So far in this series 'When does a myth become truth' we have seen a lost ancient city under the ocean, another nuked in antiquity, onto amazing ancient engineered stonework from South America, an African tribe with incredible knowledge of the cosmos, and the story of an ancient civilisation that lived in antiquity who claim to have come from another planet and genetically created modern humans, a subject so in depth it came in three parts seen here Part 1, Part 2, and finally Part 3.

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Today we move on to an ancient site in Indonesia that has potentially pushed the timeline of our known history back 26,000 years!

Welcome to Gunung Padang.

Gunung Padang is situated in the West Java province of Indonesia. It is located 885 metres above sea level and the site consists of a series of terraces bordered by stone retaining walls. The site is accessed via an andesite set of 400 steps rising 95 metres.
Now that in itself is pretty impressive however the dating of the site keeps getting pushed further back, it was originally believed to have been completed 2500 years ago then it was pushed back to 5000BC and now recent carbon dating techniques have pushed it back as far as 24,000BC.

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The amazing Graham Hancock has been an avid researcher for many years attempting to piece together the links to an ancient civilisation that spanned the globe in deep antiquity. A civilisation of pyramid builders with advanced technological skills that possibly provided the blueprint for all pyramid builders. His book Fingerprints of the Gods was a fantastic piece of work and was released in 1995, he was slaughtered by mainstream academia and was considered a pariah by many archeologists at the time of its release and in subsequent years however in recent years more and more evidence has started to crop up to back his theory. Gunung Pandang is another piece of evidence.

Many still believe that ancient pyramid structures are found solely in Egypt and South America however that couldn't be further from the truth, they are also found in India, Indonesia, China, Bosnia, Ethiopia and the Canary Islands. And that's not even the full list.

I do intend to do a post about this worldwide phenomenon however this post is about the pyramid structure at Gunang Pudang so I'll stop digressing.
All Images sourced here.

Let's look at the site as it is today as the picture at the top is an artists rendition of what it looked liked originally.

It's easy to look at it from a distance and think that it looks like an conveniently shaped hill however the time that has passed since its construction is immense, we have whole cities with pyramid structures have been swallowed up by the Amazonian jungle so it is no surprise to me to see it looking like a natural albeit strangely geometric shape from a distance. Upon closer inspection though you can see the amount of huge stones that cover the site as if thrown around by an irate giant or destroyed by an ancient cataclysm.

Graham Hancock writes in this article.

The archaeological establishment is scrambling to find some reason to reject and pour scorn on the extraordinary consequences of the excavations now taking place at Gunung Padang in Indonesia.

Since its first exploration by archaeologists in 1914 the site was thought to be a natural hill with 2500 year-old megalithic structures on top of it. But in 2010 geologist Dr Danny Hilman Natawidjaja (who earned his doctorate at Cal Tech) recognized this “hill” as a possible man-made pyramid and began to explore it using ground penetrating radar, seismic tomography, resistivity survey and other remote sensing techniques, as well as some direct excavations and deep core drilling.

The results were immediately intriguing for background click here producing evidence of deeply buried man-made chambers and yielding carbon dates going back as far as 26,000 years. This was the last Ice Age when our ancestors are supposed (according to the orthodox archaeological model) to be have been nothing more than primitive hunter gatherers incapable of large-scale construction and engineering feats. Was it possible that geologist Natawidjaja was unearthing the proof of a lost advanced civilization of prehistoric antiquity? Such ideas are heresy to mainstream archaeologists and sure enough the archaeological establishment in Indonesia banded together against Dr Natawidjaja and his team, lobbied the political authorities, agitated locally and succeeded in slowing down, though not completely stopping, the further exploration of Gunung Padang.

Dr Natawidjaja fought back, doing some high-level lobbying of his own, taking the matter to the President of Indonesia himself. There were further delays to do with elections in Indonesia but just a couple of months ago, in mid-August 2014, the final obstacles were lifted and Dr Natawidjaja and his team moved back onto the Gunung Padang site with full approval to go ahead with their work, including permission to excavate the concealed chambers.

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Archaeologists were furious and immediately began lobbying to get the work stopped – fortunately to no avail as preliminary excavations have produced results that prove beyond doubt that Gunung Padang in indeed a man-made pyramid of great antiquity as Dr Natawidjaja had long ago proposed. Even the relatively young layer so far excavated (the second artificial columnar rock-layer beneath the megalithic site visible on the surface) has yielded dates of 5200 BC (nearly 3000 years older than the orthodox dating for the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt) and there are firm indications from the original remote sensing and core drilling work of much older layers below. In short, it is now evident to all that the site is vastly older than the 2500 years that archaeologists had insisted upon for decades. Even the most hostile amongst them are therefore now reframing their assessment of the site and referring to it as “a gigantic terraced tomb, which was part of the biggest megalithic culture in the archipelago.”

I'll interject at this point to say that the resistance and downright opposition to Dr Natawidjaja's work comes as no surprise to me. So often mainstream academia have this attitude towards evidence gathering that has the potential to rewrite the history books.

