COULD AN ANCIENT INDONESIAN PYRAMID SITE REWRITE HUMAN HISTORY?

Gunung Padang in Indonesia

Maya Musings is branching out! My love of ancient cultures has lead me to focus on more than just the ancient Maya. This post on Gunung Padang is the first.

Gunung Padang in Indonesia may be the greatest mystery of history and what we know about ancient civilizations.

Graham Hancock, a 30-year journalist interviewed in a new Netflix series, Ancient Apocalypse, explains he is neither archeologist nor scientist: He reports what he sees as a journalist. He has spent the past three decades investigating human pre-history and in the series, gives his first-person account.

ANCIENT APOCALYPSE

In the documentary he states it's his suspicion that "humans are a species with amnesia about an incredibly important thing in our distant past." That important thing, he says, "is that there is a lost civilization of the Ice Age."

Graham Hancock on Ancient Apocalypse

The possibility of civilization emerging earlier than we previously thought gets stronger each year and in Hancock's opinion, definitely demands a re-write of history as we know it. He suspects his theory is upsetting to experts because they insist the only civilization that existed during the Ice Age was that of our simple hunter-gatherer ancestors who—and he questions this premise—on their own initiative, suddenly began to farm and raise livestock, creating settlements and eventually cities until the first civilizations emerged 4000 BC. His own research with new discoveries has led him to believe otherwise, and his findings keep pushing that timeline back. He tells a completely different story.

ENTER GUNUNG PADANG

One such discovery takes place in Indonesia on the island Java, in the village of Karyamukti, four hours south of Jakarta. Hancock went there to check out one of the most controversial discoveries of our time: Gunung Padang. The evidence at the massive site, some 400 plus kilometers, has confounded archeologists because it calls into question everything they have taught us about the pre-history of humanity.

What if an advanced civilization flourished at Karyamukti during the Ice Age, he asks—a civilization lost to history until now. The name Gunung Padang means mountain of light or mountain of enlightenment in local dialect. Today and for centuries if not millennia, pilgrims have traveled from far and wide to make offerings to this mountain. They purify themselves before climbing 360 feet to the top, an arduous venture. 

Hancock says Gunung Padang's answer is buried in the mountain underneath where it sits. And potentially, it could force humanity to re-think our entire history as we presently know it.

THE SITE

It takes about 20 minutes to hike to the top of Gunung Padang on stairs made from rocks that lead to the top plateau. From that spot, one can gaze over a jumble of the building blocks from an ancient construction that are scattered across brilliant green grass. Shaped like long rectangular blocks roughly two meters in length, they are heavy. But these are not man-made. The rocks, forged long ago by a volcano, may have been cut. They were merely transported to the spot and arranged into whatever structure once occupied this peak.

TERRACING

Technically there are five levels of terraces. The first is relatively quiet with a meditative quality. Second is much larger and made up of shallow levels of turf, each built slightly higher than the other. The rocks, like those far below, are strewn haphazardly about. It's uncertain as to whether they were used as columns or laid in horizontal fashion to construct buildings and altars.

Artist Rendering of the Terraces

The upper two areas is where intense research on Gunung Padang's history is presently taking place. And the quest to discover the truth has become animated, complicated by a mix of politics, money, and national pride. The cause for a prolonged and intense discussion comes down to what is below the surface. Some archeologists believe the mountain itself was made by humans as an enormous tomb, a sarcophagus made from dirt.

AGE IS JUST A NUMBER

These archeologists claim they have evidence for this feat that state humans may have built Gunung Padang up to 20,000 years ago. If that claim is true, it would make this site 10,000 years older than the pyramids of Egypt and one of the most jolting historical discoveries of our time.

With the possibility of a world-changing archeological site on Indonesian soil on the rise, the national government is throwing enormous support behind these research efforts. To furnish the manpower needed for the excavation, the Indonesian military was brought in to do the digging. They're doing hard labor under the supervision of scientific experts. 

