On November 17, 2007 Cihuatán was finally inaugurated as an official archaeological park. For the past several years FUNDAR has been working hard to raise funds and to install proper visitors’ facilities at Cihuatán and this work has finally come to fruition.

Cihuatán now has a site museum, the “Museo Antonio Sol,” named after the first archaeologist to excavate at Cihuatán. We would like to thank the Sol Meza family for their generous contributions in honor of their ancestor, contributions which made the museum possible. Because theft is an on-going concern at site museums throughout the world, the “Museo Antonio Sol” has no artifacts. Rather its bilingual texts discuss the site and its history, its ecology, the various projects undertaken there and, of course, what has been found out about the ancient city.

The renovated site house and the museum just before the inauguration. President of FUNDAR Rodrigo Brito and Karen Olsen Bruhns are in front.

The official opening of the Museo Antonio Sol. Rodrigo Brito discusses the exhibits with Antonio Sol’s grandchildren.

The first panel discusses Antonio Sol and his contributions to Salvadoran archaeology.

Rodrigo Brito, Carlos Payes, and a friend inside the museum just before it was officially opened.

The site house was completely renovated and remodeled and now contains the museum, a laboratory, and storage for materials excavated at Cihuatán and for the equipment used in excavation and in keeping the site up. A cistern was installed for water, as the cost of drilling a well through the stone Loma de Cihuatán was enormous. This cistern is filled by rain water in the winter and in summer can also be filled by water trucks. The cistern provides running water for modern toilet facilities and a sink and shower in the laboratory.

Picnic tables have been installed in a grove to the east of the house, where there is easy access to the bathrooms. Grills will shortly be added so that families can reheat their food or grill meat. A snack bar now occupies the completely redone storage building and offers bottled water and other drinks, simple snacks (chips and the like) and also serves to distribute the leaflets for the newly re-designed Interpretative Trail.

Karen Olsen Bruhns and Rodrigo Brito chat in the shade in the new picnic area at Cihuatán.

Raúl Garcia at the new access to the ruins. With a manned gate to enter and leave, guardians and security men have a better idea of who is where.

Parking has been moved from the West Terrace, where clumsy bus and truck drivers often backed into ancient structures, down to the west of the museum. New gates on the access road to the site ensure added security for the site and for the neighbors.

A panorama of the new parking area on inauguration day.

The Western Ceremonial Center and West Terrace are the parts of the site open to visitors. A new Interpretative Trail starts on the West Terrace, passes through the West Ball Court and by the small temple platform P-12 and then a stile leads visitors over the wall and the trail continues around the north end of the site and Structures P-1 and P-2 (larger temple platforms) and the restored North Ball Court. Exit from the North Ball Court is via a floating steel stair protecting the fragile stonework. A similar stair gives visitors access to the top of the main pyramid, P-7.

The third stop on the Interpretative Trail is a small temple platform that has now been cleared and consolidated. Grass will soon cover the dirt.

New signage asks visitors to please not climb the fragile platforms, in this case P-2 by the North Ball court.

This sign warns visitors to stay in the Western Ceremonial Center. The Acropolis is not open to visitors as yet and there really are a lot of snakes there.

San Andrés has benefited from the unending grazing of the ”Familia Cortagrama”. We are planning to bring some of the sheep to live at Cihuatán to help deal with keeping the grass short enough that visitors can see the ancient buildings.

The area between the Western Ceremonial Center and the Acropolis has been cleared of brush and grass and ground cover have been planted.

The inauguration was attended by officers and members of FUNDAR, members of CONCULTURA, the Minister of Tourism, the Sol Meza family, members of the diplomatic corps, and all the workers and their families. Employees from Joya de Cerén dressed in volcanera costumes made “Pupusas Mayas,” blue corn pupusas made with a traditional type of maize grown at Joya de Cerén. Speeches were made, the Aguilares marimba played, and everyone had a good time. More important is that now visitors to Cihuatán can count on the proper facilities to help them enjoy their day visiting one of the great archaeological sites of El Salvador.

Rodrigo Brito welcomes the visitors to the new Cihuatán archaeological park.

Lic. Federico Hernández, the President of CONCULTURA, also welcomes the visitors.

Lic. Rubén Rochi, the Minister of Tourism speaks at the inauguration.

Rubén Rochi, Federico Hernández, Rodrigo Brito, Héctor Ismael Sermeño, and Paúl Amaroli unveil the plaque thanking the people who made the Museum and tourist facilities possible. Photograph by Osmin Herrera, CONCULTURA. Read the text of the plaque.

Rodrigo Brito and Antonio Carrillo (the second in command at Cihuatán) pose with the volcaneras.

Pupusas Mayas were on the menu.

The traditional marimba was played by gentlemen from Aguilares, the town closest to Cihuatán.

Guests ate, listened to the music and toured the new park.

