When was Gunung Padang Discovered?
Gunung Padang, located in Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia(Credit: Ade Lukmanul Hakimmm/Shutterstock)
The modern story of Gunung Padang begins in the late 19th century when Dutch settlers first became aware of the mighty pyramid just four hours south of Jakarta close to the village of Karyamukti.
According to the writing of Dutch historian Rogier Verbeek in 1891, “on the mountain top Goenoeng Padang, near Goenoeng Melati, a succession of 4 terraces, connected by steps of rough stone, paved with rough flat stones and decorated with numerous sharp and columnar upright andesite stones. On each terrace, a small mound, probably a grave, surrounded and covered with stones and topped with 2 pointed stones. In 1890, visited by Mr. De Corte.”
Of course, long before the Dutch East India Company brought slavery and colonialism to West Java, local inhabitants knew about Gunung Padang and its man-made stone terraces. Revering it as ‘The Mountain of Enlightenment,’ locals still perform mystical ceremonies at the site, which features a freshwater spring at its base.
For nearly a century, mainstream archeologists ignored Gunung Padang. But in 1979, a group of nearby farmers brought more attention to the mountain. Soon, the site became the focus of Indonesian researchers and archeologists.
Digging Deeper Into Gunung Padang’s Chambers
Despite the pushback, Natawidjaja seems to welcome those who challenge his findings. He points out that the core samples his team surveyed from Gunung Padang in Indonesia show that the site is worthy of deeper investigation.
The idea of digging deeper is even more interesting because Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), geo-electric (Electric Resistivity Tomography), seismic tomography, and core drillings have already revealed what appear to be buried chambers and tunnels. Are these simply caves created by volcanic processes? Or, are these deeply hidden Gunung Padang chambers like the ones buried inside the Pyramid of Giza? Only a carefully orchestrated excavation can tell us for sure.
In the meantime, one thing is certain, the mysteries that veil this exciting Javanese site will continue to perplex and capture the imaginations of future generations to come. For this reason, you might want to hike to the top of this archeological wonder with an ice-cold thermos of Java Robusta the next time you’re passing through Indonesia.
Read More: Secret 30-Foot Long Chamber In The Great Pyramid Discovered
The Gunung Padang Controversy: A Clash of History and Science
If true, the findings at Gunung Padang change everything we thought we knew about the technological capabilities of humans in prehistoric times. Allegedly, this is when humans were only capable of building small, temporary shelters out of wood, bone, and animal hides — not megalithic stone structures or stepped pyramids on the scale of Giza in Egypt.
But this is what we find at Gunung Padang, where thousands of large stone slabs were transported from another region and expertly arranged in a grand work of masonry that appears to be six times older than the Pyramid of Giza, and that’s why the site is controversial.
Read More: Everything Worth Knowing About the Giza Pyramids
MLS vs Saudi Pro League – The Latest Messi vs Ronaldo Debate
With Cristiano Ronaldo in the Saudi Pro League and Lionel Messi in MLS with Inter Miami, the past year or so has seen the intrigue around these competitions increase immeasurably.
With that comes the inevitable – tiresome, you might say – back and forth from Ronaldo and Messi superfans about which is playing in the better league or at a higher level.
Tiresome it may be, but in the name of content, we’re going to lean into it and hopefully provide some statistical context to the debate.
Let’s start with the simple headline fact: MLS is ranked as the ninth-best league in world football according to the Opta Power Rankings, whereas the Saudi Pro League is only as high as 33rd. To give you a better idea of what that means, the average Opta Power Rating of top-tier Saudi teams of 73.6 puts it just behind Colombia’s Primera A and on a level footing with the Greek Super League.
Furthermore, MLS is a tighter competition when it comes to team quality according to the Opta Power Rankings. There’s a difference of 638 places in the ranking between the highest- and lowest-ranked MLS teams; for the Saudi Pro League, the difference is a whopping 1,130 places.
However, the highest-ranked non-European team in the Opta Power Rankings is a Saudi Arabian side. Al Hilal are 34th, putting them just behind Athletic Club and Manchester United, but 35 spots ahead of the best-ranked MLS team, Columbus Crew.
Interestingly, Ronaldo’s Al Nassr and Messi’s Inter Miami are almost side by side in the rankings, with the former 92nd and the latter 98th.
So, while the very best of the Saudi Pro League’s ceiling would appear to be higher than MLS’s, the Opta Power Rankings would consider the worst teams in MLS to be considerably better than the worst of the Pro League.
Furthermore, the Pro League’s average rating of 73.6 shows it still has a long way to go – though it’s an increase of 1.6 since March, so some progress seems to have been made.
What Is the Truth About Gunung Padang?
Natawidjaja stressed that his team’s research and surveys were multidisciplinary (not simply volcanological), and while volcanic intrusion was indeed present, there’s more to the story.
“Our comprehensive study, which includes geological, archaeological, and geophysical surveys, indeed confirmed the existence of the underground 'volcanic intrusion' […] aligning with Sutikno’s observations," Natawidjaja says. "However, our findings also present compelling evidence that challenges the perception of Gunung Padang as simply the neck of a nearby volcano.”
As for the carbon-dated cement mentioned by Sutikno, Natawidjaja also had other thoughts.
“Our research conclusively demonstrates that it is indeed a mortar, not a byproduct of natural weathering. Our team of experienced geologists has meticulously examined and analyzed the samples, leaving no room for doubt regarding their origin,” says Natawidjaja.
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Do you want to know which men’s leagues are statistically the strongest in the world? Or are you curious about whether Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo is currently playing at a higher level? The Opta Power Rankings can provide the answers…
This is an updated version of an Opta Power Rankings article we published in March. If you want to look back at how things stood back then, you can find that article here.
With the 2024-25 season in full swing for many of the world’s major men’s football leagues, it’s the perfect opportunity to assess the overall strength of those competitions by revisiting the Opta Power Rankings.
You can find an explainer on the Opta Power Rankings below, but in simple terms, they rank thousands of clubs sides around the world, and from that we can judge the strength of the leagues they’re in.
We did a similar analysis on a couple of occasions last season, but it’s time to revisit the key talking points now that 2024-25 has built up a head of steam.
So, without further ado, this is what the Opta Power Rankings tell us about league strength around the globe…
The ‘top five European leagues’ is now very much a part of everyday football parlance, becoming increasingly identifiable as those competitions developed a financial and popularity gulf between themselves and the rest.
While there have been instances of certain leagues threatening to upset the status quo and gatecrash the top five as defined by UEFA coefficients, in the Opta Power Rankings they’re pretty much as you’d expect for the majority of the time.
Of course, you could argue the ‘Big Five’ – as this group of leagues is sometimes known – has ceased to be a thing more recently because, really, the English Premier League is the ‘Big One’ that dwarfs the other four competitions with respect to financial might. And on that note, it won’t be a surprise to anyone that England’s top flight continues to lead the way.
The average team rating of the 20 current Premier League clubs on a scale of zero to 100 (where 100 is the best-ranked team in the world and zero is the worst) is 87.9; that means it’s gone up by 0.6 since our last update in March, with Manchester City (100), Arsenal (96.9) and Liverpool (95.9) all in the top five of the global club rankings.
Across the 2023-24 season, La Liga, Serie A and the German Bundesliga were all tussling over second place; Germany’s top flight sat there at the start of the campaign, but it dropped down to fourth by March.
However, the Bundesliga has risen to second once again, with its clubs having an average rating of 86.2. That’s actually the same as Serie A, but the Bundesliga gets the nod by virtue of having more clubs in the top 10 in the team rankings (two – Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen – to Serie A’s one – Inter).
The Bundesliga has also been helped the fact that last season it had the lowest-ranked side of all from the top five leagues in Darmstadt, but they’ve since been relegated.
La Liga is now only on a par with France’s Ligue 1; both competitions have an average Opta Power Rating of 85.1. Spain’s top tier won’t have been helped by the largely underwhelming performances of its representatives in European competition last term.
Yes, yes, Real Madrid won the UEFA Champions League again, but otherwise Spanish clubs disappointed. No La Liga teams got beyond the Europa Conference League knockout play-offs, none were in the Europa League quarter-finals, and Carlo Ancelotti’s men were the only ones to get past the Champions League last eight.
