Reconciling Living Belief, Archaeological Knowledge, and Cultural Memory at Gunung Padang, Indonesia

Cata Ivancov1* and Lutfi Yondri2

Gunung Padang, West Java, Indonesia, is simultaneously a living ritual landscape for local communities and one of Southeast Asia’s most publicly contested archaeological sites. Indigenous narratives, embodied ritual practices, and landscape-based cultural memory coexist with diverse archaeological and geological interpretations that have been amplified through media, political endorsement, and public imagination. Rather than treating these dynamics as a binary conflict between belief and science, this paper reframes Gunung Padang as a governance challenge in managing multiple knowledge systems within a single sacred heritage asset. Drawing on local narrative documentation, cultural memory theory, and reflexive archaeological approaches, the paper analyses how competing claims shape authority, visitor expectations, conservation risk, and community legitimacy. It proposes an integrated management model based on four principles: multi-layered interpretation that clearly distinguishes tradition, hypothesis, and evidence; community co-curatorship that protects indigenous custodianship of meaning; ritual zoning and risk management to balance living practice with material conservation; and transparent communication of evidentiary limits to strengthen public literacy.