Here we go feeding the fires of Ancient Aliens.
Discovery of what is suspected by one geologist to be a pyramid that predates even the oldest in Egypt by as much as 18,000 years is spurring debate about what primitive cultures were capable of.
From an article in the Sydney Morning Herald
Digging for the truth at controversial megalithic site
Michael Bachelard Indonesia correspondent for Fairfax Media July 27, 2013
Here our prehistoric forebears, moved by the area’s strikingly shaped columns of volcanic rock, built terraces into the mountaintop and arranged and stacked the stones for whatever indiscernible purpose motivated them.
Geologist Danny Hilman thinks there is much more to it under the surface. If he’s right – and Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is enthusiastically encouraging his investigations – then buried beneath the piles of ancient stone is by far the oldest pyramid on the planet.
Hilman says it could predate the next oldest by a dozen millenniums or more, suggesting an advanced ancient civilisation in Java. ”It’s older than 9000 [years] and could be up to 20,000,” Hilman says, as he sits on a fallen column of stone. ”It’s crazy, but it’s data.”
If he is correct the find would rewrite prehistory in the same way as the discovery of a mini-human ”hobbit” on the eastern Indonesian island of Flores rewrote paleoanthropology. The idea is being pushed by Hilman and a former activist turned politician, and member of Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party, Andy Arif.
”The structure of the building is very good, it’s been defined by many lines of the geo-electric surveys, even 3D, even GPR [ground-penetrating radar] … and core samples,” Hilman says. ”We conclude that the archaeological site, the arrangement of these columnar joints, has laminated the entire hill so it’s 100 metres thick. We also think it’s not just one layer of building, but multiple layers.” They may have discovered archaeological human structures or features to a depth of at least 15 metres.
”It’s huge,” Hilman says. ”People think the prehistoric age was primitive, but this monument proves that wrong.”
Vulcanologist Sutikno Bronto, says Gunung Padang is simply the neck of a nearby volcano, not an ancient pyramid.
”Danny Hilman is not a vulcanologist. I am,” he says. As for the carbon-dated cement between the stones, on which Hilman relies for his claims about the age of the site, Sutikno believes it is simply the byproduct of a natural weathering process, ”not man-made”.
Hilman, though, is undeterred. He is certain in his research, though he knows he still has some convincing to do.
”It’s a strong case but not an easy case. We are up against the world’s belief.”
Check out the article for a video report of the site, and here is another video that simply shows the location (feel free to turn down the sound)
In a related story, a Bosnian/American businessman and amateur archeologist claims he has located a similar pyramid in Bosnia.
Unfortunately this one is accompanied by the New Age rhetoric of new forms of energy emanating from mysterious sources deep inside.
From National Geographic
He’s been called a Balkan Indiana Jones. Others label him a dreamer, or worse, a pyramid buff with loony ideas.
Despite his critics (and he has many) Semir “Sam” Osmanagic believes he’s discovered the find of a lifetime—a series of ancient pyramids in the heart of Bosnia.
If the Bosnian-American businessman is correct, the structures would be the first known step pyramids in Europe.
“I am 100 percent sure. There is no other option,” the Houston, Texas-based Osmanagic said.
At the heart of Osmanagic’s belief is Visocica hill, an undeniably pyramid-shaped mound near the town of Visoko, 18 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of Sarajevo (see a Bosnia and Herzegovina map).
In either case, human construction or excavation on the surface seems more likely than pyramids of this size constructed by civilizations that lacked tools, methods and populations to carry off such a project. While tat is still an achievement, and there may even be excavations within, either natural or man made, it will take a lot of evidence to convince anyone of the proposed findings. In the case of Semir Osmanagic, the Bosnian pyramid is being called a fraud, at the very least serious mis-identification.
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