Kamis, 20 Desember 2012

Journey back to Megalithic Gunung Padang Part 3



The chamber, level or Stages of Gunung Padang

          This drawing from Tempo magazine is interesting [1]
The artist drawing show the five level or stages of Gunung Padang, in which there are gate or two pilar on right and left forming a gate on the entrance of each level or stage (see pictures).

You can see the long 400 hundred step from the bottom, entrance village to the first gate forming the first level or stage.
The drawing also show three places of drilling and excavation for carbon dated test. 

On the South the highest Level or Terrace (1.5meter), the carbon test show the dating to be 500 BC. Below it the carbon test show the dating to be around 10,900 BC. Other drill and carbon test on the West Second Terrace dated 4,700 BC. 
Thus different dating found, means that this projects was probably done by very early civilization or world-being 10,900 BC, then by the human ancestor was again rearrange, because the pile was in a mess and scattered some on top of the others probably on earlier dated 4,700 BC and 500 BC. 
No body knows by who or what and how long and it remain a secret for a long time unless we can deciphere the coding or marks. The excavation and drilling found that there are chambers and many more pillar stone inside the mountain.

 If this is true than this piramid is bigger than any pyramid in Asia pacific, 95 meter tall with 70-75 degree steep angle, elevation 885 above sea level , covering area of 15 hectare (10 times of Borobudur)[2].


The first two pictures above are from the first stage/ terrace, then we go up to the second terrace and third, until we reached the last on top more to the south, which are the highest terrace at the back.

These are still view from the first terrace up to the second terrace on the tree above.
You can see the stone are all in chaos and scattered all over the place as if there is either explosion either from erruption of mountain or nuclear. We dont know what happened and why do they need so much pillar to support what ?

This is the view from the second stage/ terrace down to the first terrace and facing Mount Gede in the far end, probably not seen because there is lots of cloud and mist.
The next picture are from the 2nd terrace looking up and the warning sign from the local Government for not to take or disturb this archeology treasure site. 
The sign board contain instructions for any forbidden acts to disturb this archeological site.
Entering the third terrace there is a stool from stone, believed by our guide, once King Siliwangi sit there to meditate facing Mount Pangrango.
There must be many such kind of religious tourist coming here for meditate and send their wishes and offering.

Another place for meditation on the pillar that are arranged as the floor of this third terrace.


compared scattered stone with PumaPunku ruins
It is believed that under this terrace there is more pillars stone and might be chambers which are not explore yet ?
This is the field on the forth terrace, before further up south to the fifth last terrace. Modern platform build by the Government to provide the visitor with a resting and observation  deck. On the fifth terrace.
View from the forth and fift terrace.  Resting place for the guide after a tiring journey up the stairs. There is picture showing some of the important Government people who visited this slide.
I had visited Piramid Chichen Itza in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Comparing these site.. seems that this megalithic site is much much older and position wise probably looks like the Machu Picchu ruin before it was restore in 1911. But the scattered stone resemble more the megalithic ruin at PumaPunku or klik: http://blog.world-mysteries.com/science/ancient-ruins-of-tiwanacu-and-pumapunku/
very steep step at chichen itza
 Many different stories coming from the conversation with these guide which believe more that all these Gunung Padang artefacts (pilar stone) are resulted from the force of nature, just like some rocks formed by the lava and moving up. Then our ancestor make the stone a bit in order when they found the stone in chaos and scattered all over the top of the mountain
You can see the strange dent and formation of these stone are all smoothly polished but there are strange dent either for marking or is sign or code not yet been deciphers or understood what ?
stair at chichen itza, mexico

Finally on the Way Down
 
This is the stairway on the way down, a bit slippery when it is wet but very strong stairway that exist for thousand of years and still can be used as stair.

I still believe these are not for stair but it is scattered stone by previous founders and arranged by our next ancestor who found these scattered pilars anf form place for religious purpose to respect the founder of these infrastructure pillars projects. Amazing.

 More Strange Sign from the Past ?
 The main stairway is very steep down, since it was raining, we did not use this main straight stair down (100m) to the villages, but we chose the detour and safer stares a bit longer walks (350m).

Again we found some strange symbol, code carved or dented on the pillar or stone, which showed as if these stone were once very soft like a pudding and can be easily carved with strange symbol.

 Above another Javanese dagger (keris) and small paw of some kind of cat or tiger and strange symbol inprint in the stone.


The detour stair build by the local Government to help tourist to use detour stairway which are much safer and also probably to protect the original stair.


After about 300 meter we can see our car park downstair in the front of the villages and the entrance of the Gunung padang site.
 The villages downstair looks small from above and our car park in front of the warteg (small cafe).

