A Virtual Tour of Chetro Ketl

Chetro Ketl Sign

Most of the major great houses in Chaco Canyon were first named and documented by the Washington Expedition in 1849.  Lt. James Simpson, a military engineer tasked with surveying the country the expedition passed through as it campaigned against the Navajos, took detailed notes and measurements about the sites, and in his published report on the expedition first brought them to the attention of the American public.  For his information on the sites Simpson relied on the expedition’s guides, and particularly on one in particular: a Hispanic man from the nearby village of San Ysidro identified as “Carravahal.”  His first name never seems to be given in publications about Chaco, starting with Simpson’s, but he clearly belonged to the well-known Carbajal family of New Mexico, and it would probably not be very difficult to figure out his first name and other background information on him.  He seems to have been quite familiar with the sites at Chaco, more so than the expedition’s Navajo or Pueblo guides, which implies that people in San Ysidro and other local villages had been coming out into the Chaco area for a while at that point.

Side Wash by Chetro Ketl

As a result of Simpson’s greater reliance on Carravahal than on the other guides, the names he recorded for the sites were generally those given to him by Carravahal, and that generally meant they were Spanish names.  It is not clear if Carravahal was giving the names used by people in San Ysidro for specific sites or making up names as went along (perhaps it was a mixture of both), but most of the names he gave were either very generic (“Pueblo Bonito” = “Pretty Town”) or simply descriptive (“Pueblo del Arroyo” = “Town of the Wash”).  Some of Carravahal’s names, however, were not Spanish, and it’s not clear what language they were from or where he got them.  Among these is the name he gave to the large site east of Pueblo Bonito, which he gave a name that Simpson transcribed as “Pueblo Chettro Kettle.”  Either Carravahal himself or some other guide apparently claimed at one point that this meant “Rain Pueblo,” but without any further elaboration.  No one has ever figured out what the name, now usually spelled “Chetro Ketl,” means or where it comes from.

Chetro Ketl, the Talus Unit, and Pueblo Bonito from the Cliff Top

Chetro Ketl is one of the largest and most interesting of the great houses in Chaco Canyon, but it often gets overshadowed by Pueblo Bonito.  The two are right next to each other, and are in fact accessed today from the same parking lot.  They are separated only by an open area that probably played an important role in the Chaco system.  There is increasing evidence that the acoustic properties of the canyon wall along this stretch were important, and parts of the canyon wall even seem to be sculpted to improve their acoustic properties.  This is what is known as the “Chaco Amphitheater,” and its location right in between Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl is likely significant.

"Chaco Amphitheater" between Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl

In any case, while Pueblo Bonito is generally considered the largest of the great houses, and therefore probably the most important, Chetro Ketl is actually the second-largest by most measures and the largest by at least one.  Although Pueblo Bonito is certainly more massive and had a lot more rooms, Chetro Ketl is slightly larger in area.  By whatever measure, however, the two sites are very nearly the same size, and may well have been equally important in the Chacoan system.

Plaza-Enclosing Rooms at Chetro Ketl

It is by no means clear what the functions of any of the great houses may have been, but it is certainly possible that Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl fulfilled somewhat different functions, given their similar scale, physical proximity, and rather different (though similar) shapes.  While both are “D-shaped” in some sense, and both face south in that the highest levels are on the north side and subsequent rows of rooms terrace down toward enclosed plazas on the south side, they are not quite the same.

Pueblo Bonito from Above

Pueblo Bonito has a unique form, with the curved part of the “D” forming the tall back wall and the straight part of the “D” forming the roomblocks enclosing the plaza on the south side.  Chetro Ketl is the other way around, with the tall back wall being the straight part of the “D” and the curved part forming the plaza-enclosing block of rooms to the south.  This is a much more typical shape for a Chacoan great house, with Hungo Pavi, Pueblo Alto, Pueblo del Arroyo, and Tsin Kletzin within the canyon (or above it) having nearly identical shapes, though different sizes and periods of construction.  With the exception of Pueblo del Arroyo, which is unusual in many ways, these all face south as well.  This shape is often found at outlying great houses outside the canyon as well, with the three main great houses (east, west, and north) at Aztec being probably the best-known examples.