Indonesian Military Work at Site (by Time Turtle)

QUESTIONS FROM EXPERTS

However, despite the insistence of certain experts and the hopes of the Indonesian government, a large number of academics believe it's impossible that Gunung Padang was built 20,000 years ago. Firstly, they say the evidence doesn't support that fact and there are alternative reasons why some of the tests have come up with such old dates.

They also state that it's not logical that a civilization that could build this enormous structure would leave no other signs of existence. One expert, as quoted in Time Turtle, made the point that 40 kilometers away, there's evidence people were using tools made of bone at that time, which seems odd if such a large advanced civilization was so close by.

FRINGE DATING

Based on unpublished and undisclosed numbers from carbon dates and strategic studies, Indonesian geologist-earthquake expert Danny Hilman Natawidjaja is the front man pushing for Gunung Padang's long date certification. He's suggested the site had been built as a giant pyramid between 9000 and 20,000 years ago, implying that it's proof of the existence of an otherwise unknown advanced civilization.

Since none of these radio-carbon dates have been formally published and the age of this site based on these dates differs greatly depending on who is consulted, some experts view Hilman's theories as "fringe dating."

In fact, 34 Indonesia scientists signed a petition questioning the motives and methods of Hilman and his team. Archeologist Victor Perez described Hilman's conclusions as pseudo-archeology. The dates of the site, based on Hilman's numbers, vary greatly depending on what publication is consulted and even when publications are by the same author, the recorded results vary. 

Long View of Gunung Padang (By Beritabali.com)

But Hilman's conclusions did attract the attention of the former Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who set up a task force several years ago, while he was still in office.

A vulcanologist, Sutikno Bronto, suggested the carbon dating results could have been influenced by weathering and concluded the elevation is the neck of an ancient volcano and not a man-made pyramid.

But whatever the case may be, Gunung Padang is undeniably the largest megalithic structure in South East Asia. Though the jury is still out, its very existence and the amount of effort recently allotted to excavate the ruins has begged the question: Are there other relics of pre-Ice Age civilizations out there that have yet to be vetted? And without the blessing of First World scientific experts, will they see the light of day or be left at the altar?

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.

 

MASTER POTTER JUAN QUEZADA CELADO, 81, DIES IN MATA ORTIZ, MEXICO

 

Juan Quezada Celado in Mata Ortiz

Juan Quezada Celado died at his ranch in Mata Ortiz, northern Chihuahua, on December 1. The master artisan, famous for resurrecting a pottery style known as Mata Ortiz, was 81.

I became aware of Mata Ortiz pottery and its founder, Juan Quezada Celado, quite by accident after meeting Santa Barbara potter Rebecca Russell at a tai chi class last year. Somehow we started talking about Mexico. She told me her pottery work drew her there and she'd traveled to northern Chihuahua to study with Juan Quezada who'd developed a style known as Mata Ortiz. 

I'd lived in Mexico for 17 years and hadn't heard of it. The most common pottery style in Quintana Roo, my stomping grounds, came from Puebla, the Talavera style, characterized by bright colors and diverse patterns with a high glaze finish. Talavera was widely marketed in QRoo, the Yucatan, and throughout Mexico. 

Rebecca showed me her business card with a photo of the Mata Ortiz style. It was like nothing I'd seen before, very elegant, different. She spoke with great respect of Quezada and I later researched both the artist and Mata Ortiz pottery.

Juan Quezada's life story reads like a fairytale. It's the story of a poor woodcutter who transformed himself into one of the most famous artists in Mexico. It's also a tale of a dusty Mexican village that learned how to fashion dirt into clay, transforming it into something beautiful. 

A young Juan Quezada had been forced to quit school to help his family survive. He picked firewood in the surrounding area where a sophisticated pre-Columbian culture had once thrived around the city of Paquime (also called Casas Grandes). It dominated the region for 300 years around 1200 AD and had been famous for ceramics featuring geometric designs in red, black, yellow, and brown which were traded throughout North America.

