The Pyramid of Gunung Padang

Megalithic site in Indonesia could be the oldest in the world

Gunung Padang is once again making headlines as the first pyramid in Southeast Asia and the oldest megalithic site in the world.

Recent discoveries as deep as 90 feet found the hill-pyramid to contain hidden chambers, shafts and evidence of fragments of columnar basalt, which have been radio carbon-dated to be as far back as 20,000 BC.

Gunung Padang was first described in the Dutch naturalist manual Rapporten van de Oudheidkundige Dienstin (Reports of the Archaelogical Service) as a hill with megalithic structures. Located in Desa Karyamukti in Cianjur, West Java, the remarkable archaeological region is about 130km south of Jakarta and 100km west of Bandung.

But what was initially thought to be a hill is now believed to be a man-made pyramid, thanks to Dr Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, Chief Geologist of the National Team for Gunung Padang Research and Senior Scientist at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.

Check out the rest of this article in Asian Geographic No.115 Issue 6/2015  here or download a digital copy here