Cliff Palace

“ The larger the number of kivas relatively to secular rooms the older the ruin. Long House would be regarded as older than Cliff Palace, and Cliff Palace older than Spruce-tree House, Balcony House being the most modern and the last of the four to be deserted. A cliff-dwelling with a kiva but without secular rooms is rare, and one with secular rooms but without kivas is likewise unusual. ”

“ The primary thought has been to increase the educational value of Cliff Palace by attracting tourists and students of archeology.
The reader is reminded that from the nature of the work at Cliff Palace very few specimens can be expected from it in the future, and that so far as the minor antiquities are concerned the objective material from this ruin is now all deposited in public museums or in private collections. Additional specimens can be obtained, however, from other ruins near it which will throw light on the culture of Cliff Palace. ”

“ Not a single entire roof remained in Cliff Palace, and only one or two rooms retained remnants of rafters. It would seem, however, from the position of the holes in the walls into which the rafters once extended that they were constructed like those of Spruce-tree House, a good example of which is shown in plate 9 of the report on that ruin. The floors seem to have been formed of clay hardened by tramping, but there is no evidence of paving with flat stones. The hardened adobe is sometimes laid on sticks without bark and stamped down. ”

“ In the Cliff Palace, the rooms lie on different levels, the ground occupied by them being very rough. In several places terraces have been constructed in order to procure a level foundation, and here as in their other architectural labours, the cliff-dwellers have displayed considerable skill.
One very remarkable circumstance in the Cliff Palace is that all the pieces of timber, all the large rafters, have disappeared. The holes where they passed into the walls may still be seen, but throughout the great block of ruins two or three large beams are all that remain. ”

“ An examination of Cliff Palace cave shows that from the southern end to the section over the main entrance its roof arches upward and that the part over the rear of the ruin is lower than that over its front. Between the lower and upper roof levels there is a sharp break formed by a vertical cleavage plane. Where this plane joins the upper level there is a shelf forming a recess in which has been constructed a row of ledge rooms. ”

“ View of the south section of the CLIFF PALACE from the point where visitors are met by the ranger-archaeologist, who here outlines what is known about the life and culture of the ancient inhabitants.
THE ROUND TOWER is one of the most perfectly built of all the architectural features of Cliff Palace. Individual blocks were curved by chipping with stone axes. ”

“ A visitor to Cliff Palace in the dry season can hardly imagine the amount of rain that occasionally falls during the summer months, and it is difficult for him to appreciate the destructive force it exerts when precipitated over the cliff. When Cliff Palace was occupied, damage to walls could be immediately repaired by the inhabitants after every torrent, but as the ruin remained for centuries uninhabited and without repair, the extent of the destruction was great. ”

“ Because of its location visitors are able to get better views of Cliff Palace than of any of the other cliff dwellings. Several points on the opposite rim of the canyon offer striking distant views and the high cliffs at each end of the cave are perfectly located for spectacular closeups.
Seen from any angle Cliff Palace is a magnificent structure and visitors sometimes have difficulty in believing that it is real. Here in the midst of a vast wilderness of canyons is this great ruin, sheltered for seven centuries by the enormous cave. ”

“ Long ago the people of Two-Story House were neighbors of the people of Cliff Palace, the great cliff dwelling toward which we are moving. To them it must have been a metropolis, a great city, the largest they ever knew. It took only an hour for them to trot up the canyon to the larger community. Often the men of the little village must have slung their prized possessions over their shoulders and set out for Cliff Palace on trading and gambling expeditions. ”

“ Cliff Palace, with its 23 kivas and more than 200 rooms is, of course, the largest, but originally Long House may have been a close rival in size. Long House was so badly knocked about by the early explorers that it is impossible even to estimate how large it once was. Certainly it was second in size. The other two that fall into this group are Spruce Tree House and Spring House. Excavation and careful counting of rooms would perhaps add one or two more to this group but at present one can not be certain. ”

“ In one or two architectural features Cliff Palace is unique, although sharing with other cliff-houses of the Mesa Verde National Park many minor characters. The first difference between Cliff Palace and Spruce-tree House, outside of the disparity in their size and the relatively large proportion of secular to ceremonial rooms in the latter, is the existence in the former of terraces and retaining walls. Spruce-tree House is built on one level, above which rise the secular houses while below are the ceremonial rooms or kivas. ”

“ These survivals occur mostly in myths and religious cult objects, and are the last to be abandoned when man changes his environment.
It is believed that one advantage of a series of monographic descriptions of these ruins is found in the fact that the characteristics of individual ruins being known, more accurate generalizations concerning the entire culture will later be made possible by comparative studies. There is an individuality in Cliff Palace, not only in its architecture but also in a still greater measure in the symbolism of the pottery decoration. ”

“ The argument that cliff dwellers in the neighborhood built Sun Temple and that incoming aliens had nothing to do with its construction seems very strong. The architectural differences between it and Cliff Palace are not objections, for the architectural form of Sun Temple may be regarded as a repetition, in the open, of a form of building that developed in a cliff house; the rounded north wall conforms with the rear of a cave and the straight south wall reproduces the front of a cliff dwelling. ”

“ It contains all varieties of inclosures known in cliff-dwellings: kivas of two types, round rooms, rectangular rooms, an alley or a street, and a court. The floor of the cave on which the rooms are built is broadest at this point, which is one of the best protected sites and the least accessible to enemies in the whole building. It may be theoretically supposed that originally the kiva quarter was an annex of this section and that some of the kivas in this quarter may also have been owned and used by the clans which founded Cliff Palace. ”