Nevertheless, with Los Blancos and Barcelona ranked second and ninth respectively, La Liga has more clubs in the top 10 than Ligue 1, with only Paris Saint-Germain (seventh) that high.
Is Gunung Padang the Oldest Pyramid in the World?
Elongated rock formations piled together at the megalithic site of Gunung Padang (Credit: Upen supendi/Shutterstock)
Since the 1980s, a number of in-depth surveys have been conducted at Gunung Padang, but researchers continue to disagree about its age. Some claim that the stone constructions date back to the first millennium A.D., and pottery fragments from the site were dated to 45 B.C.E to 22 C.E.
Another camp believes that Gunung Padang’s age is older. In 1982, B.M. Kim dated the site to 300 to 2000 B.C.E. But even these estimates are mild compared to the most shocking evaluation of them all — that the deepest layers of Gunung Padang are 16,000 years to 27,000 years old. That would make Gunung Padang the oldest pyramid in the world.
This theory — that Gunung Padang dates back to the Ice Age — is based on the work of geologist Danny Hilman Natawidjaja and his multidisciplinary team of scientists, archeologists, and volunteers. From 2011 to 2014, Natawidjaja and his associates conducted numerous field studies at Gunung Padang including ground penetrating radar, core drilling, and radiocarbon analysis.
With specific regard to the topmost layer of Gunung Padang, Natawidjaja says he agrees with the conclusions of B.M. Kim.
“The estimated age of 300 to 2,000 B.C.E. by B.M. Kim in 1982 aligns with our findings as it likely corresponds to the stone terraces,” says Natawidjaja. However, he notes that there’s another story to Gunung Padang when you examine the deeper layers of construction.
Read More: The Oldest Ancient Wonder Still Exists Today, 4,500 Years Later
Top 10 Leagues Across the World
As you might expect, European competitions dominate the rankings for the best 10 top-tier leagues in world football according to the Opta Power Rankings.
However, the Brazilian Serie A – or the Campeonato Brasileirão – is the highest-ranked non-European league in the world, slotting in just outside the top five in sixth.
With Brasileirão clubs having an average Opta Power Rating of 80.8, they rank higher than the Portuguese Primeira Liga (80.1), the Dutch Eredivisie (77.3) and the Belgian Pro League (79.2), among many others.
When we last looked at the rankings in March, Brazilian clubs had been at a disadvantage because they would have only been competing in their local state championships. The Brasileirão and Copa Libertadores both began in April, and Brazil has two representatives in the continental competition’s semi-finals: Atlético Mineiro and Botafogo, who also lead the Brasileirão. Botafogo (58th) still trail Palmeiras (52nd) as the highest-ranked Brazilian club in the Opta Power Rankings, though there’s another non-European club even higher – but more on that later.
The second non-European league among the 10 highest-rated top-tier competitions is Major League Soccer (MLS) in ninth. Last season, we analysed remarkable surge of MLS from being ranked 29th to 10th in world football, in the process storming ahead of regional rival Liga MX of Mexico. That was in part the result of their teams’ respective performances in the 2023 Leagues Cup, which is contested by MLS and Liga MX clubs. We suggested Liga MX might bounce back on the basis of Mexican clubs doing well in duels with MLS sides in the CONCACAF Champions Cup, but it appears MLS has consolidated its position as top dog in the region. Liga MX sits 13th with an average club rating of 76.7.
Argentina’s Primera División – or Superliga – is the third non-European league among the 10 highest-ranked top-tiers in world football, rounding things off in 10th. That means they have also leapt ahead of Liga MX, with their clubs boasting an average rating of 77.5.
But back to Europe now; Portugal’s Primeira Liga (80.1) and the Pro League (79.2) of Belgium retain places in the top 10, even if the latter has dropped down a couple of spots since we last analysed the data.
Nevertheless, it might still surprise some to see the Pro League so high, especially considering many probably regard the Eredivisie as being of a higher quality historically. But what we have to bear in mind here is the weaker end of both competitions. For instance, 12 current Eredivisie clubs are ranked lower than 300th in the Opta Power Rankings, whereas only seven clubs from Belgian’s top tier rank lower than 300th.
