Hidden Chambers at 12,000 year old megalithic site of Padang

reply to post by Kantzveldt


The guy that wrote Eden of the East may be onto something. I'll post a youtube video of what Indonesia looked like 20,000 years ago before the melting of the ice from the ice age. Sea levels where way lower, and essentially the indonesia of today was a subcontinent from vietnam, cambodia, etc.. I've always said that before the ice age and during there existed an advanced civilization on this planet and some catastrophe happened which increased the flooding and caused massive extinction of the megafauna.

reply to post by lonegurkha



Yes i can see the similarities in construction material there, perhaps older in origin than at present considered, though it remains to be seen what of the above surface stones at Gunung Padang relate to the earliest stages of construction.


reply to post by reject



Yes Toba is near Sumatra in Indonesia, there was the large catastrophe there around 70,000 years ago, so perhaps it is not a factor during this subsequent period.


In terms of general context for a culture creating monumental sacred sites in that region 11,000 years ago, there really isn't any, at present the people there would be considered small in number hunter gatherer groups incapable of such.

The Neolithic advances are thought to have steadily diffused into S E Asia from the core Neolithic region of Anatolia, over thousands of years, but this site and dating raises the possibility of parallel developments.


reply to post by pavil



A shared cultural premise between Java and Anatolia 11,000 years ago would have to be alien...at least to each other.

reply to post by Kantzveldt


Just a thought here. I wonder if this civilization was the ancestors of the people who settled Australlia? They say that Australlia was settled about 50000 years ago by the ancestors of the aborigines. Hmmmmm I wonder.

reply to post by Kantzveldt


I too am beginning to think that there were parallel developments of civilizations at that time. Indonasian area and the anatolia area. I believe though that there was very little initial trade between the two if at all until much later.

It just seems to me that the anatolian culture was too different to be a direct relative of the indonasian ones.

It's a very interesting find, and I don't doubt that the islands of Indonesia and neighboring countries were home to some of the earlier modern human societies, humans have been there for there than a milliorn years.
But I don't think any grand civilizations will be found, and the coastal migrations to north and south america had already been under way for more than 5000 years by the time Sundaland was submerged.

I am suspicious of the dating, in southeast Asia you only see terracing that extensive for wet rice cultivation, which didn't come to Indonesia till it was brought by aboriginal taiwanese ,who migrated there around 2000 years ago.
The melanesian people who were driven east by the asians only practiced very rudimentary slash and burn agriculture and would not have been able to support any sizable population concentrations.
and the original negrito populations were even more primative in thier agriculture.
In an environment as vigorous and dynamic as the Indonesian rainforest you wouldn't expect something so old to be just laying on the surface without being disturbed by the environment.
I worked on a trail crew when I was younger and some of the rock work we did 30 years ago has been disrupted by tree roots and overgrown by brush. Look at mayan sites that are only several hundred years old and they are engulfed by the forest.

My feeling is that the site is fairly recent, as indicated by the terraces.

Originally posted by BASSPLYR
reply to post by Kantzveldt

 

I too am beginning to think that there were parallel developments of civilizations at that time. Indonasian area and the anatolia area. I believe though that there was very little initial trade between the two if at all until much later.

It just seems to me that the anatolian culture was too different to be a direct relative of the indonasian ones.

I agree with you the early people of sundaland had no connection with the anatolians.


And sundaland was NOT the prototype for the Atlantis tale, it took hundreds of years for the Sunday shelf to he inundated.

reply to post by punkinworks10



You make good points, it remains to be seen what dates to when, the oldest stage i think you'd be maybe just looking at the creation of the flat upper terraces and possible underground chambers and passageways, with perhaps the steps and sighting menhir...all of which would be surprising for the period.


reply to post by BASSPLYR




An interesting comparison might be between the layout of this site and Caral in Peru, an area most likely to have been settled from the sea, the basic architectural features of steps and raised plateaus as well as the early linear arrangement.

The site is awe inspiring seeing all the pillars sprawled all around the mountain/pyramid.

Kantzveldt, All the links you have provided is from a Blog. Are there any Archaeological papers published in journals or are these peer reviewed? Can you provide some links to any such documents?