The boy found ancient pottery fragments as he worked. He even found shards in his own backyard—both Casas Grandes style and an older style still, Mimes, that dated from 200 AD, characterized by bold black on white zoomorphic designs. With his burro, he eventually went farther into the mountains collecting firewood and picking up bright shards along the way.

Though no one seemed to know about the people who made the pottery, everyone knew of the ruins 15 miles north, Paquimé, the center of the Casas Grandes culture. The mounds on the plains were the remains of the outlying communities that spread for miles around the site. At dusk by the light of his campfire, he'd examine his daily collection of shards, trying to figure out how they had been made. At home he dug clay from the arroyos, soaked it, and tried to make pots. They all cracked. Eventually Juan studied the broken pieces and realized that mixing in a little sand would prevent the cracking. His interest led him to the study of the pre-Hispanic pottery of the ancient cultures so close to his village. In time, he figured out how to make round bottoms similar to the prehistoric pots by making a mold after finding some in the outlying mounds. 

Gradually he mastered the process. As a young man, without any instruction, he was making and decorating credible pots for his own pleasure. He had re-created the entire ceramic technology from clay preparation to firing, using only shards to guide him, without help from ceramicists or specialists. But now married, he needed a variety of jobs to keep food on the table for his family—from working as a cowboy to railroad worker, leaving less time to make pottery.

But pottery still enticed him. In 1974 he decided to concentrate on making pots. He could sell enough with local traders to risk leaving his job on the railroad; earnings from the sale of just one pot would outdo what he'd earn on repairing rail tracks. His modest success attracted the interest of his siblings and he began to teach them what he'd learned. He became known as the self-taught interpreter of Casas Grandes pottery, sometimes called New Casas Grandes or Mata Ortiz after the village where it originated. 

Initial attempts to sell the pots in his area on a large scale failed, but he had success with border merchants, where his pottery was discovered by an anthropologist, Spencer MacCallum, who tracked Quezada down and helped him break into the larger US market. 

What started with the meeting of Quezada and MacCallum led to MacCallum's promotion of the pottery style across the border. He showed Quezada's pieces to museum curators, universities, and gallery owners. MacCallum's salesmanship and perseverance cemented the interest in these important markets which were essential to the potter's survival. An exhibition at the Museum of Man in San Diego, 1997, helped establish Mata Ortiz pottery as a legitimate art movement and helped it to gain momentum. After a slow start in the marketplace, gradual acceptance gave way to a full-flowering of Mata Ortiz styles and skills, a development that even the most ardent admirers had failed to predict.

Today over 350 Mata Ortiz families earn all or part of their income from pottery, thanks to Quezada. The finely painted ceramicware can rival any handmade pottery in the world. Quezada single-handedly resurrected the style and ancient techniques of his ancestors' pottery.

Quezada's work has been displayed in museums in numerous countries and in 1999 he was awarded the prize of Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes in Mexico. Books have been written about him and his style and techniques are well known throughout the world of pottery and beyond. His talent and influence will not be forgotten and his Mata Ortiz pottery style will continue to garner accolades throughout the world. Juan's pottery now sells for thousands of dollars and has found homes with numerous Mexican dignitaries, a Pope, a former US Supreme Court justice, and a former US First Lady. Tourists and art dealers make the trek to Northern Chihuahua in search of his pottery. More important still, Juan Quezada Celado gave his family a skill and art form that ensures a level of economic freedom for not only themselves but for generations to come. 

"He taught us all," said Quezada's youngest sister, Lydia, in a 2020 Washington Post article. "He's a talented teacher." RIP Juan Quezada Celado.

If you enjoyed this post, check out  Where the Sky is Born: Living in the Land of the Maya, on Amazon. My website is www.jeaninekitchel.com. Books one and two in my Mexico cartel trilogy, Wheels Up—A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival, and Tulum Takedown, are also on Amazon. And my journalistic overview of the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, Maya 2012 Revealed: Demystifying the Prophecy, is on Amazon.