In a trip to New Mexico, we found ourselves at the Aztec Ruins National Monument. It’s located near the north-western border along the Animas River, and what an impressive site. Of course, its name is a misnomer attributed to by Spanish explorers calling many things “Aztec” while encountering ancient sites. The name stuck as it became popularized in the 19^th century. The site itself is Puebloan in nature, dating back to the 11^th century to the 13^th century when its people left. But as we entered the site and followed its guide, I found that descendants of the site’s ancestral Puebloans were maintaining its culture and spiritual ties.

The people and culture are enriched with content that a single post wouldn’t do it justice, but I want to dive into something more specific: its architecture, which is something I specialized in researching for my thesis. I hope to acquire some of your interest to check the site out for yourselves.

Right, so there are many components to describe architecture. It’s not just differently shaped buildings, a discussion of architecture also the purposes for these differently shaped buildings, what they are made from. Are there differences in composition from one building to another, if so why? Were the placement of some of these buildings have importance? And actually, I found I could answer all these questions.

Let’s start with the main one, and one of the first that you get to meet when you check out their guided tour: the Great Kiva of the Great House. It served as the site’s religious core, so it was incredibly central to its community as well as multifunctional.

And “central” isn’t just metaphoric. Great Kivas were generally in a central location like in the village’s plaza or in a location where it was highly visible. I think I may have seen another Great Kiva at the Taos Pueblo (130 mi east-southeast of the Aztec Ruins in a straight line, about 185 miles driving distance). I don’t remember the one at Taos being as big as this one, but surely it was big enough to be considered one. Meaning, not all Great Kivas are the same, but they should share many features: its large size for one to distinguish itself from other kivas, a central fire pit, Great Kivas also have four pillars as well as floor vaults.

Seeing the cylindrically-shaped structure with its pillars and a primary use for ceremonies or religion gave me fond memories of researching the dome-shaped tholoi and vatadage of Greece and Sri Lanka. Obviously, the structures I studied have significant differences from these Kivas, but I couldn’t help enjoying myself staring at the architecture of the Great Kiva. 

The Great Kiva could have accommodated a variety of ceremonies that may have brought together multiple clans, which is one theory I was told during the tour, or housing a medicine society, too. It’s clear that a Great Kiva is multi-functional, clearly used by the entire town. In contrast to the architecture I studied, the tholoi and vatadage were very clear in what they were used for.

But I didn’t just learn and look into the usages of kivas, my research led me into an interest of the architecture itself: the components of the structure as well as the material composition, too.