Mass Excavation Will Not Damage Gunung Padang Site

Jakarta (Antara) - Research team chairman, Ali Akbar believed that mass excavation which is aimed to remove thicket at Gunung Padang site in Indonesian province of West Java will not cause damage to the site. "Mass excavation in Trowulan village, Mojokerto, East Java province which was once carried out by 100 archaeologists left no problem," Ali gave example here on Wednesday, adding the planned mass excavation at Gunung Padang (Mount Padang) site is just to remove thicket, so its original form still can be seen. Trowulan is surrounded by an archaeological site covering about 100 square kilometres. Ali said, so there is no reason to fear that the mass excavation will destroy Gunung Padang site with 15 acres of total width of area of megalithic cultural heritage. Megalitikum is geological era of megalith, marked by stone of great size. The Gunung Padang site is located 165 kilometers from Jakarta nearby Cianjur Sub-district, West Java. According to him, around 100 archeologists, who conducted mass excavation by removing thicket around the Trowulan did not change the original form of the location. Ali said further that nearly 100 archeologists have registered as volunteers to do the excavation of the Gunung Padang site. In addition, around 400 volunteers of various backgrounds have also registered to help carry out the excavation for free of charge. Gunung Padang is the prehistoric site of a 900 square meters trapezoidal giant building or the largest one in South East Asian region. (*)