"Montezuma's Castle"

It has nothing to do with Montezuma, nor is it really a castle.

It is a five story apartment-like building which starts about five stories up a cliff.

 

 

   
   

This site was recorded by three different Spanish invaders in the 1500's, but they weren't interested. It wasn't visited again until the 1800's. It overlooks the river and the valley. There were ground level pueblos all around but they are in nearly complete ruins. The site has been "stabilized" and only slightly rebuilt but appears as it did to those Spanish looking for gold.

It was abandoned by it's inhabitants - no one knows their name so we call them "The Sinagua" (Spanish for "without water") - like many of the ruins we visited - around 1250. There is a great deal of disagreement over why and how. These people were not "primitive savages," nor were they ethnically homogenous. They had an advanced trade route of over a 1500 miles south to the mezzo- Americans of present day Mexico and probably the Maya.