Letter Q

is for Quarry.
When Ancestral Pueblo people came from Chaco to the Animas River Valley in the early 1100s, they built the Aztec West great house out of sandstone bricks. They were continuing the tradition of Chaco style architecture in the new outlier city that would become the center of the Chacoan culture.

The great houses in Chaco Canyon are built out of sandstone that was quarried right from the canyon walls. Sandstone is also common in the Aztec area, but is found slightly farther away. The bricks here were quarried from sandstone deposits that today are visible along the roads heading north towards the Colorado border. These bricks were cut and shaped at the quarry, and then had to be carried to the site. It took approximately 30 years to construct Aztec West.

Along the west wall of the great house there are three unusual, long, green stripes of stone. This greenish-black stone is called graywacke, and is a type of sandstone. The graywacke used in construction here was quarried about 3-4 miles away and carried back to the site.

Construction workers also quarried limestone from the mountains in Colorado to make the large, flat discs that the columns of the great kiva rested on as part of the foundation for that very important building.

  • Source: www.facebook.com/AztecRuinsNM
    • Quarry
    Quarried green stone along the east wall of the main roomblock.


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