JAKARTA. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono met with Stephen Oppenheimer, a British pediatrician, geneticist, and prehistoric humanity expert from the Green Templeton College in Oxford, at the State Palace on Thursday.

Oppenheimer, who has been widely known for his controversial book Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, came to the palace at the president’s request as he will be one of the members of an organizing committee for the upcoming International Conference and Summer School on Indonesian Studies (ICSSIS).

The event, which will be the fourth international conference hosted by the University of Indonesia’s School of Indonesian Language, is expected to be held in Bali from Feb. 9 to 10.

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Also attending the meeting were Education and Culture Minister Muhammad Nuh and University of Indonesia rector Gumilar Roesliwa Sumantri.

“I hope the ICSSIS will help Indonesia become the center of Indonesian as well as Asian studies in general,” Nuh said.

Oppenheimer’s Eden in the East explains, among other things, his hypothesis that the Southeast Asian subcontinent of Sundaland, which encompassed most of modern Indonesia, was once home to a rich and original culture. He claims that this culture was dispersed when almost the entire area of Sundaland was submerged and its population moved westward.

The professor, however, said he did not talk about the matter with Yudhoyono.

Meanwhile, Oppenheimer has doubted a hypothesis about an ancient pyramid reportedly hidden under Mt. Sadahurip in Garut, West Java, citing a lack of supporting evidence.

“I haven’t seen the so-called pyramid in Garut, thus, I can’t comment on it. I’m not aware of any evidence of it,” he said. “I’m not saying no, but I can’t agree with something I haven’t seen yet.”

The claim about the ancient pyramid was made by presidential special adviser on natural disasters and social assistance Andi Arief. (Bagus BT Saragih/The Jakarta Post)