Arie Basuki / Wikimedia Commons
The Gunung Padang archaeological site was described in 1896 as an ancient cemeteryArie Basuki / Wikimedia CommonsThe world’s oldest pyramid may not be in North Africa or the Americas, but in Indonesia. Gunung Padang, a 200-meter (m) tall structure on the island of Java, situated between the Indian and Pacific Oceans at almost 900 m above sea level, is more than just a natural hill. Work on the pyramid-shaped monument, which has staircases and retaining walls, began at least 27,000 years ago, making it older than the Egyptian pyramids. This is the theory proposed by Danny Natawidjaja, a geologist from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) in Indonesia, whose team used radar and tomography to map its surface and internal structure between 2011 and 2014. Excavations and drilling suggest that the monument was built in four phases: in the oldest, between 27,000 and 16,000 years ago, a mass of volcanic rock was carved into a trapezoid shape, and in the most recent, between 4,000 and 3,100 years ago, large stone blocks were put into place. The conclusions have proven highly controversial. Archaeologist William Farley of Southern Connecticut State University, USA, told the journal Nature that despite being accurately dated, the soil samples from Gunung Padang do not show any signs of human activity, such as charcoal or bone fragments (Archaeological Prospection, October 20; Atlas Obscura, November 8; Nature, November 28).
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