Originally posted by rickymouse
These structures may not all be exactly like the Egyption pyramids that are newer pyramids. These pyramids are everywhere, the ground piercing technology that is in space found many possible locations, even buried in Saudia Arabia and Africa. The discovery of these things is going to hurt the tourism where the present pyramids are, the leaders of these countries are going to fight recognition of other pyramids tooth and nail. A little bribe money and archeological funding goes a long way in covering things up. A few antiquities just disappear to wind up in someones hands as a reward. Nobody will miss something buried in paperwork in the storerooms of a museum.

Zahi Hawass is always the first to publicly discredit any new pyramids, especially if they are older than his.

He can be very cutthroat when people start playing in his sandbox.

reply to post by coredrill



Not yet, they've about done surveying and core sampling at the end of August, all their updates they seem to have given to Viva News outlet in Indonesia, so hopefully there will be some forthcoming papers on findings thus far, which might attract some Western interest.

They'll probably be looking to excavate the cavities they've detected if funding and permission are obtained.


There is this preliminary presentation from around February;









and the drilling.

reply to post by AGWskeptic


He's out of the official picture now, its not his 'sandbox' anymore

reply to post by punkinworks10


The site may be very old but the terraces are probably fairly new

reply to post by Hanslune


Aspects of the site may be that old but those stairs are most certainly not 10000 years old
In all honesty I detect a little al little nationalistic revionism in the original article.

Wow, I really am beginning to find more and more, as well as older and older civilizations that I have never known about. It is really amazing. The only thing that really bothers me, is how long it takes and how hesitant people can be when it comes to investigating and excavating these sites. Such as that chamber they believe they may have found with metallic deposits at this site. Or the supposed underground chamber at the great sphinx. I am quite positive that with 3d imaging sonar, seismic type equipment (I am not sure what it is actually called), they could at least generate a decent idea of the actually space without even opening the chamber in a fairly short amount of time.

Kantzveldt, the fact that the Integrated team didn't publish their findings in a journal and in the very 1st moment get publicity in some TV channel leads one to wonder that is this proper archaeology or what?

They seek publicity.
They don't seek peer review.

Let the subject be reviewed by other archaeologists and even excavated on field by others to confirm the integrated team's findings./ then we should believe. not just some silly tv channel show.

Originally posted by coredrill
Kantzveldt, the fact that the Integrated team didn't publish their findings in a journal and in the very 1st moment get publicity in some TV channel leads one to wonder that is this proper archaeology or what?

They seek publicity.
They don't seek peer review.

Let the subject be reviewed by other archaeologists and even excavated on field by others to confirm the integrated team's findings./ then we should believe. not just some silly tv channel show.

Yes its not always a bad sign when they do that but its rarely a good sign either.

Originally posted by Hanslune
reply to post by AGWskeptic

 

He's out of the official picture now, its not his 'sandbox' anymore

I thought his mandatory retirement was put on hold due to the revolution.

He sure seemed in charge then.

For all his faults he did a great job protecting the antiquities.

Originally posted by AGWskeptic

Originally posted by Hanslune
reply to post by AGWskeptic

 

He's out of the official picture now, its not his 'sandbox' anymore

I thought his mandatory retirement was put on hold due to the revolution.

He sure seemed in charge then.

For all his faults he did a great job protecting the antiquities.

He was certainly colourful and he wouldn't suffer fools. He's still out and I think the new director is a guy named Ibrahim Mohammed but don't quote me on that.....not sure what he is doing now, his website isn't being updated.

He would certainly not be a friend of MB

reply to post by Hanslune


This is an interesting article. It's not current but shows how they were planning to handle his forced retirement.

www.drhawass.com...

I have to wonder if the only thing that changed was a job title.

Kind of like Putin, whether he's prez or prime, he's the shotcaller.

But, he was a buddy of Hosni's, that might not sit well these days.

Either way, if someone has a question about a new pyramid, Zahi will be happy to give his opinion, and he's likely to be asked.

reply to post by coredrill




There hasn't been much archaelogy done yet, the geologists have been doing the surveying and scanning, any excavation will be based on their results. I can't see the point in criticizing them as they seem in some cases to be doing this in their own time and expense and making available resources and expertise toward an understanding of the background of this site.


If they put together an excavation project i'd expect it to fulfill proper criteria and methodology to avoid such predictable accusations.




reply to post by Hawkstein




They do have strong suggestions from their scans and drill samples of what's beneath the surface, they're talking about a passageway leading down to a chamber some 10x10x10 metres in proportion at 25 metres below the surface, with strong suggestions of metal from within it.