In Guayaquil, there is a unique place that has been acknowledged as a cultural heritage of Ecuador. It is not just a beautiful square or an ancient building. It is not even a museum or an archaeological site. It is the General Cemetery of Guayaquil, an ancient churchyard with a centuries-long history, located almost in the city center.

The General Cemetery, or, as it is called, the Patrimonial Cemetery, appeared in the city in 1823. That is when, at the foothills of the Cerro del Carmen mountain, the first burial took place. Gradually, the cemetery started growing. And it is still functioning today.

The area occupied by the General Cemetery is almost 170 000 square meters. The complex has 16 beautiful entrance units; each can be considered a separate work of art.

You could walk there forever. It is very much different from most churchyards that you can see in other countries. The Patrimonial Cemetery is more like an open-air museum where magnificent statues of gifted sculptors are displayed.

Many burial places were designed not only by local architects and artists but by foreign specialists as well. In 1820-1840, it was fashionable to hire Italian masters who were the descendants of great geniuses of the Renaissance. Then the fashion switched to the French sculptors.

By the end of the 19th century, the cemetery had grown so big that mausoleums and family vaults mixed with tombs of ordinary people, and it wasn’t considered right. Famous German architect Teodoro Wolf was invited to the city to design the plan of the cemetery, turning it into a city within a city. Since then, the Patrimonial Cemetery acquired central streets and alleys, quarters for the gentlefolk and the poor.

The so-called «bad» tombs were placed aside: burial places of witches and sorcerers, criminals and people who committed suicide. Even now, this part of the cemetery is very different from the main plan of burial places. The locals believe that if all the «bad» people are buried away from the righteous ones, they won’t interfere with them in the afterlife.