Puerco Pueblo

When most people hear/read the word “pueblo”, I’m sure they imagine the more famous pueblos of New Mexico. This pueblo is different, perfect for those with a fear of heights or who don’t care to climb ladders. 🙂 If this were built where we live now, it would be called a “multi-family building” AKA apartment building. From the park website:

A series of droughts in the 1200s, during the Pueblo IV period, led ancestral Puebloan people to move away from small, scattered hamlets and instead build large pueblo communities. The Village on the Rio Puerco (or Puerco Pueblo, for short) is a 100+ room pueblo site located near the Puerco River, a major drainage that bisects the park. The river would have been a reliable source of water for crops. Farming of corn, beans, and squash took place on the floodplains and terraces along the river. The river also made a natural travel corridor, meaning travelers and traders frequented Puerco Pueblo, carrying new ideas as well as goods.

To most pueblo people, a kiva was a large circular underground room used for religious/spiritual ceremonies and rites as well as for meetings.

Again from the website:

At its largest size, around 1300, Puerco Pueblo may have been home to about 200 people. The one-story high village of hand-shaped sandstone blocks was built around a rectangular plaza. The rooms were living quarters and storage, but most activity, like cooking and craftmaking, took place in the plaza. There were also several underground rooms, called kivas, where ceremonial practices took place. There were no doors or windows in the plaster-covered exterior walls of the pueblo. Entry into the village was by ladders over the wall and across the log, brush, and mud roofs of the room blocks.

Ok, they had ladders but nothing like the ones in the New Mexican pueblos or the cliff dwellings.

The sun at the summer solstice hit the marker for a short span of time. Marking the changing of the seasons was important as knowing when to plant and when the rains might come was vital to staying alive in the desert.

Finally we come to my husband’s favorite part: the petroglyphs. Think of petroglyphs as early precursors of scratch boarding, as the top layer of rock was scratched off to reveal the lighter rock beneath it.

Unable to adapt to the climate change of the late 1300s, the inhabitants of Puerco Pueblo systematically abandoned the pueblo in search of a more suitable area. It was all but empty by 1380. Only the sandstone bricks, potsherds, stone tools, petroglyphs, and other artifacts and features remain to tell the tale of these ancient people.

Where will we be next? I guess you’ll just have to come back and see, but be sure to wear your hiking books or good athletic shoes. It’s cool so you might get away without bringing water but be sure to have some in the car. We’ll be taking a break for Six-Word Saturday and One Word Sunday but then I’ll actually have a Monday walk for Jo, although she might be taking a break. We’ll find out.

History

for One Word Sunday: history

Thursday doors…doors to the past

Norm, our host at Thursday Doors, is doing a retrospective of his 2019 doors and asked us to do so as well. I’d planned to, but I’m too short of time with family coming home, practice for our Christmas service, etc. So I’m “cheating” a bit by taking you back to the Penn Museum, but not with literal doors. I have a few shots that are doors to the past in Central America and a civilization not many know much about.

This metate (grinding stone) and mano (roller) from Honduras is one of my favorite items in the museum. Its beauty and grace for a simple, daily task of grinding corn and other foods attract me. The large size indicates the high status of the owners/users.

All that glitters

All that glitters is, in this case, gold. During our Thanksgiving visit to our daughter’s in Philadelphia, we spent time at the Penn Museum, a jewel of a museum. If I lived in Philadelphia, I’d have a membership so that I could take time in each gallery individually and then go home and read more about that era. I love history and this museum brings it alive. Let’s look at just a few items from the ancient city of Ur.

Ur, modern Tall al-Muqayyar or Tell el-Muqayyar, Iraq, important city of ancient southern Mesopotamia (Sumer), situated about 140 miles (225 km) southeast of the site of Babylon and about 10 miles (16 km) west of the present bed of the Euphrates River. In antiquity the river ran much closer to the city; the change in its course has left the ruins in a desert that once was irrigated and fertile land. The first serious excavations at Ur were made after World War I by H.R. Hall of the British Museum, and as a result a joint expedition was formed by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania that carried on the excavations under Leonard Woolley’s directorship from 1922 until 1934.

