Home / Keyword Architecture 284
- Castle A, Lower Ruins
Subject: Castle A, Lower Ruins. Date: December, 1955 Collection: WACC: Montezuma Castle/Well. - Cliff Dwelling, 1898 or 1903
Subject: North rim cliff dwellings, Montezuma Well. Date: 1989 or 1903 Collection: WACC: Montezuma Castle/Well. - Beaver Creek, 1902
Subject: Overview of Beaver Creek flowing through Montezuma Castle National Monument. Several cavate dwellings are visible in the cliff face overlooking the creek. Date: 1902 Collection: WACC: Montezuma Castle/Well. - Barn at Montezuma Well, 1947
Subject: The barn at Montezuma Well. Date: June 8, 1947 Collection: WACC: Montezuma Castle/Well. - Betatakin Alcove
Description: Betatakin Alcove, Navajo National Monument. Date: 2009 Collection: Navajo National Monument. - View from the Inside
View from the inside of the "ready-made" room. - Grant Negative 20
Subject: Montezuma Well, showing the cliff dwellings on the North Rim; taken from above. Date: ca. mid-1940s Collection: WACC: Montezuma Castle/Well. - Visitor climbing to see the Castle ruins, 1946
Subject: A visitor carrying a small child up the third ladder to the Castle ruins. This photo was used by Monument staff to inform visitors of the potential for accidents when climbing the ladders used to provide access to the ruin before 1951, when tours of the interior were no longer allowed because of damage to the structure and safety concerns. Date: April, 1946 Collection: WACC: Montezuma Castle/Well. - Plaza
The open plaza area may have been the hub of village life and work. Ethnographic evidence suggests most activities were gender specific, and everyone contributed. Children learned by watching, listening, then doing. Surely there were no idle hands. Women worked clay into necessary utensils. They mortared the pueblo, knowing clay as they did. As the herbalists, gatherers, and protectors of stored crops and seeds, women were vital to the community. Men hunted and farmed. The entire growing season may have been spent away from home tending fields. Winter brought with it time to weave. Fine cotton textiles and abundant tools suggest weaving was an important, highly developed skill at Wupatki. "...the man cultivates the field, but he renders its harvests into the woman's keeping." -A Hopi view of the community, 1894 "No woman ever sat at the Hopi looms. The men were expert weavers; they wove diligently all winter long in the various kivas. Hopi woven items were known far and wide, and people of other tribes came to barter for them." -Helen Sekaquaptewa, from "Me and Mine" - Community Room
The reconstructed circular structure below you resembles a great kiva, a special room used for rituals and ceremonies. However, excavators found no evidence of a roof or other floor features typical of a kiva. Archeologists speculate that this open-air community room could have served as a central gathering place. Imagine voices carrying to others assembled on the pueblo roof tops. People may have come from nearby and distant villages to participate in ceremonies held here. Maybe rituals focused the community and solved problems, or served to redistribute materials and food. - Nearby Homes
The extent of this community is not obvious, but hundreds of small family dwellings surround us forming a cluster. Another cluster exists on the uplands to the west (where you may visit Citadel and Lomaki Pueblos). We don't know if the Wupatki and Citadel communities were autonomous, cooperatives, or competitors. From this point, you can see two other nearby homes. These sites are not open to visitation.
"We found... all the prominent points occupied by the ruins of stone houses of considerable size... They are evidently the remains of a large town, as they occurred at intervals for an extent of eight or nine miles and the ground was thickly strewed with pottery in all directions." -Journal entry, Sitgreaves Expedition, October 8, 1851 - Ballcourt Interpretative Panel
This depiction of a ball game is based on descriptions of games played by the Mayan and Aztec cultures of Mexico and speculations on the Hohokam games in southern Arizona.
Ballcourts were common in southern Arizona from A.D. 750 to 1200, but relatively rare here in the northern part of the state. This suggests that the people of Wupatki intermingled within their southern Arizona neighbors – the Hohokam – who may have borrowed and modified the ballcourt idea from earlier contact with the Indian cultures of Mexico. Located along major natural drainages and travel routes, ballcourts may have provided opportunities for social exchange between villages. They were often within a one-day walk of a neighboring village. There is continued speculation about the uses of the ballcourts. Because of the work involved in building a ballcourt and the numbers that have been found (over 200 in Arizona), ball games may have been an important part of life for the people of Wupatki and their southern neighbors. The Hohokam balls – found at archaeological sites containing ballcourts – were made of carefully shaped rock and perhaps covered with pin pitch or other material. One form of the game might have involved moving the ball toward a goal using a curved stick.
The Wupatki ballcourt is 78 feet wide, 102 feet long, and had a 6-foot-high wall. Excavated and stabilized in 1965, a large part of the interior wall has been reconstructed. - Sunset Crater and Wupatki
The black cinders blanketing the ground remain from the eruption of nearby Sunset Crater volcano some time between 1040 and 1100. The settlement of Wupatki followed but it's uncertain if there was a direct cause and effect. People may have been drawn by the eruption and stayed. Or, perhaps those displaced by the eruption moved to this lower elevation. However, as many as three generations may have passed before anyone decided to live here. We do know that ash from the eruption, in a thin uniform layer, retained precious soil moisture providing a window of improved farming potential in this semi-arid landscape. - Grant Negative 21
Subject: Close view of the north rim cliff dwellings at Montezuma Well. Date: ca. mid-1940s Collection: WACC: Montezuma Castle/Well. - A Possible Kiva
This room, on the southeastern corner of the pueblo, is one of the largest in the village, yet no household tools or utensils were found inside. This suggests it was a special space, perhaps a ceremonial room known as a kiva. However, a kiva would have a single bench on the north side of the room. There is no record of this, but early excavations may have missed such a feature. In a village this size, one or two kivas would have been expected. They may have been used for the private aspects of ritual, while the larger, open community room served public ceremonies. Today, rectangular clan kivas persist in Hopi villages, while larger, round community kivas endure in the eastern Pueblos. Kivas are an integral part of Puebloan society and remain a cultural trait that can be traced from past to present.
Compare the possible kiva to the room to the left. Note the size difference? The inset shows the interior hearth (firepit) and deflector.