Casa Grande Ruin: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 289-318Mindeleff, Cosmos
History
Casa Grande Ruin: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 289-318
Mindeleff, Cosmos
Arizona -- Antiquities; Casa Grande National Monument (Ariz.); Hohokam architecture; Indians of North America -- Arizona
The upper opening in the eastern wall of the eastern room was apparently
capped with a single lintel composed of five sticks 4 to 6 inches in
diameter laid level on the top of a course of masonry. The bottom of the
opening is filled either with washed-down material or with the remains
of a block such as that previously described. This opening is the most
irregular one in the building, the top being nearly 4 inches narrower
than the bottom, but the northern side of the opening is vertical, the
southern side only being inclined inward. The opening was 4 feet 11
inches high and 1 foot 81/2 inches wide at the bottom. The opening
immediately below that described, which was the ground floor entrance
from the east, is so much broken out that no evidence remains of its
size and character. There appears to have been only one row of lintel
poles.
The eastern opening in the southern wall of the northern room is well
preserved, the lintels having been torn out by relic hunters without
much destruction of the surrounding masonry. It was neatly finished, and
its bottom, was probably a little above the first roof level. The edges
of the openings were made straight with flat sticks, either used as
implements or incorporated into the structure, and forming almost
perfectly straight edges. Marks of the same method of construction or
finish are apparent in all the other openings, but the remains are not
so well preserved as in this instance. Possibly the immediate lintels of
openings were formed of thin flat sticks, as the lintel poles are often
some inches above the top of the opening. In this opening the supporting
lintel was formed of a number of poles 2 to 4 inches in diameter,
irregularly placed, sometimes two or three in vertical series with very
little filling between them. This construction has been characterized as
a Norman arch. The opening was originally 1 foot 11 inches at the top
and 4 feet 6 inches high. The bottom is 11/2 inches wider than the top.
The upper opening in the western end of the southern wall is much like
that just described. A small fragment of masonry above the lintel
remains, and this is within a quarter of an inch of the top of the
opening. Above the opening there was a series of rough lintel poles, 3
to 5 inches in diameter, arranged in three tiers with 4 to 6 inches of
filling between them. Prints of these sticks are left in the wall and
show that some of them were quite crooked. Probably they were of
mesquite, obtained from the immediate vicinity. The edges of the
openings were finished with flat sticks, like those described, and its
bottom was 6 inches to a foot above the floor. The height of the opening
was 4 feet 3 inches and its width at the top 2 feet, at the bottom 2
feet 11/2 inches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account