Chetro Ketl from Above

Chetro Ketl, then, is much more of a “typical” great house than Pueblo Bonito, which is unique in all sorts of ways, including the fact that it is by far the best known and most extensively studied of the great houses.  Chetro Ketl has been partly excavated, with about half of the site having been dug by the University of New Mexico field schools in the 1930s, and much of the site, mostly in the central part, is still exposed and available to be seen today.

Corner Doorway at Chetro Ketl

These excavations, however, were nowhere near as extensive as the earlier excavations at Pueblo Bonito, which resulted in the excavation of almost every room, nor were they nearly as well documented.  The students who did most of the work were not the best about documenting what they were doing, and Edgar Lee Hewitt, the towering figure in New Mexico archaeology who was in charge of the field schools, never got around to writing a full site report which might have clarified the confusing documentation of the students and collected the information from the digs in an accessible area.  As a result, Chetro Ketl is not nearly as well understood as Pueblo Bonito, and it isn’t clear if the latter’s fame and presumed centrality are due to its actual importance or merely the greater amount of information available on it today.

Back Wall of Chetro Ketl

Be that as it may, Chetro Ketl is certainly an interesting site to see.  One of the most impressive aspects of it is its back wall, which is the longest wall known at a Chacoan site.  It is not only very long but extremely straight, a true triumph of Chacoan engineering.  It was actually originally even longer than can be seen today, because the extreme east and west ends have not been excavated and still lie under mounds of sand.  It is on account of this back wall, in conjunction with the curved arc of rooms on the opposite side, that Chetro Ketl claims its position as the largest great house in area, even larger than Pueblo Bonito.  The way to enclose a very large area, of course, is to be bounded by very long walls, and Chetro Ketl certainly is.

Back Wall of Chetro Ketl from the Talus Unit

The western end of the part of the back wall visible today, which is the first part one reaches when approaching from the parking lot, is made of Type II core-and-veneer Bonito-style masonry, much like the early expansion of Pueblo Bonito.  This is hardly surprising, since this part of Chetro Ketl dates to the AD 1030s or so, while the similar masonry at Pueblo Bonito dates to the 1040s.  While at Bonito this type of masonry is part of a significant expansion of what was by then a very old building, here at Chetro Ketl it is the earliest part of the building standing today (although there may have been some earlier construction that was built over at this time).

Type IV Masonry at Chetro Ketl

As one moves eastward along the back wall, the masonry changes.  The outer wings of Chetro Ketl were added later in the eleventh century, and they show a steady progression through Types III and IV.  At the part of the building showing Type IV masonry the trail leads inside.

Central Roomblock at Chetro Ketl

Once inside the building, many rooms are apparent, most of which have been excavated and largely backfilled, especially in the central roomblock with the prominent elevated round room known as Kiva G at its heart.  To the east, the far east wing has not been excavated and the decayed nature of the walls is very apparent.  While they have been stabilized, there has been no excavation or reconstruction of this part of the building.  These rooms are all quite similar to those in the later parts of Pueblo Bonito, and they are in many ways just as mysterious.  There is little evidence for their function, and while some show evidence of residential use, most don’t.

Elevated Kiva G at Chetro Ketl

Continuing along the trail, one reaches the plaza.  Chetro Ketl’s plaza is distinctive in a number of ways.  For one, it’s very large.  Again, since Chetro Ketl has fewer rooms than Pueblo Bonito but is nonetheless larger in area, a much greater proportion of its area is taken up by the very large plaza.  Also, and perhaps more distinctively, the plaza at Chetro Ketl is elevated.  While most great-house plazas are at or near grade, this one was filled to about 12 feet above grade, apparently gradually as the building was expanded (with the eventual result that the first stories of some earlier rooms ended below the plaza level).  It is unclear why this was done, and it is especially unclear why it was apparently only done here and not at any of the other great houses with enclosed plazas.  It would certainly have been an enormous amount of work, but then the Chacoans were by no means averse to enormous amounts of work on projects that today seem inscrutable.

