For thousands of years, the pyramid has been hidden at the peak of Mount Padang in West Java (Indonesia).
On December 12, an Indonesian team of scientists and geologists announced their finding of a pyramidal structure hidden beneath the ground near the top of Mount Padang in West Java, as part of the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU, after its acronym in English).
The edifice is built beneath an archaeological site discovered at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and it houses rows of ancient stone pillars. “What was once regarded as a built-up surface now penetrates deeper and is a gigantic structure,” said geologist Andang Bachtiar, who handled soil drilling and research for the project.
Using a range of techniques, including soil penetration radar studies, X-ray tomography, 2D and 3D imaging, drilling, and excavations, the researchers progressively uncovered many strata of a structure that spans approximately 15 meters (150,000 square meters). It was constructed over millennia, with layers reflecting different epochs.
In the upper section, basalt rock pillars frame tiered terraces, with different arrangements of rock columns “making walls, roads, and voids.” This stratum, according to the researchers, dates back 3,000-3,500 years.
There is a second layer of identical rock columns below the surface, at a depth of around 3 meters, that are between 7,500 and 8,300 years old. According to the study, a third layer that stretches 15 meters below the surface is more than 9,000 years old and could be up to 28,000 years old.
If these findings are correct, it will be the earliest pyramidal construction ever discovered. Several underground chambers were discovered throughout the investigation.
Although the buried construction appears to be a pyramid, it differs from those created by the Maya, according to Danny Hilman Natawidjaja, project leader and chief scientist at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, in an interview with Live Science.
While most Mayan pyramids are symmetrical, this one is extended, with what looks to be a semicircle in the front. “It’s a one-of-a-kind temple,” Natawidjaja added.
“Today, the exposed position at the top of the structure is still used as a sacred place for prayer and meditation by the local community, and this could be how it was used thousands of years ago,” he concluded. What are your thoughts about it? Please leave a remark below.
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