The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona: Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1894-95, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1897, pages 73-198Mindeleff, Cosmos
History
The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona: Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1894-95, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1897, pages 73-198
Mindeleff, Cosmos
Arizona -- Antiquities; Chelly, Canyon de (Ariz.); Cliff-dwellings -- Arizona; Pueblo Indians -- Antiquities
Roofing or flooring beams project from the tower on three sides. They
are all rounded and carefully selected or matched. Those of the lower
story or first roof are 41/2 inches in diameter, those of the story above
about 3 inches, while those of the roof, which occur in pairs, are about
21/2 inches. They all, except those of the lower story, project about
2 feet from the wall. All the beams are from 18 inches to 2 feet apart,
and the roof is formed of canes or willow sticks less than half an inch
in diameter laid very neatly in patterns. The work here is by far the
best in any part of the canyon. The beams of the first floor are
represented only by the ends which pass through the walls, the middle
portion being gone.
The cliff wall forming one side of the rooms in the tower was coated
with a wash of yellowish clay to correspond with the other sides. It
shows bare rock at the points where the floors abutted against it. The
roof of the second story or middle room was 10 inches thick, and the
marks are on the same level as those of the rooms over the west of the
tower. There are also beam holes in the third story about 4 feet above
its floor, but extending only from the cliff out to its opening.
A singular feature occurs in the tower, which is difficult to explain.
The upper part of the third-story room was coated in the interior with
whitewash, which appears to have been carelessly applied. Small
quantities struck the setback at the floor level and spattered over the
wall below--that of the second-story room. In one case a considerable
quantity of the whitewash struck the top of a beam in what would be the
roof of the second story and scattered over the wall surface below it.
It is therefore clear that at the time when the whitewash was applied,
which was either at the time or subsequent to the habitation of the
rooms, there was no floor to the third-story room nor roof to the second
story. The stains of whitewash never go below the floor level of the
second story.
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