A Dominican church that’s more than 400 years old has emerged from Mexico’s Benito Juarez Dam after a severe drought rapidly drained it of water, reducing its total capacity to just 16 percent.

This isn’t as magical or as rare as it sounds, however, as the erstwhile temple – which was purposefully flooded in 1962 as the dam was being built – partially reemerges every year during the warmer months when the mercury rises and precipitation rates drop off.

As reported by Istmo Press, the last complete emergence happened in 2008, when a particularly strong drought uncovered the entirety of the church for the first time in nearly half a century. This latest incidence will be the third such time it has made it all the way out of the receding waters.

^{Drone footage of the recently emerged church. Ruptly TV via YouTube}

Plenty of families had to be relocated during the construction of the dam, so any relatives still alive today see the reappearance of the church as a sign of times long gone, lost to the mechanized development of the world.

This church, once upon a time, was the centerpiece of a religious community, with several smaller convents once found to be orbiting around it.

[H/T: RT]