In the Cianjur District of the West Java Province in Indonesia, there stands an oddly-shaped mountain with a megalithic stone complex called Gunung Padang on top that has captured the imagination of archaeologists. But now it appears that the entire mountain may actually be manmade! The fact that the mountain's surface was preserved better than the other eroded mountains in the area caused earthquake geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja to take a closer look, starting in 2011.
Natawidjaja and his team studied the mountain for years, and have announced that it is a pyramid, constructed over an old lava volcano that was sculpted into shape, then covered with sand, rocks, and megalithic stones (like those pictured above) all placed by hand. The team estimates that the construction began about 25,000 years ago, long before any other manmade pyramid, although the date is somewhat controversial. Read about this discovery at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Tiket2 via Flickr)
Comments (1)