Posing in front of the entrance where the main staircase go up to Gunung Padang site.
The ticket entrance booth to enter the Gunung padang stairway.
Sitting down, taking a rest after tired climb in a warung (cafe) with my guide before we left the site.

It was an amazing journey to the megalithic past of mankind ancestor.
On the way back, Gunung Gedein the background and tea plantion everywhere.


About 8 km down after leaving the tea plantation we enter a mining complex. The hill which are mined probably filled with coal or probably stone and gold.
We suspect the thousand piles stones came from here ?

 But how they can carry it up to the mountain ? How do they slam and stab these heavy long pillar on the ground, which today use special type of tractors and machines.


Using normal theory or using our guide theory that these piles are form by nature is not possible and some say act of God ? Probably using Ancient Alien theory is much easier that probably some sort of not from this world-being need these thousand of pillar for the base of their landing site. 

And when they blast off , probably scattered all the concretes and later used by the next ancestor as site of meditation and their belief ? No body knows or probably someday ?


On the way home we encounter beautiful display in the sky on the way back to Jakarta. It was a rainbow during sunset at almost 18.00 in Sukabumi near District Warungkondang.


The Internet project that lead us to visit Gunung Padang. This Wardes is located 20 km from Gunung Padang is to provide internet access for tourist that is on the way to Gunung Padang. The projects involved a network of 112 Wardes or Village Internet Cafe in West Java province and Banten provinces.


Rudi Rusdiah – rrusdiah@yahoo.com actually this journey is to promote wardes or Village Net Cafe that located on the way to Gunung Padang.


[1]    Tempo (2012), Main Report: Mencari Terang di Gunung Padang, page 50-51, Issue 2 September 2012
[2]    Travel Club 2011), Archeology Tourism: Ancient History: Tertulis di Bebatuan Gunung Padang' by Nia Janiar,  page 36 to page 39,   August 2011 Edition. 

Journey back to Megalithic Gunung Padang - Part 2



CROSS SECTIONS & DENTS OF PILES

The cross sections of this long and heavy pillar some are nice pentagon (five sides) and some are strange like elongated pentagon.
          From here the landscape is open and bright as bright as its name Gunung Padang, and we can already see the lanscape below and the villages seems to be very tiny in the far end below, which show that we are almost at the top of the hill, although we are just before the entrance of the first hall. 

The scenery facing five higher mountains according to our guide, including  Gunung Pangrango, Gunung Gede, GunungPasir and in the back also five lower hills some covered with tea plantations.
Thus the view is beautiful and you can see the landscape of highland and mountainous area, but our view was block by clouds and mists, so we cannot see the mountain very clearly in the far ends.
Most of the pillar or pile stone has dents seems like a unique mark for Gunung Padang scattered pile stones. 


Some dents are perfect round and seems you can insert a pingpong ball, some oval and some forms like a signs with no meaning for us to deciphers, but some like previous pillar in the entrance looks like tiger claws, flowers or even Indonesian traditional daggers (keris).












SHAPE & TYPE OF STONES

There are many unique type and shape of Stones, although majority shape are like long pillar just like the pilar used as reinforced concrete foundation of a building (tiang pancang) or concrete to hold the sidebed of a river in the city.

Usually this long pilar shape form the gates (see pictures on my right and left like the entrance gate) and fence or wall lining up some in square and form the partition of each level or the five stage of Gunung Padang.  There is like a gong or like a round/oval table shape stone with unique brownish and yellowish color unique from the a little bit dark gray long pilar stone stab on the ground. 


The gong stone position at the corner of a square hall (or probably chamber), according to my guide is the gathering or meeting hall.  
Next, outside the square hall very near, there is the gamelan or music stone, looks like the ordinary long pillar stone.

But knocking on the stone, provide metal like sounds and different tone can be heard by knocking on different part of the stone. 
Very interesting stone, according to the guide, this particular stone has high concentration of metal, so that it sounds like a metal when you knock on it.



There is one stone round/oval not square in shape among the long pillar stone, said to be the cornerstone or the symbol of wholeness of the being who was once building this megalithic prehistorical infrastructure stone projects.

Or a shorter stone for sitting with two pillar to support your arms, said by our guide to be the seat of King (or Indonesian Prabu) Siliwangi, who once ruled in this West Jawa. 


If you sit there, then you will faced Gunung Gede and Gunung Pangrango and beautiful scenery to the valley down, from the village where we came from.

The Level, Stages or the Five Terrace of Gunung Padang
...to be continued to Part 3...

