Ceremonial Platform, Excavated at Guayabo, 1968

Guayabo National Monument, Costa Rica

If you are traveling to Costa Rica and have a special interest in archeology,  take some time and visit Guayabo National Monument,  near the town of Turrialba, located  east of San Jose.

This is not yet a tourist destination and the infra structure to get there is not very good, but the Costa Rican department of Culture is very interested  in improving this and the first step it is taking is to construct an elevated walkway the entire length of the monument.

The first major scientific excavation done here was in 1968, and the National Museum directors tell us that the objects excavated are now in storage.  Not much work is going on there now as far as further scientific work.

Here we find the ruins of an ancient city named Guayabo, inhabited from around 1000 BC to around 1400 AD, when it mysteriously was abandoned.  Perhaps as many as 10,000 inhabitants lived here.  What we see are stone paths, aquaducts,   and circular platforms with carved stone designs.  The prehistory  and significance of this monument is not well known.

In 2009 Guayabo was declared an International Historic Civil Engineering Land Mark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.