Cliff dwelling details

Gila_Cliff_dwelling_roof.jpg

That picture is not just a visual texture. It’s the roof of Cave 3 at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument (natural light; no flash). It took lots of smudge and smoke to get that sooty coating on the stone (although some has flaked away). Realizing this may be of little interest to you, Gentle Reader, I include a second picture.

Gila_Cliff_dwelling_maqueta.jpg

This is a top-down view of a model of the linked rooms in this same complex, dating to the late AD 1200s. What’s especially interesting is the chain of rooms built across the inside/back (top) wall of the natural caves, and that they all have connecting doorways. This means that people in front had no way of knowing whether people were traversing the back of the cave, perhaps to heighten surprise during a ceremony viewed by an audience in the front of the cave?

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