, this point of view is allowed to remain because this area is one of the most precarious on the whole globe.
In fact, southeast Asia was devoid of any civilizations before 3000 BC. These regions were uninhabited at the time. Other than those belonging to the Hindu religion which came from cultured peoples, there was literally no one there. And the earliest “glimpses of civilisation” didn’t begin to emerge in modern-day Burma, Laos, Thailand, or China until a little bit later than this time period.
What brand-new secrets are waiting to be uncovered by scientists in the rainforests of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo? What opportunities lie ahead for those interested in the history of this area’s past? It is not out of the question that future research will shed light on the existence of strong ties of kinship between the indigenous peoples of southern Asia and the indigenous peoples of both Americas. Or, is it possible that the pyramids of Gunung Padang will turn out to be the key that unlocks the mystery of the relationship between Ancient Egypt and the civilizations of the Americas? Due to the fact that the study has just recently started, anything might happen.
