Gunung Padang
A hilltop in Java covered in ancient stone terraces was claimed to be a buried pyramid 27,000 years old. Then the paper was retracted.
What was reported
Gunung Padang is a hill in West Java topped with terraces made of thousands of columns of volcanic rock. It is the largest megalithic site in Southeast Asia, and archaeologists have long dated the terraces to roughly 2,000 to 3,000 years ago.
In 2023, a team led by geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja published a paper arguing that the hill hides a man-made pyramid begun 27,000 years ago, far older than any known monument. It made headlines around the world.
Explanations offered
In 2024, the journal retracted the paper, saying the soil samples dated were not shown to be connected to any human-made structure, so the age could not be applied to the site. The authors disagreed. The terraces on top are clearly human-built; whether anything older lies beneath is unproven.
- When
- Megalithic site; disputed age
- Where
- Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia
- Witnesses
- Archaeologists and geologists
- Status
- Claims retracted
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.