Megalithic site poised to become major new tourism site

The West Java provincial administration is proposing that the 3,500-year-old megalithic site 35 kilometers from Cianjur in Karya Mukti village be turned into a site for domestic and foreign tourists.

West Java Vice Governor Yusuf Macan Effendi has asked the Cianjur regency administration and the local community to help protect the largest megalithic site in Southeast Asia, especially from acts of vandalism.

He also told the West Java Tourism Office to organize the site, located at an elevation of 885 meters above sea level, so as to draw tourist interest.

“We must take measures to protect the heritage site that is located in a unique mountainous area. This could become a prime new tourist attraction in West Java,” said Yusuf, who is also known for being a television personality, during a trip aboard the Bandung-Lampegan-Cianjur train, whose route ends at the Gunung Padang site.

The train stopped at the 900-meter-long Lampegan railway tunnel, built during the Dutch colonial era to link Jakarta and Bandung.

The Gunung Padang site is located 6 km from the tunnel. The structure was built using andesite rocks formed by volcanic eruptions thousands of years ago.

The pentagonal-shaped rocks are all approximately the same size, each weighing around 500 kg. The site was discovered by three local residents in 1979 and is still an object of archeological and geological research.

It can be reached by climbing 380 steps that are at an elevation of up to 70 degrees.

Yusuf proposed the site be termed “The Galaxy Stone Complex of Mount Padang” because it was created taking into account points of the compass and shaped like a galaxy with the main tiers as its center.

Bandung Institute of Technology geologist Budi Brahmantyo said the stones, which stretch from west to east and face north to Mount Gede, had a transcendental function as a site of ancestor worship.

Local folklore says the structure was the palace of the Prabu Siliwangi king, and was left as it was because the king failed to completely arrange the thousands of blocks into a palace in a single night.

“From the geological aspect, the site is interesting because it was created out of volcanic rock columns. The site, which was built during the Neolithic era, resembles those in Nias [North Sumatra] and in Paseman [West Sumatra] and Central Sulawesi, as well as a number of places in Java,” Budi said.

A menhir, or upright standing stone, was previously found at the southern-most part of the site, but it has collapsed.

West Java Tourism Office head Herdiwan Iing Suranta said his office had allocated Rp 1.2 billion (US$139,000) from the 2011 West Java budget to renovate the area. The money will also be used to build two towers to prevent visitors from stepping on the stones, as is the case currently.

“As part of our conservation efforts, we will protect the stones from being stepped on by visitors,” Herdiwan said.