Chetro Ketl Great Kiva from Above

As a result of the raised plaza, the great kiva at Chetro Ketl, while it seems subterranean, is actually considerably above the original ground level.  It is one of the largest and most impressive in the canyon, and shows the usual set of standard features: bench, central firebox, four postholes (one of which, when excavated, contained part of the original post, an enormous ponderosa pine trunk), entry by steps from an antechamber on the north side, many niches in the wall, and two vaults on the floor flanking the firebox between the postholes.  There are also some large sandstone disks sitting around the northeast posthole.  These disks were originally in the postholes, where they served to support the posts and keep them from driving right down into the soft alluvial soil.  There were generally multiple ones in each posthole.  They are a standard feature, almost always found during excavation, but not usually displayed like this.

Great Kiva at Chetro Ketl Showing Three Levels

Also displayed in an unusual way here are multiple levels of the great kiva.  While great kivas typically have multiple floor levels and accompanying layers of features, excavators usually decide to present the kiva at one particular level and obscure evidence of others (which have often been destroyed during excavation anyway).  Here, however, the excavators left a quarter of the floor excavated to a lower level, showing an earlier bench and some niches of decided different shape, size, and spacing from those in the later level above.  They also left a small section of an even later bench level in place.  This bench is made of very crude masonry and was probably much later than the earlier levels.

Colonnade at Chetro Ketl

Perhaps the most interesting part of Chetro Ketl, and certainly one of the most mysterious and evocative, is found at the part of the north-central roomblock facing the plaza.  Here, in rather late masonry style, is a series of square columns, later filled in by even later and cruder masonry to form an unbroken wall.  This is the famous Colonnade, one of the most prominent examples of possible Mesoamerican architectural influence at Chaco.  Colonnades like this are vanishingly rare in the southwest, but they are quite common in Mesoamerica during the period contemporaneous with Chaco (the early postclassic).  They seem to have originated in northern Mexico, but they spread throughout the Mesoamerican cultural sphere, with famous examples at Chichen Itza, far to the south on the Yucatan Peninsula, and at Tula, much further north in central Mexico, along with numerous other lesser-known instances elsewhere.

Partly Walled-Up T-Shaped Doorway at Chetro Ketl

In the 1970s, the “Mexicanist” school of Chacoan interpretation proposed this colonnade at Chetro Ketl as an example of what they claimed was intense Mesoamerican influence at Chaco.  Other examples they pointed to were T-shaped doorways, relatively uncommon in the southwest but very common in Mexico and present, often in significant locations such as facing plazas, at Chaco, and trade goods like copper bells and macaws that clearly came from far to the south.  The “Indigenist” camp of opposing scholars, however, pointed out that these architectural influences were very subtle and quite possible coincidental, that the trade goods were present in extremely small numbers, and that the extent of Mesoamerican influence proposed by the Mexicanists was by no means supported by the limited evidence for contact with cultures to the south.  These arguments largely won out, and recent theories of Chaco have generally focus on its indigenous context and local nature, with Mexican influence downplayed considerably.

Partly Walled-Up T-Shaped Doorway at Chetro Ketl

Very recently, however, the discovery of chocolate in cylinder jars at Pueblo Bonito has provided incontrovertible proof of a much more direct and meaningful connection to Mesoamerican cultures than had been known before, and this is likely to make things like the Colonnade, even if subtle and present in small numbers, seem more important to the essence of Chaco.  There will certainly be increasing amounts of research on these questions in the years to come, and the Colonnade at Chetro Ketl is likely to be in for some renewed scrutiny, particularly given its apparently late date of construction and even later date of sealing-up.  This is just one example of how right now is a great time to be at Chaco and seeing the place, including mysterious but important parts of it like Chetro Ketl, with new eyes.

Plaza at Chetro Ketl