The Gunung Padang Pyramid Site In Indonesia

CIANJUR, INDONESIA - MAY 12: The Gunung Padang pyramid site in Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia, on May 12, 2024. Gunung Padang, also known as “mountain of enlightenment”, sits at the top of an extinct volcano and is considered a sacred site by locals. In 1998, Gunung Padang was declared a national cultural heritage site. The site dates to at least 5,000 - 6,000 years BC and is believed to have been built for worship or astronomy.

In 2022, a Netflix documentary series, Ancient Apocalypse , was based on the geologist's research for an episode about Gunung Padang. And in October, the geologist published an article in an international scientific journal that has fueled an international dispute over questions of science, ethics and ancient history.

Archaeologists say the study's most controversial conclusion, that Gunung Padang could be “the world's oldest pyramid” because its deepest layer appears to have been “sculpted” by humans up to 27,000 years ago , is problematic because it is not based on evidence. physical . They claim that Indonesia has no history of building pyramids and that humans in the Paleolithic era, which ended more than 10,000 years ago, could not have built pyramids. The pyramids of Giza in Egypt are only about 4,500 years old.