El Salvador - The Pompeii of the Americas

January 4

Hello everyone!

You’ve probably heard of Pompeii. There’s a song called it. More famously, there was once a thriving town southeast of Naples in Italy. I say ‘was’ because in 79 CE, the nearby volcano of Vesuvius erupted, with the ash covering the town in such a way that it ‘froze’ it in time until it was found centuries later. Turns out there’s an equivalent on my current doorstep…

A Mayan communal building, which has been excavated from ash at Joya de Cerén

Many fragments of crockery have been found,
though many pieces are fully intact

What you see above is part of a complex called Joya de Cerén, an archaeological site which has UNESCO Heritage status. It’s actually El Salvador’s only site which has this prestigious award, given to it in 1993. Interestingly, this is four years before Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum were assigned this status, which helps to protect them.

Neighbours Guatemala and Honduras have 4 and 2 UNESCO sites respectively

A human footprint. This is about 1400 years old!

The reason this place is described as ‘Pompeii of the Americas’ is pretty simple: the same thing happened here. The town of Joya de Cerén was a pre-Hispanic farming community, consisting of many structures. It had been built on top of ash thrown from the eruption of a different volcano at Ilopango. That must have been enormous - over 30 km in a straight line! At least they didn’t have to deal with modern Salvadoran traffic…

A map detailing finds in the broader area

Ilopango is the lake on the right of this map

The community was established, with rooms which I will detail later, and all seemed well…until a much closer volcano burst. The Laguna Caldera erupted between 600 and 650 CE. Joya de Cerén was blanketed with ash. That ash was between three and five metres thick. Picture that for a second. It could well be taller than the room you’re in right now. 

The tree-covered area at the top of the picture is the Lagiuna Caldera

A lot of ash!

The upshot of this is that the town was completely covered, seemingly disappearing overnight. Apparently, an earthquake gave residents time to escape, which is why there are no human remains here. Another eruption a few centuries later, this time from the San Salvador volcano known as Boqueron, further buried the town.

Geologists have found that there are layers
showing five different eruptions affecting this area

It made me wonder how in the world this settlement was re-found. It happened in 1976, apparently when a tractor was digging to create a grain silo. When digging part of a hill, it came across something strange. That something strange was part of a house. The silo was put elsewhere and archaeologists got to work.

The front building here is a sauna!

Well, for about three years. Then the country collapsed into civil war, and other things were deemed to be priorities. It’s remarkable that the site wasn’t damaged in the ensuing fighting. Excavations resumed in 1989, and are still happening to this day.

The sticks are preserved parts of the building technique used at the time

A section which will be unearthed in the future

So what exactly did they find? You find out as you walk around different zones, the path weaving between them so you can see the excavations. These are protected by a high, curved, metal roof. Not quite sure how well protected they are when it rains sideways during the wet season, but I’d assume they know what they’re doing. Mostly, the walk takes you past elements of buildings which you would expect to see in a community: houses, food storage, the main community building in which it is believed decisions were taken.

The community building has clay benches,
which would be seats for authority

The middle building was a storehouse, where they would keep food.
Husks of corn have been excavated, having been preserved for over 1000 years.

Oh, I almost forgot the sauna! Silly me. Of course there was a ‘sauna’ - called temazcal in the Nahuatl language, and ‘sweat bath’ on one of the signs - in such a hot climate. It was a dome with a small vent in the top for the steam to escape. They have excavated the bottom of the original (I assume it must have collapsed) and made a replica outside.

This picture hopefully gives an indication of the size of the area

"Just going to the sweat house, back later!"

The inside of the dome is small but could probably comfortably fit several people. The replica shows the box of stones in which heat (fire) was ignited, with herbs being used to generate steam. A method of purification, much like modern-day saunas. 

This structure is a little under 2 metres tall

The inside of the sauna

For me, the smaller elements found in or next to these larger structures are what make this a remarkable find. Below, for example, is the skeleton of a duck. They know from subsequent research that this duck was tied to a post next to one of the houses. 

The duck skeleton - we now know that
duck was eaten by the local population

Many of the plates have what is seen as traditional Mayan art

Many of these items are housed in the museum within the complex. They show how well-preserved items found here were by that ash bomb. From pots and plates of various sizes to necklaces of shells and jade, all discoveries help us learn and understand more about this community and the broader pre-Hispanic civilisations.

This pot was about a metre in height

The museum also had plants and foodstuffs which were
carbonised, and were therefore preserved, by the ash

The necklaces are connected to the ‘House of the Shaman’, highlighting an aspect of the community’s beliefs. The suggestion from the findings here is that the shaman was actually a woman. In a nearby ceremonial centre, festivals connected to corn and fertility would have taken place. Possibly not at the same time. 

This here is a regular house

House of the Shamana - you can see a pattern on one of the walls

El Salvador has a few Mayan historical sites (I went to one at Cihuatan last April). Joya de Cerén is unique for how it has been preserved within the Earth for so long. If it wasn’t for deciding to build a grain silo, we’d have never found it and learnt much about pre-Hispanic life within the land of El Salvador. It begs the question as to whether there are any other ‘Pompeii of the Americas’ under our feet…

History is awesome

Love you all,

Matt