Travel Guide Sitio Arqueológico Joya De Cerén

The Joya de Cerén site, which dates back to the year 600 (and discovered in 1976), consists of eighteen structures showing its scope in the past; Ten of them were excavated, in Adobe and bahareque (mud on a wooden structure), and are now protected by sheet metal roofs. The abundance of food stored there tends to accredit the hypothesis of a opulent village dedicated to trade. It is unknown where the inhabitants fled, when a volcanic eruption at Laguna Caldera covered houses between 4 and 6 m of ash in 590, «pétrifiant» the village as it appears today, with its traditional structures and organic food. A curious spectacle, unfortunately not necessarily very well placed. Joya de Cerén is regarded as «Pompeii Maya» or «Pompeii of America». This is indeed the only site «petrified by the ashes» of the pre-Columbian civilizations of the American continent. The site was classified as UNESCO's heritage of humanity in 1993; it is the only site in Salvador classified at UNESCO.