Montezuma Castle

My trip around the world was drawing to a close, but there were two more sites I wanted to see: Montezuma Castle in Arizona and Cloughoughter Castle in Ireland. 

My first stop was in the region of North America at Montezuma Castle National Monument in the United States. It is located near the town of Camp Verde, Arizona, in Verde Valley. It used to be a dwelling that rose up five stories high and contained twenty rooms. Its construction started sometime during the twelfth century, and the building was not completed until three centuries later in the year 1425. It is not entirely certain who built this cliff dwelling, but most speculate Montezuma Castle was built by the Sinagua people, who are believed to have some connection to the Hohokam people in Southern Arizona. Once the site was completed, it served as a living space and offered protection to the Sinagua when the flood season arrived. It was eventually abandoned during the fifteenth century. Sometime during the 1860s, the cliff dwelling was discovered by Europeans, who assumed it had been built by Montezuma II (an Aztec emperor). The Arizona Antiquarian Society eventually repaired the cliff dwelling in the year 1897. Montezuma Castle was among four sites declared to be culturally and historically important by President Theodore Roosevelt, who established Montezuma as among the first National Monuments in the United States in December 8, 1906. This was to celebrate the Antiquities Act, which was the first law that gave protection to natural and cultural sites located on public land overseen by the government. When I first saw the site, I was impressed by the neat and orderly placement of the bricks that made up the dwelling. I noticed that the building was constructed from limestone and mud, and it had a red hue. One aspect of the building that interested me was the walls. They were thicker at the base of the building, being two feet (or sixty-one centimeters) wide and decreasing to half that size as they neared the top. I noticed the wooden beams that framed the roof of the site. What fascinated me the most about this site was that it had been built on top of a cliff into a cave. Montezuma Castle also had five levels to separate each one of its five stories. Today, Montezuma Castle gives an interesting window into Arizona’s history and is thought of as one of the most well-preserved cliff dwellings in the state, as well as the whole of North America. It is a major landmark in the state of Arizona, attracting about 350,000 visitors each year. Rangers offer tours for the tourists that last, on average, about twenty-five minutes. 

Montezuma Castle: