Early in the morning of January 23, 1973, the residents of the Icelandic Heimaey Island woke up to the sound of fire engine horns warning them that a huge fissure had opened up across the island, spewing red-hot lava. They evacuated that night. The volcanic eruption went on for five months, burying one third of the island’s buildings in 200 million tons of ash and lava, according to The Daily Mail. A 656-foot volcanic cone - the Eldfell volcano – emerged from the fissure and the lava, when it cooled, enlarged the island by almost a square mile, the newspaper reports.

Today, some of these 400 buried buildings have been exhumed from the ashes by archeologists who began in 2006 to excavate the area near the volcano, reports CNN. These structures have been perfectly preserved, like the ruins of Italy’s Pompeii, according to The Daily Mail.

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Visitors to the island can view up close one of these recovered cottages that was frozen in time, thanks to the Eldheimar museum, which opened in May of this year. According to the museum’s website, Eldheimar means “worlds of fire,” and it was built around the recovered cottage Gerðisbraut 10, which had belonged to Guðni Ólafsson, Gerður Sigurðardóttir and their three children.

Archeologists removed each item one by one to clear way the ash and lava engulfing the home, then placed each one back exactly where it was found, reports The Daily Mail. Other ruins that have been excavated from the volcanic debris have revealed set breakfast tables and piles of folded clothes, writes CNN.

The island actually has two volcanic peaks, the new Eldfell and the older, grass-covered Helgafell volcano. According to The Daily Mail, visitors to this picturesque island can hike the volcanoes and walk through the rocky lava fields of Eldfell, in areas still hot enough to bake bread.