It’s also worth noting that the Pro League contains only 16 clubs, so naturally they’re likely to be ranked a bit higher than the top 18 Dutch teams purely on average. It’s a similar story for the Danish Superligaen, which ranks a place above the Eredivisie in 11th. Denmark’s top tier has only 12 teams, therefore it’s easier for its average ranking to be greater.
This is one of the chief reasons why it’s difficult to compare different leagues fairly, but an alternative approach would be to look at the mean rankings of the teams ranked in the top 10 for each competition.
They may not be huge, but there are differences. Serie A and the Bundesliga swap places, as do the Primeira Liga and Brasileirão, and the Eredivisie shoots ahead of the Danish Superligaen and the Argentine Superliga, putting it just inside the top 10.
But as the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed, we included the caveat of top-tier leagues in this section. Some of you have definitely come here seeking answers about the English Championship; don’t worry, we shan’t disappoint.
If we analyse the Opta Power Rankings of all clubs in each league – and not just top-tier ones – the Championship breaks into the top 10 worldwide.
While still behind MLS in terms of average team ratings, the Championship leaves a host of top-tier competitions in its wake. This is of course partly down to the aforementioned disparity in quality that certain top-tier leagues have, while England’s second tier is renowned for being unpredictable.
The situation is exemplified quite well by comparing the Championship with the Eredivisie, which has a much greater variety in ability, as shown below.
The next-highest ranked second tier in the world is the German 2.Bundesliga, which is 17th, followed closely by Italy’s Serie B in 19th.
The Gunung Padang Hoax
Some conventional academics are chomping at the bit to refute Natawidjaja’s conclusions as ‘fantastical’ or ‘sensational’— some even calling it the “Gunung Padang hoax.”
University of Tarragona Researcher Víctor Pérez, wrote a detailed paper challenging Natawidjaja’s findings. The paper criticizes Natawidjaja’s approach, pointing out what some scientists and academics see as flaws and mistakes in both the execution and theoretical analysis of their research. Pérez argues that these issues undermine the credibility of the ancient dates suggested by Natawidjaja's team, which he claims lack corroborating archaeological evidence.
Another opposing view comes from professor Sutikno Bronto of the Center of Geological Survey in Indonesia. He believes that Gunung Padang is the neck of a nearby volcano and not an ancient pyramid.
Sutikno argues that the findings of younger soil layers among older stones and the carbon-dated material at the site do not substantiate Natawidjaja's claims. He suggests these are results of natural erosion, not indicators of human architectural activity.
How the Indonesian Pyramid of Gunung Padang was Built
Ancient stone from Gunung Padang site (Credit: Inpics/Shutterstock)
According to Natawidjaja, the data that supports their findings shows that the Gunung Padang pyramid is a bit like a three-layer cake, and each layer was built thousands of years apart. He says the most recent layer, known as Unit-1, was constructed about 3,000 years to 4,000 years ago. The next oldest, Unit-2, was built around 7,500 years to 8,000 years ago. The oldest part of the structure, Unit-3, could be as ancient as 16,000 years to 27,000 years. This supports the research done by B.M Kim, which suggested the pyramid dates back to between 300 and 2,000 B.C.E.
Interestingly, Natawidjaja says, “Unit-2 may potentially be a stepped pyramid."
In his 2023 study of the site, he explains that Gunung Padang is more than just an old stone terrace; it's a complex structure buried underground featuring large chambers and hollow spaces. The carbon dating suggests that the initial construction could have taken place during the last Ice Age, in the Paleolithic era, and was later modified in the Holocene or Neolithic era.
Natawidjaja’s team came to these conclusions by comparing the ages of samples from the volcanic base layer (which is millions of years old) and the three layers of construction.
“In contrast [to the volcano], soil samples taken from between fragmented rocks have been dated to only a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of years old, which presents an enigma in natural geological processes," says Natawidjaja. "Geological principles dictate that soils cannot migrate from the near-surface layers to deeper depths over time. Hence, the juxtaposition of relatively young soils between ancient rock layers poses a significant geological challenge.”
The conclusion: Only a technologically advanced culture during the Ice Age could have positioned those stones. Recognizing the impact of the findings, Natawidjaja once told The Sydney Morning Herald, “It’s crazy, but it’s data.”
