Joya de Cerén Archaeological Park
A Maya farming village buried by volcanic ash around AD 600, El Salvador's only World Heritage site.
Joya de Cerén lies in the Zapotitán valley about 36 km north-west of San Salvador. Around AD 600 the nearby Loma Caldera vent erupted and buried the settlement under several metres of ash. The inhabitants appear to have escaped, leaving houses, storerooms, workshops and gardens exactly as they stood. The ash sealed organic material that normally decays in the tropics, so archaeologists have recovered thatch impressions, woven mats, painted gourds, stored beans and maize and the ridged furrows of manioc fields.
The village was found by chance in 1976 during levelling work for grain silos, and systematic excavation followed under the American archaeologist Payson Sheets. Some eighteen structures have been identified across several excavation areas, among them a communal sweat bath and a building associated with a shaman. Because it records everyday life rather than royal display, the site is often described as a Mesoamerican counterpart to Pompeii. UNESCO inscribed it on the World Heritage List on 11 December 1993, and a visitor centre displays finds from the excavations.
Highlights
- Houses, kitchens and storerooms preserved under volcanic ash from about AD 600
- The tamazcal, a domed communal sweat bath of adobe
- Manioc planting beds, the earliest known in the Americas
- El Salvador's only UNESCO World Heritage site, inscribed in 1993
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