Is Gunung Padang the oldest pyramid in the world or is it just a nationalist myth?

CIANJUR, Indonesia — In a mountainous corner of Indonesia lies a hill, dotted with stone terraces, where people from all over the country come to celebrate Islamic and Hindu rituals.

The partially excavated site, Gunung Padang, is at the center of a heated debate.

Some archaeologists say the hill is a dormant volcano and that pottery objects recovered there suggest humans have been using the site for several hundred years or more.

However, some Indonesians, including an earthquake geologist and a president who left office in 2014, have suggested that the site may have been built much earlier by an ancient civilization that has not yet been discovered.

In 2022, a Netflix documentary series, “Ancient Apocalypse,” drew on the geologist's research for an episode about Gunung Padang. And in October, the geologist published an article in an international scientific journal that has fueled an international controversy.

Archaeologists say that The study's most controversial conclusion—that Gunung Padang could be “the oldest pyramid in the world” because its deepest layer appears to have been “sculpted” by humans up to 27,000 years ago—is problematic. because it is not based on physical evidence. Indonesia had no history of building pyramids, and humans in the Paleolithic era, which ended more than 10,000 years ago, could not have built pyramids, they explain. (The pyramids of Giza in Egypt are about 4,500 years old.)

The study's publisher, based in New Jersey, says it is now conducting internal research, meaning the journal is “examining concerns shared by the archaeological community.”

In response, the study's lead author, seismic geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, says the study has been misinterpreted. Among its supporters is Graham Hancock, the British journalist who starred in the Netflix series and who has argued that archaeologists should be more open to theories that challenge academic orthodoxy.

Gunung Padang is located near the city of Bandung in Java, the most populated island in Indonesia.

Excavations began in the early 1980s, said Lutfi Yondri, an archaeologist with the Bandung provincial government.

Young Indonesians inspired by quixotic efforts to discover lost pyramids in Bosnia later promoted the idea that pointed hills could hide lost pyramids, Lutfi stated. Staff of then President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono organized forums to explore that issue.

Archaeologists resisted from the beginning. However, the Yudhoyono government continued to finance the excavation work and, after visiting it in 2014, said it could be “the largest prehistoric building in the world.”

The pyramid narrative “has a certain nationalist tone,” said Noel Hidalgo Tan, an archaeologist at the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Archeology and Fine Arts in Bangkok. “That is why it is a myth that refuses to die.”

Natawidjaja began investigating the site in 2011. He was studying an active fault and noticed that Gunung Padang's pointed shape made it stand out in a landscape of eroded hillsides.

President Joko Widodo cut funding for the research after coming to power in 2014. Natawidjaja then published his findings in a recent issue of Archaeological Prospection.

Several archaeologists said the main problem with the study is that it dated human presence at Gunung Padang based on soil radiocarbon measurements from drill samples — not artifacts from the site.

In an email, Natawidjaja defended his work and said the journal's research was “a matter of scientific disagreement.” Soil samples were legitimate evidence to assess human involvement in Gunung Padangin part because the earth used by ancient builders was used to clad human-built structures, he added.

On a recent afternoon in Gunung Padang, the site's caretakers said Natawidjaja's research supports what their ancestors have always said: that the site is the work of an ancient civilization.

“We are sure it is man-made, it is not natural,” said Zaenal Arifin, one of the caretakers.

MIKE IVES and RIN HINDRYATI. THE NEW YORK TIMES