The United States Ambassador, Charles L. Glazer, Ricardo Sol Meza, and Gregorio Bello Suazo, Director of the National Museum of Anthropology.

The French Ambassador, Francis Roudiere.

The Brazilian Ambassador, Rodrigo Brito, and the American Ambassador.

Enrique Melara and his wife (Enrique is the soils engineer who has fixed the horrendous drainage problems at Joya de Cerén), Irma Flores,from the Department of Historic Sites and Monuments, CONCULTURA, and Ismael Sermeño, the Head of the Department of National Heritage.

Even the archaeologists were invited!

Paul Amaroli, Marlon Escamilla, Fabricio Valdivieso (then Head of the Department of Archaeology, CONCULTURA), Heriberto Erquicia, Gregorio Bello Suazo, and Shione Shibata (Department of Archaeology, CONCULTURA).

The Garcia family, the first guardians of Cihuatán. Don Dolores “Lolo” Garcia is in the middle and Doña Paula de Garcia is in the pink jacket. Their children and in-laws still in El Salvador came with them. Raúl (moustache) still works as a guardian for Cihuatán.

Work at Cihuatán has focused upon new installations for visitors (and workers). The site house has been completely renovated and a site museum is being installed. Work is almost finished and a formal inauguration is planned for the near future. FUNDAR would like to thank the family of Dr. Antonio Sol, first scientific excavator of Cihuatán, whose generous gift has made this work possible.

The original site house under reconstruction and the newly redone site house.

Left, installing insulation. The skylights will assure that the museum and laboratory will be lit by natural light as much as possible. Right, making and installing the window grills.

We have also been doing a lot of consolidation of excavated structures. A polymer highly recommended by the Chaco Canyon folks (who also have to deal with trying to preserve earth and stone structures) was used to consolidate the stairs of the Temple of the Idols.

The first application of the polymer to the Temple of the Idols.

A long view of applying polymer to this rather large structure. The walled “players’ patio” and the P-7 pyramid are in the background.

A desperate guide tries to control 500 children on April 5, 2006 while 3000 more children try to push into the museum.

Work at San Andrés has been continuous since we took over the administration of the site two years ago. The worst of the problems we encountered were damage to the ruins themselves through weather and through uncontrolled tourist access. Among the most recent changes are fencing the area of ruins to restrict inappropriate and damaging use of them. We have also cleared the frontage and entry from the highway of debris and commercial signs and planted the area in grass and palm trees--everything is irrigated. The snack bar renovation and its adjacent tables and the moving of the ambulant vendors to an area adjacent to the snack bar is complete. We have just completed construction of separate sanitary facilities for visiting school children and for other visitors. So many children visit,--1500 or more on a visiting day--that we have had constant trouble keeping the bathrooms clean and repaired. We have also instituted a series of administrative changes. One of these changes was prompted by 3500 school children arriving all at once, unannounced, on April 5, 2006. We now require reservations for school visits (which are on Wednesdays, the free day for school children)so that visits can be staggered somewhat, giving the children and their teachers a better chance to see the site museum and ruins. This practice, universal in Europe and North America, was a first for El Salvador and it is working very well.

The interior patios of the site museum are being slowly replanted with native economic plants of the Maya. Here Dr. Rodrigo Brito, President of FUNDAR, shows off one of the new cacao bushes planted in the patios.

Structure 1, the main pyramid, sustained some damage in the heavy rains of 2005. Although there have been many complaints about the consolidation and reconstruction, which was done in concrete, the old consolidation lasted nearly 80 years! However, the heavy rains of the last several years have led to some new problems and so considerable time and effort has been devoted to repairing Structure 1 and some of the auxiliary buildings.

Structure 5, the Campana, had been damaged by visitors climbing up to the top. The heavy rains then turned their trails into deep gullies. These were filled in and consolidated with traditional (and effective) methods, of woven branches and earthen fill, as was an unfilled old excavation on the southwestern corner of the huge basal platform. The intrusive African savanna grass has been removed and the whole area planted in a low, shallow-rooted, ground cover.

The Campana before and after repairs. The repairs going on.

Plan of the acropolis of San Andrés and of the location of the tunnel.

Finally, we began, with CONCULTURA support, a project to study the origins of San Andrés. Zachary Revene (who has now left us to pursue a career in ethnobotany) and Paul Amaroli directed the excavation of a tunnel which emerges from a pit left open from an excavation in the 1970s to the northwest, passes in front of structures 2, 3, and 4 and turns to go a short way in from of the structures called “The Chambers” (“Los Aposentos”). The purpose of this tunnel is to investigate the nature and plan of the earlier buildings at San Andrés. As the tunnel progresses (excavation had to be called off from June to early August) the early buildings at San Andrés are revealed.