Why is that?

How can you call yourself an intellectual in any field of study if you don't have the capacity to accept that your current beliefs may be wrong?

The article concludes.....

For a flavor of the sour grapes the archaeological establishment feel towards Dr Natawidjaja and his team see this recent article from the Jakarta Post here.

I asked Dr Natawidjaja for his response to the Jakarta Post article and he replied as follows:

“The article has got the story all wrong. All excavations were supervised by archeologists from Agency for Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites (BPCB) and University of Indonesia. The excavation sites have also recently been inspected by the Director for Conservation of Archeological Sites (who is the boss of Miss Desril Shanti ), by the head of the BPCB, and by the Minister of Education and Culture himself. Afterward, they gave a press conference confirming that all excavations are good and proper. For information, the head of the National Archeological Center, which is the main office above local Archeological Centers including Bandung Archeological Center, is also a member of the National Team for Gunung Padang. The Jakarta Post article is also wrong about the funding. The Minister of Education and Culture did indeed announce in the press conference that he would allocate about Rp 3 billion for the research but it has not begun to be disbursed yet. So far, I and my team are still working willingly on our own funding with the help of the soldiers (TNI) who have been working alongside us. Of course the TNI have their own funding – but not from that Endowment Fund.”

As to the progress of the work at Gunung Padang, Dr Natawidjaja writes as follows:

“The research progress has been being great. We have excavated three more spots right on top of the megalithic site in the past couple weeks, which give more evidence and details about the buried structures. We have uncovered lots more stone artifacts from the excavations. The existence of the pyramid-like structure beneath the megalithic site is now loud and clear; even for non-specialists, it is not too difficult to understand if they come and see for themselves. We have found some kind of open hall buried by soil 5-7 meters thick; however we have not yet got into the main chamber. We are now drilling to the suspected location of the chamber (based on subsurface geophysic) in the middle of the megalithic site.”

So as is evident from the ongoing excavations the site has revealed much so far that gives reason for the people of Indonesia and indeed the world to insist that the work is allowed to continue without objection. The subject of our distant past can be very contentious especially when religious or academic dogma are thrown into the mix however neither point of view should stop the work that will hopefully one day help to reveal when, why, how and hopefully by whom this site was constructed.

Another further fascinating discovery has been revealed during the excavations which for me is even more of a revelation than the age of the site, a technological discovery that has the potential to rewrite the history books.......

Buried Technology?!

Whilst researching this subject I came across an incredible article at Ancient-Code titled Electrical device found at Gunung Padang which peaked my interest to say the least and puts a whole new perspective on the capabilities of the architects or later occupants of the site.

The article states.....

A famous geologist has hit the headlines with an amazing discovery. We are talking about Dr. Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, a somewhat controversial researcher that is working on the megalithic suite of Gunung Padang in Indonesia. Dr. Danny Hilman is responsible for the archaeological team conducting research on the site and they have recently announced a discovery of a oddly shaped metal device that is presumed to be the worlds oldest electrical device.

According to researchers, this object is made out of gold and copper and seems to resemble a primitive electrical capacitator. According to some researchers, this newly found device seems very similar in structure to the biblical descriptions of the “The Ark of the Covenant “. Carbon dating confirms the device to be 2500 older than The Ark of the Covenant.

Dr. Danny Hilman Natawidjaja also proposed that Gunung Padang region is a perfect match for Plato’s Atlantis.

The discovery of the electrical device at Gunung Padang is getting a lot of attention, even President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia visited the site congratulating the researchers on their discovery and declaring that he has great interest for the results of the research.

According to archaeologists, the subsurface layers at Gunung Padang might be more than 12,000 years old and the news of an electrical device being discovered points towards the possibility that ancient man had already mastered electricity thousands of years ago.

“The findings on the Gunung Padang site will shock the world,” said the president’s special staffer for social aid and natural disasters, Andi Arief.
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I will say that I find this discovery to be an amazing turns of events and look forward with anticipation to seeing the results of more excavation and analysis, although I don't buy into this area being the possible site of Atlantis.

However that isn't really the point.

The point is this site is millennia older than scholars had ever considered whatever the final agreed construction date is and whoever built and occupied it in antiquity were way more advanced than anyone has ever given them credit for.
I'm convinced we will see more evidence appear in the months and years to come that will give us a better understanding of who constructed this site, when , how and why.

Final thoughts.

As with other posts in this series this is in no way the full and complete story of this incredible site as there are many articles out there with interesting hypothesis. It is an introduction to the subject. A post that covered every aspect would be an immense undertaking an I will leave it to you guys to go and do your own research. The ancient world still has many secrets to reveal to us and Gunang Pudang is another compelling piece of evidence for those who hope to rediscover our lost history.

I have heard some disturbing rumours that the Indonesian government are using this site as political football for nefarious ends however I have no opinion in that matter other than to say that I hope the great people of Indonesia have the will to demand that their government allow and support open and honest study to continue. I'm sure one day if that happens the truth regarding this site will be uncovered and a lost chapter of Indonesian and indeed World history will be written.

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