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Standing magnificently in the desert, the great Egyptian pyramids at Giza are among the few relics of ancient times that we can still see today. The largest one, built more than 4,500 years ago to house the mummy of Pharaoh Khufu, also known also as Cheops, is one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

A team of Indonesian scientists recently caused a stir when they claimed they had found evidence that two pyramids, both more massive than those at Giza, could be concealed underneath a pair of strangely shaped mountains in West Java. They are Mount Sadahurip in Garut and Mount Padang in Cianjur.

If the claim is true, it would be one of the most outstanding archaeological finds of the century.

The team, set up by Andi Arief, a special staff member to the president on social affairs and disaster management, met last Friday with representatives from three government ministries in hopes of securing additional funding, expertise and equipment. Prior to this, Andi organized a seminar attended by geologists, archaeologists, anthropologists and historians.

Participants at the seminar were divided on the issue. Many of them expressed doubt about the existence of a pyramid in Garut, but members of Andi’s team, called the Ancient Catastrophic Studies Team, said their preliminary research on Mount Sadahurip had produced evidence of man-made stone structures.

Sujatmiko, a geologist from the Indonesian Geological Experts Association, was skeptical. “Mount Sadahurip is just a volcanic fossil that has nothing to do with ancient human civilization,” he said. Sujatmiko added that when the team’s postulation inevitably proved untrue it would not only embarrass the members of the team but also taint the image of the president.

The skeptics said they thought the magma inside the mountain, estimated at two to five million years old, had hardened through natural processes. That, they said, not ancient Javanese architects, was what had made Sadahurip what it is today.

No one has ever found any stone artifacts in or around Sadahurip to prove the area was once home to an advanced civilization. (Before the advent of metal, as history has shown, ancient people used stone for their tools and buildings.)

Ancient stone buildings already discovered in Indonesia are mostly candi, or Buddhist and Hindu temples. The most famous complexes are Borobudur and Prambanan, located in Central Java. Another temple there, Candi Sukuh, looks like a pyramid with a flat top, resembling a Mayan temple in Central America.

The oldest Indonesian archaeological find ever is perhaps the jawbone of the prehistoric Java man, discovered by Eugene Dubois, a Dutch anthropologist and geologist, in 1891 in Trinil, a village on the banks of the Bengawan Solo River in East Java. Scientists, however, found no evidence that the Java man was the ancestor of modern Indonesians.

Asvi Warman Adam, a historian from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), also cast doubt on Andi’s pyramid hypothesis.

Other scholars said the government should pay no attention to the fuss over the pyramids because it had more important things to deal with, such as tackling poverty and alleviating the sufferings of flood victims.

This is not the first time that fantastic claims by Andi have been publicly debated and criticized. Last May, claiming that he had “scientific” data, Andi said Jakarta was due for a major earthquake, something along the lines of a 8.0-magnitude temblor.

The Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), the only body authorized to make such forecasts, warned Andi not to make statements that could cause panic among the residents of Jakarta and called his statement groundless.

In line with his actual job, it would be far wiser for Andi to concentrate on dealing with natural disasters and helping the victims, especially with floods ravaging parts of the country and volcanoes in West Sumatra, North Sulawesi and East Java showing signs of activity.

As for getting money for the pyramid research, Andi shouldn’t worry too much. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is always ready to support the digging up of ancient relics, provided solid proof of the discovery can be shown.

Oei Eng Goan, a former literature lecturer at National University (UNAS) in Jakarta, is a freelance journalist.