The entrance to the tunnel had to be fenced off to prevent eager children and small animals from falling in and to protect the equipment and excavations. It is roofed against the rains. A small crane is needed to lift the excavated earth from the tunnel.

The tunnel is being supported with specially made steel scaffolding designed and constructed by Ingeniero Francisco Campos, who also made the stairs for the main pyramid at Cihuatán). We plan to have occasional guided tours through the tunnels when the excavation is done. Here Dr. Rodrigo Brito and Ing. Campos show off the scaffolding.

The tunnel with several superimposed floors and an area of adobe fill marked.

As at San Andrés, the work at Joya de Cerén has been unceasing. New signage, fences, and new entrances were constructed, fortunately in time to deal with the onslaught of visiting students.

We continue work renovating and replacing protective roofs and providing better facilities for tourists. A major undertaking has been planting crops the ancient Maya grew in the gardens. Many of these crops are no longer grown in El Salvador.

Left, cacao and malanga (Xanthosoma spp., also known as dasheen or coco yam -- North Americans grow a related species as a house plant) growing at Joya de Cerén. Center and right, purple maize and traditional species of beans grown at Joya de Cerén.

Thanks to Native American Seed Research in Tucson, Arizona, who gave us some teocinte seed, we also tried to grow this ancestral maize. However, the variety we had is a desert one and it evidently did not like the tropics, despite the loving care of Feliciano Torres, a traditional corn farmer who is in charge of the Maya plants gardens. The plants were spindly and, although they set seed, the seed did not sprout. We hope to be able to acquire some seed from the tropical species of teocinte and try again.

We decided to hold a pupusa party with the results of the first harvest. Sra. Leonarda Guardado (on the right), who runs the snack bar, coordinated the work and she and guide Merci, and another woman who works at Joya de Cerén made our first “pupusas mayas” out of the traditional purple maize, with fillings of cheese and of squash. We hope to have them on sale to the public next harvest.

Joya de Cerén now has a small gift shop for visitors. Among the souvenirs it it sells are replicas of the famous wheeled figurines from Cihuatán (now made in Chalchuapa, where there is a thriving industry in archaeological replicas).

We continue to repair and replace the protective roofs over the ruins and to improve lighting so that the ancient structures are protected but clearly visible. New paths and gardens also allow public access to parts of the site that were not open to most visitors before the FUNDAR administration.

Left: The new panels let in light without damaging UV so that it is much easier to appreciate the ruined village. There are, however, lights for evening visits and dark days. Right: The domed indigenous sweat bath (temescal ) is now on view to visitors via a new path through the gardens.

Among the urgent repairs was the replacement of a support of one of the protective roofs. The support had been placed so close to the edge of the excavation that the corner was beginning to crumble. In order to extend the roof and put in a new support, we had to re-excavate a pit dug by Andrea Gerstle many years ago.

Zachary Revene and a workman at the side of the re-excavated unit. A tarp was rigged for protection from the sun.

Dirt being removed from the excavation. We did not have access to the original report on this excavation, so all work had to be done very carefully. In any event, no remains of any structure or artifact were found in the pit.

Although we have been too busy for any major excavations during this past 8 months, we have done some work at Cihuatán, where a series of grants and gifts have made conservation of P-5, the “Templo de los Ídolos” and its adjacent sweat bath (temescal) possible. This structure, which is an integral part of the North Ball Court, was excavated and partially restored by Antonio Sol in 1929,. Over the past 77 years, the temescal refilled with inwash and the stairs have been damaged by people climbing the soft volcanic tuff steps. A small movable metal stair was installed and the building cleared and made ready for conservation. We are experimenting with various polymers which have been tested on archaeological adobe buildings at U.S. sites such as Chaco and will be using these to harden the adobe and tuff slabs while permitting them to “breathe.” This is essential because the humidity changes drastically with the seasons. The temescal was largely built with slabs of a very soft, easily eroded material known as talpuja and is not in good shape. A decision about whether to rebuild it will be made in the future.

The “Temple of the Idols” got its name from a series of rather strange looking felines excavated in a cache in the platform by Dr. Antonio Sol in 1929. Although all these cat statues have long since disappeared, we have found remains of others in our excavations at Cihuatán and other Guazapa Phase sites.

The "Temple of the Idols” has now been cleared and partly restored. The new metal stair is a great improvement over the shaky wooden one put up as a “quick fix” a couple of years ago. Wood only lasts a couple of years when fully exposed to Cihuatán's climate. Right, Rodrigo Brito shows how easy it is to climb to the top of the platform.

Long view of the excavations in the temescal.   A general view from the northwest (R). Clearing down to the floor we discovered cement, the remains of a previous attempt at restoration.

