Palace built in the cliff

In 1888, two Colorado ranchers were searching for missing cattle when they stumbled upon a giant structure beneath a cliff. This unique four-story stone structure, known as Cliff Palace, is located in Mesa Verde National Park, the largest archaeological preserve in the United States.

The park’s largest and most spectacular structure, Cliff Palace is also known as the largest cliff dwelling in North America. It was built by the ancient Pueblo people (the ancestors of the indigenous people of the American Southwest), who began building their homes into the cliffs around the mid-1100s.

Of the nearly 600 cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, 75% have only 1-5 rooms. That is why Cliff Palace becomes more special and prominent. With its large size, the structure has 150 rooms, 23 kivas and was home to more than 100 residents in the 13th century. Archaeologists believe that Cliff Palace was a socio-cultural and administrative site with regular ceremonies.

The Pueblo people built this structure from hand-hewn stone blocks. The structure is primarily made of sandstone, wooden beams, and a homemade mortar made from soil, water, and ash. Small pieces of stone called “chinking” were mixed into the mortar to add stability to the walls.

The rooms, typically about 6 by 8 feet (1.8 by 2.4 meters), were the living spaces of the families. Many of the walls were decorated with colorful plasters: pink, brown, red, yellow, and painted. In addition, smaller rooms were used to store crops, and circular rooms called kivas were used for ceremonies and gatherings.

A highlight of Mesa Verde National Park, visitors can take a ranger-led tour of Cliff Palace and learn about the architecture, engineering, and craftsmanship that the Ancestral Pueblo people used in building their homes.

From the late 13th century, after the Pueblo people left the Mesa Verde area, until the 1880s, the original structure of Cliff Palace was exposed to the effects of water, wind, freeze-thaw cycles, and animals.

Then, with the “discovery” of the site, the deterioration process was accelerated by human activity. Commercial tours and exploration used tools ranging from shovels to dynamite to attempt to excavate artifacts, causing severe damage to the form and structure of the Cliff Palace.