In the autumn of 1904 I visited the ruins for the purpose of taking photographs and found a party of three pottery-hunters camped near the Balcony House. A part of their firewood that evening consisted of precious beams from this ancient house.
For many years the visitors to the Mesa Verde noticed a huge tree-grown mound on the rim of the cañon-wall, directly opposite the Cliff Palace. A few dressed stones, apparently the corner of a wall, thrust above the surface of this mound. Probably there was a building beneath it. Behind and enveloping it lay a forest of low-growing and limby piñon pines and cedars. Over all was the ever-present and brooding mystery of the deserted Mesa Verde.
In July, 1915, Dr. Fewkes put a crew of men to work excavating the mound. As a result of their labors, a prehistoric stone building now stands in the sunshine. It is the shape of the capital letter D. Its straight front, which faces southward, measures one hundred and thirty-two feet; its semicircular back, two hundred and forty-five feet.
Plainly, it was built to a preconceived plan. There was no patchwork, no inharmonious combination. Precisely midway in the south wall was a recess. In another recess near the southwest corner was a fossil palm leaf. This strikingly resembles the rays of the sun, and together with a figure of the sun in the floor, suggests that the building was a Sun Temple. There is nothing to indicate that it was used or intended to be used as a dwelling-place.
The masonry is the best thus far found on the Mesa. It was laid with mortar of tough, enduring clay. The stones of the walls and partitions were small and were cut, many polished, and a few decorated. The figures on a number of these decorated stones consist of triangles, and one is the outline of a typical cliff-house doorway. The outer walls are double. None have outside openings. Perhaps the entrances to the building were either through the roof or by means of subterranean passageways from the face of the cliff just in front and beneath.
In the mound upon the ruins of this building was found a living tree that was more than three hundred and sixty years old. A long period, perhaps several hundred years, must have been required for the earthen mound to accumulate upon the ruins, and then three hundred and sixty years for the tree to grow. Apparently the Sun Temple must have been abandoned several hundred years ago, perhaps about the year 1300. It appears never to have been occupied, and probably was in process of being completed when it was abandoned.
The so-called Cliff Palace in Cliff Cañon is centrally located in the Mesa Verde National Park. This was a stone structure more than three hundred feet long and with more than two hundred rooms. It appears to have been built in sections or installments, not to any consecutive plan. As a result, in this one building there are a number of types of architecture. In one section there is a huge square tower four stories high; in an adjoining section, a large well-built round tower. This building probably was a home for scores of people. There were mill rooms in which corn was ground, storerooms, ceremonial rooms, probably rooms used in religious worship, and other rooms called "kivas," which appear to have been used much of the time by the men as lounging-places. Fireplaces were scattered throughout the building. Many of the walls were of cut stone, and some were plastered and adorned with paintings. Paint still shows on a number of walls.
This park contains other large stone structures and hundreds of smaller cliff ruins. Among the buildings, besides the Cliff Palace, are the Spruce Tree House, the Balcony House, the Tunnel House, and numerous buildings upon the surface. Near Mummy Lake are a number of large, tree-grown mounds, similar to the recently excavated one that covered the Sun Temple. Beneath each of these is a buried stone structure. Here, apparently, is a buried city.