Sun Temple - A Building Without a Roof

Photo: Ken Lund from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped)

A stop on Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings, a free self-guided tour.

Walk the short path to this D-shaped building on the canyon rim. Its thick double walls surround several round rooms, but when Jesse Walter Fewkes excavated it in 1915, he found no roof beams, no household goods and no sign that anyone had lived here.

So what was it? Fewkes thought it was an unfinished temple linked to the sun. The park suggests it may have been a communal ceremonial building for the Cliff Palace community, perhaps left open to the sky on purpose, or perhaps never completed. Pueblo people today see the D shape as a sign of ceremonial use, and the details of such places are not shared freely. It is fine to leave the question open.

Because it sits exposed on the rim instead of under a cliff, its stones are held together with modern mortar to slow erosion.

Before you leave, walk to the Cliff Palace overlook on this same path for your first close view of the largest cliff dwelling.

Getting here: Continue to the end of the Mesa Top Loop and park at the Sun Temple lot.

Did you know?: Fewkes believed the south wall was aligned to the summer solstice sunrise, but later measurements found it is off by several degrees.

Photo op: Walk around the outside of the D to see how the curved wall meets the straight one.

Nearby: Small parking lot; no facilities. Nearest restrooms are back at the museum area.

More on Wikipedia: Jesse Walter Fewkes · Mesa Verde National Park · Ancestral Puebloans

Sun Temple - A Building Without a Roof

Stops on this tour