As the repair work at Cliff Palace was limited to the protection of the major antiquities, the smaller objects for the greater part having been removed before our work began, this report deals more especially with the former, the whole ruin being regarded as a great specimen to be preserved in situ.
Very little attention was given to labeling rooms, kivas, and their different parts, the feeling being that this experiment has been sufficiently well carried out at Spruce-tree House, an examination of which would logically precede that of Cliff Palace. Spruce-tree House has been made a "type ruin" from which the tourist can gain his first impression of the major antiquities of the Mesa Verde National Park, and while it was well to indicate on its walls the different features characteristic of these buildings, it would be redundant to carry out the same plan in the other ruins.[21]
No attempt was made to restore the roof of any of the Cliff Palace kivas for the reason that one can gain a good idea of how the roof of a circular kiva is constructed from its restoration in Kiva C of Spruce-tree House, and an effort to roof a kiva of Cliff Palace would merely duplicate what has already been accomplished without adding essentially to our knowledge.
GENERAL PLAN OF CLIFF PALACE
The ground plans of Cliff Palace which have been published were made from surface indications before excavations were undertaken and necessarily do not represent all the rooms. Nordenskiöld's map outlines 17 kivas and 102 rooms, indicating several kivas by dotted lines. The Morley-Kidder map, which represents positions of 18 or 19 kivas, notes 105 secular rooms.[22] Although this ground plan is an improvement on that of Nordenskiöld, it also was based on surface indications and naturally fails to indicate those kivas that were buried under the fallen walls of the terraces. Strangely enough, in Nordenskiöld's ground plan Kiva K is omitted, notwithstanding the tops of one or two pilasters were readily seen before any excavation was made. Neither of these plans distinguishes those buildings that have more than a single story, although they show the parts of walls that extend to the roof. Neither Chapin nor Birdsall published maps of Cliff Palace. (See [pl. 8].)
| BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY | BULLETIN 51 [PLATE 10] |
| TOWER QUARTER, AFTER REPAIRING | TERRACES AT SOUTHERN END, AFTER REPAIRING |
Terraces and Retaining Walls
The terraces in front of the rooms occupying the floor of the cave are characteristic features of Cliff Palace ([pls. 9], [10]). The excavations revealed three of these terraces, of which the floor of the cave is the fourth. This fourth terrace, or cave floor, is in the main horizontal, but on account of the accumulated talus the slope from the southern end of the portion in front of kiva G was gradual and continued at about this level to the northern end of the ruin. This slope brought it about that kivas in the terraces are at different levels. The floors of kivas H and I lie on about the level of the first terrace, that of G on the terrace above, and F lies on the third terrace; the remaining kivas are all excavated in the cave floor, or fourth terrace. From the main entrance to the ruin, extending northward, there are representations of the second and third terraces, both of which extend to the cliff in front of kiva U. It is probable from the general appearance of the ruin that when all the terraces and walls were intact Cliff Palace was also terraced with houses along the front, which recalls architectural features in certain cliff-dwellings in Canyon de Chelly.