There is now no soot on the ceiling of the largest fifth-story room. Presumably it was very black at one time, but the large numbers of bats which cling there in the warm months have probably rubbed the soot off through years of continuous use. They have long occupied the room, for pioneers found 4 feet of droppings covering the floor.
An interesting feature of this room is what appears to have been a shelf. Timbers projecting from the walls were covered with a layer of poles and sticks and over this a layer of mud.
On the wall of another room is an interesting pictograph incised in the mud plaster. This roughly rectangular figure measures about 6 by 8 inches, and is laid off into 4 sections by lines that intersect at the center. In the upper left quarter and the lower right quarter are vertical wavy lines that suggest water.
Sixty yards west of Montezuma Castle, on a lower ledge, was a cluster of 6 or 8 rooms. The walls have all collapsed and only a few traces of foundation and fallen building stones indicate the location of these homes.
The next settlement down the creek west of the Castle was once a 6-story building with perhaps 40 rooms. This was not a cliff dwelling, but a structure built against the base of the cliff. The roofs were burned and all the walls collapsed, leaving only a great heap of rubble. Evidently part of the building was abandoned long before it burned, for archeologists found that charred roof timbers had fallen on some floors already covered with drifted sand and dust. This ruin was excavated in 1933-34 under the direction of Archeologist Earl Jackson. Many artifacts were brought to light and are now exhibited in the museum. These are of the same type as those found in the Castle, and both places must have been occupied at the same time. Probably no more than 300 Indians lived in the neighborhood of the Castle at any one time—somewhat more than the maximum population at Montezuma Well.
Metates and manos, and burned ceiling beams as found in excavated ruin at cliff base west of Montezuma Castle.
Montezuma Well
The appeal of Montezuma Well consists largely in the sudden vision of a lake and large trees inside a barren hill in a dry region. This limestone sinkhole (or solution basin) in which a large spring flows is an unusual geological feature of considerable scientific interest.
In 1871 a U. S. Geological Survey party visited the Well. Although they thought themselves the first to explore it, they found a paper collar on the floor of a nearby cave dwelling! The area was first brought to public attention by Richard J. Hinton in his Handbook to Arizona, published in 1878.