Java's Megalithic Mountain

Across the Indonesian archipelago, people raised immense stones to honor their ancestors

- ERIC A. POWELL

ON AN EXTINCT VOLCANO in western Java, five artificial terraces are cut into a promontory known as Gunung Padang, or Mountain of Enlightenment. The terraces are buttressed with stone retaining walls nd can be reached for the valley below via a staircase made up of 370 stone steps. Each terrace is covered with rectangular megalithic structures composed of hundreds of prismatic andesite blocks that geologists call columnar joints. These are igneous stones that owe their shape to repeated heating and cooling when the volcano was active millions of years in the past. Scholars believe that, centuries ago, the ancestors of today's local Sundanese people conducted sacred rituals on these terraces. The lowest and largest terrace, Terrace 1, features a five-foot-long andesite block that makes a loud, deep sound when struck. The Sundanese call it a batu kecapi, or "stone lute." From Terrace 5, the highest and smallest of the terraces, one can take in a spectacular vista that includes two nearby volcanic mountains. Gunung Padang draws local Muslims who read the Koran aloud amid the stones and Hindus from the island of Bali who climb the mountain's steps to conduct rituals related to the rising of the full moon. Followers of the Indonesian martial art pencak silat practice their discipline high on the mountain.