Antelope House Ruins
by Jon Burch Photography
Title
Antelope House Ruins
Artist
Jon Burch Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photography
Description
Ancient cliff dwellings are nestled against a rugged canyon wall, showcasing intricately carved stone structures. Vegetation surrounds the site, adding greenery to the otherwise arid landscape.
Antelope House was formally excavated in the early 1970’s, by archaeologists working with the National Park Service. Each new culture that occupied this site built atop the remains of their predecessors, so as researchers dug into the stratified foundations, they found the pit houses of the Basket Makers at the bottom, and layers of increasingly sophisticated cultural remains, from the Ancestral Pueblo to the Pueblo people, the Hopi, and the Navajo, each of these groups contributing to the timeline of an area that is exceptionally rich in history.
So much material was recovered here, they were able to document a nearly complete record of the growth of this village, from the eighth through the thirteenth centuries; everything from the prevailing environmental conditions in the canyon to the prevailing dietary habits of the villagers. Of all the ruins and other archaeological sites in Canyon de Chelly, Antelope House is the most thoroughly investigated. That’s at least partially due to simple ease of access: unlike most of the ruins in the canyon, all the primary structures at this site are at ground level.
The swastika seen on the wall above Antelope House isn’t graffiti that someone put there. It’s an Anasazi symbol that goes back a long time before the Nazis used it during WWII. For the Navajo, that symbol is the whirling log, and is a very sacred thing. According to Hopi legends, the swastika represents the migrations of ancestors.
Some digital effects were applied to the original image after the photograph was made. No electrons were harmed during the transition.
Image copyright 2024 Jon Burch Photography
Uploaded
November 9th, 2024
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