Tuzigoot

 

Leo, Mark V and I went on a hike from Dead Horse campground to the Tavasci marsh.  We heard a rumor that it was good for birds and javelinas had been seen here.  

In fact it was bad for birds (probably because it was 3 in the afternoon) and there was no water to be seen, just thick bullrushes.  And no luck with the javelinas.

Instead we were surprised to find ourselves on the Tuzigoot National Monument property with a great view of the Ruins.  We followed a road almost right up to the Ruins before we decided we better obey the no trespassing signs and turned around.

View of the marsh from the Ruins.

The next day we visited the Monument the legal way.  The Pueblo had 100 rooms and probably several hundred people living in it. It was abandoned in the 1300s.   Here's what it looked like in 1920:

Here's the same view today:

In the  1930s they excavated and reconstructed the pueblo.  Like in Casa Grande, the ruin we visited earlier this trip, there were workers repairing the adobe masonry on the day we visited.

There's also an excellent museum, showing the artifacts they found in the excavation.  Along with the utilitarian pottery made locally, there are shards of pottery from all over the region, as well as macaw feathers, which would have come from southern Mexico or Central America.

I was especially impressed with the large ceramic storage containers.