Astonishing Ancient Apartments: Montezuma Castle

For a long time now, I’ve been finding myself getting tipsy from trips to breathtakingly beautiful places, lithic landscapes, volcanic sites and natural wonders. And every now and then, I come across a manmade marvel that totally amazes me. One such place is Montezuma Castle in Arizona.

From what I had read about Montezuma Castle in Verde Valley, AZ, I was sure the attraction would be an interesting one. I knew what I was going to see but it was much more complex and detailed than I thought it would be. You will know what I mean if you stay till the end of this post.

First of all, let me tell you that one of the first things I learnt the morning that I was there was that ‘Montezuma Castle’ was a misnomer. Neither does this place have anything to do with Montezuma nor was it a castle (although its grandeur cannot be denied).

What actually is Montezuma Castle?

This misnamed place, which continues to be called Montezuma Castle is a community where some Native Americans lived for a long period of time. To say they settled beside and depended on what is today known as Beaver Creek, here, would be an understatement for the wonder that this place is. Beaver Creek must have been their source of water; for drinking and cooking and it played a big role in the growth of the settlement, I’m sure. However, it is ‘how’ they dwelled here that is most impressive.

The natives here lived in multi-storied high-rises and that is not the end of the story. These ancient apartments were built into mighty rock faces!

The first building that we saw was around 100 feet above the ground. It is said to have had 20 rooms within these limestone walls, and is believed to have housed over 30 people!

Castle A

The second site that we went to seemed to start at ground level and go up several floors. Here, parts of the lower levels have been rebuilt partly to give a rough idea of how the rooms might have been. The ranger who manned the site told us that the upper floors were original and that it had over 40 rooms. This building now called Castle A is said to have been home to over 8000 people.

(😢I lost pictures from this trip during an OS update so I don’t have pictures of Castle A but here’s a model of castle A that was found on the site. The pictures on this post are ones I’d taken on my phone.)

The model of Castle A here shows different activities being carried out on different levels of the age-old apartment. You’ll see people cooking and grinding, and people carrying water and provisions to the higher levels using ladders that connect the different floors. You’ll see a mother and child, and a man leading an elderly man across a room. Look carefully and you will even see a person on the topmost floor playing guard and keeping watch.

The model shows us the activities of these kinds of communities and that these abodes carved into the rocks were ‘multi-generational dwellings.’

More things to know:

• These rocks are made of limestone. (The ranger went on to tell me that the sandstone was washed down from the north when there used to be a prehistoric lake here, several centuries ago.
• These sites are believed to have been constructed and occupied for over a period of 3 centuries.
• The exteriors of these castles can be seen from the bottom of the rockface. There is no way to go up to the rooms of these ancient constructions however there is an exhibit here, which models what these complex buildings looked like with their many floors, and gives us a fairly good idea of how the natives lived here.
• The Sinaguas who settled here are said to have been farmers who grew a few staples but also played hunter-gatherers.

Says the brochure I brought back:

By 1150, Southern Sinagua began building large pueblos, often on hilltops or in cliff alcoves. Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot settlement near here, reached their maximum size in the 1300s and were occupied for another century.
No one knows why the Southern Sinagua migrated away from their pueblos by the early 1400s. It may have been overpopulation, depletion of resources, disease, conflicts within or between groups, climate change or perhaps spiritual beliefs. Whatever the reason(s), many Southern Sinagua migrated northward to pueblo villages, Others may have stayed in the Verde Valley and returned to hunter-gatherer ways.

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