Encyclopedia Britannica

Queen Puabi obviously rocked the jewelry! But who was she? The Penn Museum site tells us:

The forensic examination of her remains, undertaken by London’s Natural History Museum, indicates that she was roughly 40 years old when she died. She stood just under five feet tall. Her name and title are known from the short inscription on one of three cylinder seals found on her person. The two cuneiform signs that compose her name were initially read as “Shub-ad” in Sumerian. Today, we think they should be read in Akkadian as “Pu-abi” (or, more correctly, “Pu-abum,” meaning “word of the Father”). Her title is “eresh” (sometimes mistakenly read as “nin”), and means “queen.”

You can read more by clicking here.

The hidden key

For Wednesday’s Photo Challenge, I mentioned a funny story about the photo of a church.  My s-i-l was driving my husband and me around the roads of rural France, seeing sights and generally having fun.  We were walking through a small village, when my s-i-l said, “Look. This is the first Lutheran church in  France!”

As we’re Lutheran, of course we thought we should go in and see it (besides the fact that it was very old.)  But the door was locked and there were no people to be seen anywhere.  After walking around the outside, we headed for the car.  Suddenly a man came out from the building across the street and asked if we wanted to see the church.  He took us into the entryway and told us that the key was hidden behind a painting.  He moved the painting to the side, gave us the key, and asked us to put the key back when we were done!  His kindness and trust had us smiling and shaking our heads.

The unusual thing about this church was the wood-burning stove partway down on the left side.  I can imagine that side of the church had the most parishioners sitting there in winter!!

George Washington slept here.

You say you’ve heard that before?  ‘Tis true.  I cannot tell a lie.  (You say you’ve heard that before as well?) You did know he had to sleep somewhere, right?  A number of somewheres!  Well, this is one of the somewheres!

During the time the Continental Army bivouacked at Valley Forge, most of the men slept in wooden huts that they’d made laboriously by hand (and axe.)  I always had the impression that they nearly froze in tents, but during our recent trip to Valley Forge, I found out that wasn’t true, at least the tent part.  Many of them probably felt as though they were freezing, dressed inadequately and without, in many cases, proper shoes or boots, and for much too long, food supplies were inadequate.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Resilient…Queen Puabi

Perhaps the Queen herself isn’t that resilient (after all, if she were alive, she’d be over 4,600 years old), but her jewelry certainly is!  The University of Penn Museum displays this magnificent jewelry from the first Dynasty of Ur, about 2600 BC.  We don’t know for sure that Puabi was a queen, but she certainly was of high status, and when wearing all this, she’d be ready to party in the new year!

Thursday Doors…Naper Settlement

Not far from our house is Naper Settlement.

“Naper Settlement is an outdoor 19th century living history museum that serves northeastern Illinois as a unique educational and cultural resource. The village tells the story of how life changed throughout the 19th century for the people of northern Illinois in towns such as Naperville.

During this era, Naper’s Settlement was transformed from a pioneer outpost in 1831 to a bustling turn-of-the century community. Through its costumed interpreters and 30 historic buildings located on the 12-acre grounds, history is brought to life with educational and hands-on activities for 150,000 visitors each year.”

Wrapping up Midas

About the end of the 7th century BC, Phyrgia was conquered by the Lydians and after them, the Persians captured Gordion.  The massive walls and gates built by the Phyrgians were overcome by a giant earthen siege ramp pushed against one fort, which provided a launching place for arrows and firebrands.  No one knows where Midas himself is buried.

Today the excavation of Gordion continues. Most of the over-250 acres and burial mounds remain to be explored, even though excavation has gone on for more than 60 years.  Who knows what other treasures will be discovered as work continues?

Jug

Cauldron detail; siren and demon attachments

Can you read this now?

You think your spouse’s writing is hard to read?  How about this writing?  And just try writing on stone!  Of course, if you were Assyrian, interpretation might not be written in stone. Phyrgian language is linguistically similar to Greek.  The inscriptions are usually very short and mostly personal names.  Gordion is a rich site of early Phyrgian writing: 11 inscriptions on stone and 245 graffiti, mostly on vases.