“ Nothing was found to indicate that Cliff Palace was inhabited during the historic period. The inhabitants were not acquainted with metals brought by white men to the Southwest. The absence of glass and of glazed pottery is also significant. No sheep, horses, or other beasts of burden paid them tribute. In fact, there is no evidence that they had ever heard of white men. These ruins belong to the stone age in America and show no evidence of white man's culture. ”

“ The population of Cliff Palace was composed of many clans, more or less distinct and independent, which were rapidly being amalgamated by marriage; so we may regard the population as progressing toward a homogeneous community. Cliff Palace was practically a pueblo built in a cave; its population grew from both without and within: new clans from time to time joined those existing, while new births continually augmented the number of inhabitants. ”

“ Some of the early writers gave Richard Wetherill credit for christening it but in later years John Wetherill gave the credit to Charles Mason. In all probability we shall never know who deserves the credit but we may feel sure the name indicates the feelings those early explorers had about the greatest of all cliff dwellings.
Cliff Palace was the name they gave it, an inspiring name for the greatest structure the Mesa Verde people ever built. It is not especially appropriate for the great ruin was never a palace. Instead, it was a small city, the dwelling place of hundreds of people. ”

“ As you look at Cliff Palace today, it is difficult to see it as it was when it was alive. Many of the walls have fallen and only small bits of masonry remain as indications of houses that once were there. Rebuild these walls in your imagination and then, most important of all, place flat adobe roofs on the houses. ”

“ To understand the general plan of Cliff Palace it is necessary to take into consideration the method of formation and the configuration of the cave floor on which the ruin stands. This cave, as already stated, was formed by erosion or undercutting the softer rock at a lower level than the massive sandstone, leaving huge blocks of stone above the eroded cavities. ”

“ These specimens are now in the United States National Museum, where they [10] form the nucleus of a collection from Cliff Palace. The increasing interest, local and national, in the prehistoric culture of the Southwest and the influence of these antiquities in attracting visitors to localities where they exist, furnish a reason for considering in some detail various other questions of general interest connected with cliff-dwellings that naturally suggest themselves to those interested in the history of man in America. ”

“ The arch was unknown to the masons of Cliff Palace; there are no pillars to support floors or roofs as in Spruce-tree House. It is not rare, especially in the kivas, to find instances of double or reenforced walls which may or may not be bonded by connecting stones.
The masonry of the kivas as a rule is superior to that of the secular rooms. The mortar employed in the construction is hard; the joints are chinked with spalls, fragments of pottery, or clay balls. The fact that much more mortar than was necessary was employed resulted in weakening the walls. Several walls were laid without mortar ”

“ The symbols on the Cliff Palace pottery are reducible to rectangular geometrical figures; life forms, with the rare exceptions noted above, are not represented, and the exceptional examples are crude. ”

“ Anyone who will examine the amount of stone-cutting necessary to lower the floor of kiva V, for instance, to its present depth, or to peck away the projecting rock in some of the other kivas, will realize at once that the Cliff Palace people were industrious stone workers. ”

“ As we walk into Cliff Palace we find it at the very peak of its development. For generations it has been growing until now it fills the great sheltering cave. There are over two hundred one-room houses in the city; they fill the cave from end to end and rise in terraces to a height of three and even four stories. At the south end and again at the north end the terraced structures rise to touch the cave roof.
Scattered about the city are twenty-three kivas, the underground ceremonial chambers. Their flat roofs serve as courts where many of the activities take place. ”

“ Although this kiva is placed provisionally in the second type mainly because of these lofty side walls, on account of its isolation at the end of Cliff Palace several observers have not regarded it as belonging to the ruin. Neither Nordenskiöld nor Morley and Kidder included it in their ground plans, nor does Nordenskiöld mention it in his enumeration of Cliff Palace kivas.
As kiva W is almost wholly unprotected by the cave roof, its walls have greatly suffered from the downpour of rains to which they are exposed. The masonry is fairly good. ”

“ The sills of doors were commonly placed a foot or more above the floor [33] ; transoms above the door opening and peepholes at the side are not common in Cliff Palace. In some cases a stepping-stone projects from the wall below the door opening to facilitate entrance; in others a foot hole is found in the same relative place. ”

“ No sooner had they clambered up the cliff than they discerned the tall marble towers of the palace, ascending, as white as snow, out of the lovely green shadow of the trees which surrounded it. A gush of smoke came from a chimney in the rear of the edifice. The vapor rose high in the air, and, meeting with a breeze, was wafted seaward, and made to pass over the heads of the hungry mariners. When people's appetites are keen, they have a very quick scent for anything savory in the wind. ”

“ The main entrance to the village opens into this plaza at its northwestern corner, and on the northern side it is continued into a court which connects with the main street or alley of the cliff village. From its position, relations, and other considerations, it is supposed that this quarter was an important section of Cliff Palace and that here were held some of the large open-air gatherings of the inhabitants of the place; here also no doubt were celebrated the sacred dances which we have every reason to believe were at times performed by the former inhabitants. ”

“ Primarily archeology is a study of the expression of human intelligence, and it must be continually borne in mind that Cliff Palace was once the home of men and women whose minds responded to their surroundings. ”

“ On the theory that this building was erected by people from several neighboring cliff dwellings for ceremonies held in common, we may suppose that the builders came daily from their dwellings in Cliff Palace and other houses and returned at night, after they had finished work, to their homes. The trails down the sides of the cliffs which the workmen used are still to be seen. The place was frequented by many people, but there is no evidence that any one clan dwelt near this mysterious building during its construction. ”