Aztec Ruins
When we stopped at the Farmington Visitor Bureau on Wednesday, they suggested that we add the Aztec Ruins National Monument to our plans. We're glad we took their advice.
Aztec Ruins National Monument was inhabited about the same time as Chaco Canyon and has the only restored Kiva in the world. The ruins are actually ancestral Pueblo ruins and have nothing to do with the Aztecs from Mexico who lived hundreds of years before the Aztecs prospered.
The park is very small, but the Kiva was worth the trip. We've often seen ruins of kivas at places like Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon, but you don't get a feel for what they were really like unless you're actually in one. We've seen the fire pits, the fire stone, the vaults, etc., found in most of the kivas, but walking into this restored kiva provided a whole new perspective. We saw how the four pillars supported the roof and how giant timbers were used as a framework for the smaller poles, bark, etc., that formed the roof. They estimated the roof for the kiva they rebuilt at Aztec Ruins weighed about 94 tons. That took some serious engineering know-how from the ancestral Pueblos in the early 1100's. Seeing the rock ledge that went all the way around the inside of the kiva made it easy to visualize families sitting together and watching what was going on in the center of the kiva. The thin windows provided some light into the kiva, but it was subdued at best. Everything about the kiva gave it a solemn feel.
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Although the ruins covered a relatively small area, there were over 400 rooms. Some sections were three-stories tall. Most of the rooms and the smaller kivas "walled in" the central plaza and the main kiva. It's easy to imagine the people milling around the central plaza in the evenings to escape the heat in the surrounding living structures.
The masonry work was similar in style to Chaco Canyon, but the artistry found in the great houses of Chaco Canyon is missing from the walls at Aztec Ruin. The rock is more uniform in color at Aztec Ruins and doesn't have the patterns and contrast that made the walls at Chaco Canyon such works of art.
We enjoyed Aztec Ruins, but it is no replacement for seeing Chaco Canyon. It is another settlement on the journey of the Pueblo People that included Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. The Aztec Ruins location along the Animas River with its accompanying riparian environment would have been an easier life for the people, but Chaco Canyon was another level of amazing.
We finished the day with grilled salmon, a trip to Best Buy to purchase additional storage devices for all our images,
and dessert at the Dairy Queen. The Dairy Queen was almost right on the way home, so how could we pass it up?
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