Free Republic

A sensational science story which gripped the world last year claimed that the Gunung Padang site in West Java, Indonesia is the world’s oldest pyramid and could be more than 25,000 years old, but is there any truth in the claim? Stonehenge and the oldest major pyramids are just a few thousand years old, while the previous record holder, Turkey’s Gobekli Tepe stone monuments, are believed to be around 11,000 years old. However, researchers in a paper published in Archaeological Prospection late last year claim that the Gunung Padang pyramid could be more than twice the age of these ancient...

A team of archaeologists, geophysicists, geologists, and paleontologists affiliated with multiple institutions in Indonesia has found evidence showing that Gunung Padang is the oldest known pyramid in the world. In their paper published in the journal Archaeological Prospection, the group describes their multi-year study of the cultural heritage site. Gunung Padang has for many years been considered a megalithic structure—it sits on top of an extinct volcano in West Java, Indonesia, and is considered by locals to be a sacred site. In 1998, it was declared to be a cultural heritage site. For many years there has been disagreement regarding...