Journeyto Megalithic Gunung Padang - Part 1


scattered stone compared to Puma Punku ruins
map courtesy of Kompas
Its a magnificent old megalithic site dated back thousand year ago, so it was older than Egyptian pyramid or Stone Henge in England. It is called “Gunung Padang”, which means Mount Padang, in which Padang means Bright (Terang in Indonesian) or Enlighten.
My trip to survey Wardes (Village Net Cafe) @Cibeber near Gunung Padang leads me to visit this site out of couriousity on its ancient mystery.
driving thru tea plantations
According to some records, the first mention of Gunung Padang is from a Dutch report “Rapportern van de oudheid-kundigne Dienst (ROD) dated back 1914 by N.J. Krom, a Dutch historian which found this site covered with bush, similar to the discovery of Borobudur by  Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles in 1814 (English occupation of Jawa island)[1]
Borobudur at that time was also covered by land and bush since it was burried due to Mount Merapi eruption. Looking at the sourrounding full with tea plantation. The Dutch colonials first established tea plantations around the mountains in the eighteenth century, and a road was constructed to connect the plantation area to the capital (180 km or 112 miles to the northwest from Batavia to Paris van Java, nickname for the provincial capital of West Jawa, Bandung.
Then in 1979, three villagers Soma, Abidin and Endi report to the Local Office of Culture and Educations about their finding of thousands of piles scattered in an hill, later called Gunung Gajah. From this moment, the situs became known and registered as historical megalithic site  and people visited the site.
village@bottom of pyramid
Since March 2011 Ancient Catastrophic Research Team formed by the Special Presidential Staff  SB Yudhoyono studied the active earthquake fault stretching from Pelabuhan Ratu to Padalarang regency city and passing thru Gunung Padang. When the team studied the land structured underneath the site, they found no magma intrusion, then the team continued with the underneath complete land survey using geophysics methods such as geo electric, radar, magnet in the Gunung Padang sourrounding. 
entrance step to site
The finding confirmed that this mountain is  prehistorical man-made, not nature (November 2011 team lead by Dr Danny Hilman and received appreciation by Prof. Dr Oppenheimer.[2]
          From Carbon dating, C14 at Beta Miami Laboratorium, Florida, US found that the carbon found from the 5 meter to 12 meter drilling aged 14.500-25.000 years old, so it is much older than Piramid Giza in Egypt. 

steeper step@chichen itza, mexico

Confirmed by LSC C14 Carbon dating by Laboratium Batan, Indonesia using material paleosoil sample from 4 meter deep at the drill location found the age is 5,500 +/- 130 years. 
well@entrance Gunung Padang
Location on the material 8 m to 10 meter deeps show carbon dated as far as 11,000 + 150 years.
          Gunung Padang located 45 km from Cianjur town, between road connecting Cianjur to Sukabumi near district town Warung Kondang intersections follow the small road left 20 km toward the site, through villages small road until reaching tea plantations and follows the sign along the road.
starcase not so steep
Four kilometer before reaching the site, you will enter highland, valley and hill covered with tea plantation and small villages for the tea pickers. Beautiful mountanous scenery of tea plantations, valley and hills via  winding road before reaching the gate.
After passing the gate, there will be ticket and register booth for visiter in front of small warung (shop) and the last villages, before going up the stair to the sacred Gunung Padang site.
During our visit, it was slightly raining, thus we avoid the main staircase  that goes up around 100 meter (400 steps) to the first level/hall on  top of the gunung which are very steep, so we follow the sideway (detour) which is 350 meter longer but not as steep as the main staircase.
          On the half way to the top, we found the first unique stone inprint with the paw of a tiger. Later there are two more stone inprint with tiger paw. But strangely we dont find any human hand inprint ?
unique imprint lion claw@entrance GunungPadang
 Is this the creature that was here during the building of this site. Then we continue our climb thru the stairway which are filled with small trees, bush on the left and right of the stair and it was not straight, so we cannot see the end of our first journey. 
scenery from 1st terrace Gunung Padang
It was quite tiring although we have chosen the flatter stairway, since it was raining and probably a bit slippery if we chose the straight main stairway.
Then at the end of this first entrance staircase, finally we arrived in an open landscape and in front of us is the hill or gunung padang which are covered by scattered thousand of pilar or piles stones, looks like reinforced concrete, but it seems this stone are stronger than concrete pilar, since these stone has been in this place for thousand of years.
scenery/forest from top of piramid chichen itza
 I wore umbrella because it was raining during durian and rainy season (14 Desember 2012) in Indonesia.



CROSS SECTIONS & DENTS OF PILES
....to be continued to Part 2.



[1]    Raffles Sir Thomas (1814), History of Java. Borobudur.
[2]    Tempo (2012) Laporan Utama , Situs Gunung Padang, Mimpi Nobel Gunung Emas, Staf Khusus Presiden membuat penelitian. Page 52-53, edition 2 September 2012. (Also available online  from http://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situs_Gunung_Padang