Archaeologists have discovered that Indonesia’s pyramid, a 30-meter-deep “megalith” sunk into a mound of lava rock, is believed to be the oldest pyramid in the world.
Gunung Padang, first rediscovered by Dutch explorers in 1890, may actually also be the oldest known man-made structure of its size, at least according to the ancient site’s latest radiocarbon dating.
The tests place the early construction of the pyramid, with its hundreds of steps carved from andesite lava, at more than 16,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age.
This means that Gunung Padang is likely over 10,000 years older than not only all of the great monuments and pyramids of Giza in Egypt, but also England’s legendary Stonehenge.
As with recent evidence that the Egyptian Sphynx was built by cleverly exploiting wind erosion, the hunter-gatherers who built Gunung Padang made it an architectural virtue by working with the local conditions rather than against them.
Researchers found that the first and deepest layer of the Indonesian pyramid was carved from the site’s natural wealth of cooled lava flows.
Archaeologists have discovered that Indonesia’s Gunung Padang Pyramid, a 30-meter-deep “megalith” carved into a natural lava mound, is now considered the oldest pyramid in the world – over 10,000 years older than all of Giza’s major monuments and pyramids Egypt
The tests place the early construction of the pyramid, with its hundreds of steps carved from andesite lava, at more than 16,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age
QUICK QUIZ: Can you name the country with the oldest pyramids?
A: Egypt
B: Mexico
C: Sudan
D: Peru
**Scroll to the bottom of this article for the correct answer**
Gunung Padang may even turn out to be thousands of years older than the “megalith” Göbekli Tepe discovered in Turkey, the last frontrunner in the “world’s oldest” category.
Scientists said the structure promises to upend conventional wisdom about how “primitive” hunter-gatherer societies actually were – and reveal the true “technical capabilities of ancient civilizations.”
Scientists have spent over a century debating whether the underground structure called Gunung Padang (which means “Mountain of Enlightenment” in the local language) is actually a man-made pyramid and not just a natural geological formation .
But between 2011 and 2015, geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja of Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency led a team of archaeologists, geophysicists and geologists to literally get to the bottom of this ancient mystery.
Using ground-penetrating radar to capture subsurface images, core drilling and trenching techniques, Natawidjaja and his fellow researchers were able to penetrate to the very first layers of Gunung Padang, which spanned nine floors (98 feet or 30 meters). beneath its surface.
“This study strongly suggests that Gunung Padang is not a natural hill,” the archaeologists wrote last month in the journal Archaeological Prospection after years of analyzing data from previous trips, “but rather a pyramid-like structure. “
At the pyramid’s core, the team found “carefully shaped” and “massive” lava stone structures made of andesite: a fine-grained type of igneous rock.
This innermost chamber, called Unit 4, “probably originated as a natural lava mound,” they wrote, “before it was formed and then architecturally encased during the last ice age,” some 16,000 to 27,000 years ago.
Scientists have debated for over a century whether Gunung Padang is actually a man-made pyramid and not just a natural geological formation. But after analyzing years of field data, scientists have literally gotten to the bottom of this ancient mystery, nine stories underground
Using ground-penetrating radar to capture subsurface images, core drilling and trenching techniques, Natawidjaja and his fellow researchers were able to penetrate to the very first layers of Gunung Padang, which lay over 98 feet, or 30 meters, below the surface
READ MORE: Scientists discover a hidden 30-foot-long corridor in the Great Pyramid of Giza
Scientists discovered the corridor using a technique called cosmic ray muon radiography, developed by experts at Nagoya University, Japan. The researchers then retrieved images of the secret passage by passing a 6mm-thick endoscopic camera through a tiny gap in the pyramid’s stones.
Scientists describe the last approximately 11,500 years of human existence (and counting) as an “interglacial period” between ice ages known as the Holocene.
The radiocarbon dating technique that Natawidjaja and his group use to determine the age of Block 4 relies on a common radioactive isotope of carbon atoms found throughout the world to measure the age of ancient, preserved “carbon-based” life.
Because of the radioactive decay rate of this isotope, carbon-14, scientists can accurately determine the age of dead organic material as early as 60,000 years ago.
To ensure their radiocarbon dating was accurate, Natawidjaja’s team took pains to select the correct organic soil samples from their cores and trench walls, samples that were not contaminated by fresh roots of modern vegetation.
Researchers now believe that Gunung Padang was built in “complex and sophisticated phases” over thousands of years.
After Block 4 during the Ice Age, Gunung Padang was “abandoned by the first builders for thousands of years,” according to the team’s new study.
Around 7900–6100 BC The next phase, Block 3, appears to have been “deliberately buried with significant amounts of earth” in the 4th century BC.
The next layer of stone columns, steps and terraces, Unit 1, was created between 6000 and 5500 BC. BC, while a final layer, Unit 1, is younger than some Egyptian pyramids and dates to between 2000 and 1100 BC. was completed.
Many more millennia later, the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture recognized all this ancient hard work and declared Gunung Padang a Cultural Heritage Site of Local Interest in 1998.
“The builders of Block 3 and Block 2 in Gunung Padang must have had remarkable masonry skills that are inconsistent with traditional hunter-gatherer cultures,” said Natawidjaja and his colleagues.
“Given the long and continuous occupation of Gunung Padang, one can reasonably speculate that this site was of significant importance and attracted ancient people to repeatedly occupy and modify it.”
Quiz answer | D: Peru, where the city of Lima alone has over 400 ancient pyramids. (Sudan has about 255 pyramids. Egypt has about 118. And Mexico has about 300 known ancient pyramids, including the largest in the world, the Great Pyramid of Cholula, which is hidden in a mountain.) Sources: National Geographic; NPR.
of Mexico
which is actually hidden in a mountain.