Thanks to the generosity of Ms. Donna Roginsky, the outgoing Public Affairs Officer at the US Embassy, we were able to install a “floating” metal stair on the back of the main pyramid P-7. P-7 was being destroyed by visitors climbing up its sides and breaking the fragile tuff facing. Now visitors can ascend a safe stair in hidden in the trees at the back of the pyramid. The stair was built to fit the specifics of the pyramid by Sr. Francisco Campos, who also made the moveable stairs for P-5. Thank you, Don Francisco and thank you, Donna. And congratulations on your new posting in Mexico City!

Sr. Campos and Dr. Brito on top of the pyramid.

Cihuatán's new pyramid access. The late Chepe Salguero, administrator of Cihuatán, is at the foot.

Pastor Gálvez, seen here excavating on the Acropolis in 2005, has taken over as the new administrator of Cihuatán.

Most of FUNDAR's time and energy this past year has been taken up with improvements to the sites of Joya de Cerén, San Andrés, and Cihuatán. The situation was exacerbated by Hurricane Stan, which caused heavy rains with flooding and avalanches throughout southern Mexico and northern Central America.

San Andrés is located right by the río Sucio which overflowed its banks and flooded the 16th century indigo workshop next to the river. Although the park area got wet and the riverside grounds and the open air amphitheater flooded, other buildings and the ruins, which are on high platforms, were not harmed. Doubtless flooding has occurred in antiquity and the people who built San Andrés did not want to have to shovel out their plazas. Some areas of the reconstruction were done many years ago, when the technology for preserving and restoring earthen platforms was in its infancy.These had fortunately all been covered with heavy plastic well before the storms began. The indigo factory needed a extensive modifications to its roof, retaining walls, and suitable drainage and this has been done.

The río Sucio by San Andrés during the heavy rains caused by Hurricane Stan. It overflowed into the indigo factory. Zacharias and the workmen had a huge job cleaning out the indigo pools after the flood subsided.

We even have a nice bilingual sign which explains how the indigo workshop functioned and how indigo is made.

San Andrés is being conserved with a mixture of lime putty and mud, a mixture also being used at Tazumal. Here Zacharias Revene and a workman are pouring in quicklime ( brought in fresh from the lime kilns of Metapán) and mixing it with water, a traditional process knowns as apagar la cal. Useful lime putty results within a few weeks.

We have finished clearing the Great Plaza and its associated buildings, thanks to new chainsaws and a wood chipper. The chips are being used to cover the paths visitors take to see the ancient structures. The Campana structure was also completely cleared and the trails worn into its side by visitors were filled in.

The Great Plaza before and after.

People climbing the Campana had worn trails which then eroded. These have been filled.

The San Andrés park now has lighting around its periphery to discourage looters and other miscreants and flood lights on all entrances of the site museum. The ambulatory vendors have been moved to the paved patio where there is also a small café. This is near the bathrooms and eliminates trash and unsanitary conditions from the ruins area.

The ruins themselves have a new entrance, which is manned. Dogs, radios, picnics, and balls may not be brought into the main ruins area. There had been considerable damage to the structures through ball playing, and dogs and picnickers left a great deal of garbage. There are picnic areas in the shade behind the museum and a large, flat lawn for playing games at its side. San Andrés serves the public as a place for Sunday get-togethers as well as being an important Late Classic archaeological site. The monumental area is fenced with a turnstile gate that does not permit reentry (you can reenter, of course, but you have to go back through the guarded gate, so that you don't try to sneak your dog, etc. into the monumental zone). Finally, we have put in new, bilingual, signs at both sites. In the near future we hope to revamp the site museum and put in more informative, bilingual, texts and labels there as well.

Structure 9, the sweat bath (temescal) is now open to public view.

Joya de Cerén fared well in the bad weather. The river is too far away for it to have been in any danger from flooding. We did have some problems with horizontal seepage, but new drains and stepping the sides of the excavation to prevent damp-induced collapse were suggested by our consulting soils engineer, Sr. Enrique Melara.

We have also completed repair and replacement of roofs and their supports and replaced the hanging bits of cloth and plastic with large panels which filter the sun and protect the ruins while permitting visitors a better view of the excavated structures. New landscaping has also been started and new fencing of the excavations with guarded entries and a turnstile exit like that of San Andrés have been installed. Visitors are only permitted to enter in groups with a guide. Guided tours are available every 15 minutes and reservations can be made in advance for a group tour or one in a language other than Spanish (sorry we don't have any guides who speak Japanese or Chinese yet). Best of all, the excavation which contains the domed sweatbath has now been opened to the public.

Previously workers had tried to protect the ruins by hanging rags and sheets of plastic.

The new panels are a great improvement. Structure 2 is clearly visible in the indirect light coming through the panels.

Sr. Rafael Amaya, the administrador of Joya de Cerén and San Andrés with two of the guides at the new entrance to the archaeological site.

The museum, picnic grounds, and parking area have also had improvements made and new bilingual signs have been installed at the entrance. Guide Merci shows off the new gate and sign.