Chaco Canyon is where the Navajo, Hopi, and Pueblo people went for big gatherings, celebrations, and parties. Today we went to the most famous and biggest ruin called Pueblo Bonito, which translates to “beautiful town” in Spanish. Pueblo Bonito was built in 850 A.D. and was abandoned in 1250 A.D. The duration of the time it took to build this ruin was about 300 years. From 850 – mid-1100s A.D. and the architecture is different in places due to the many generations that kept building, and kept finding new and better ways to build.
During Pueblo Bonito’s time in use, only about 150 people lived in this massive place full time. But when there was a special event happening, which was seasonal, about 6000 people would be able to gather comfortably. But only about 1500 people would be able to fit in the 100 rooms built in the structure. The rest would dwell in the surrounding structures.
One of the biggest points that I loved was the plaza. Or what was left of it. A big part of this plaza was the kiva. A kiva is a big circular pit with a stone bench as a rim at the bottom. Also at the bottom of the pit are always 3 or more fire pits. The kiva was also covered with wooden beams, limestone slabs of rock, and plaster to keep it all together. Though at the top there was a hole to let the smoke come out. To get into a kiva, you would enter through a small door at the bottom. The ruin was old enough that it had sand covering it, we couldn’t enter through the doors. The roof was gone so we got to see inside the kiva.
Another interesting point we discovered was that the people who lived here were very short. About 2 – 4 feet tall. Which also meant the doors were very short. There were at least 4 different types of doors used in Pueblo Bonito. Small doors with high sills, like window sills, large doors with low sills, corner doorways which were very uncommon, and T-shaped doors. My favorite door was the large door with the low sills, though that’s only because I am very tall. 🙂