- Fajada Butte
Infobox Mountain
Name = Fajada Butte
Photo = Fajada Butte.jpg
Caption=Fajada Butte at sunset.
Elevation = 6,623 feet (2,019 metres)
Location = New Mexico, USA
Prominence =
Coordinates = coord|36|01|08|N|107|54|35|W|type:mountain_region:US
Topographic
USGS Pueblo Bonito
Type=Sandstone rock|Age=Cretaceous
First ascent = circa 850 AD| Easiest route = closed to visitorsFajada Butte is a
butte inChaco Culture National Historical Park , a park inNew Mexico .Fajada Butte (Banded Butte) rises 115 meters above the Canyon floor on the
Chacra Mesa . Although there is no water source on the butte, there are ruins of smallcliff dwelling s in the higher regions of the butte. Analysis of fragments ofpottery found on Fajada show that the butte was inhabited in the tenth century.The remains of a 100-meter-high, 230-meter-long ramp on the southwestern face of the butte would have made the climb up the steep cliffs much easier. Considering that this was a huge building project even when one takes into account the magnitude of other Chacoan sites such as
Casa Rinconada andPueblo Bonito , many people believe that the Butte must have had considerable ceremonial importance for the Chacoan people.Perhaps the most famous site in Chaco Canyon is near the top of Fajada Butte. The
three slab site is on the eastern side of the butte. At about 11:15 a.m. on the summersolstice , a sun dagger pierces a spiralpetroglyph on the cliff wall behind the slabs. Similar sun daggers mark thewinter solstice andequinox es.In
1982 theNational Park Service closed off access to the butte to the public due to the delicate nature of the site; with increasing tourism, erosion was becoming a worrying issue.References
* Carlson, John B. and W. James Judge, ed., "Astronomy and Ceremony in the Prehistoric Southwest", Papers of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, 2 (Albuquerque, [1984] ) ISBN 0-913535-03-2
* Palca, Joseph. "Sun dagger misses its mark." "Science" 244.n4912 (June 30, 1989): 1538(1).
* Sofaer, Anna, ed., "Chaco Astronomy: An Ancient American Cosmology", (Santa Fe: Ocean Tree Books, 2008) ISBN 978-0-943734-46-0 Reprints many of the papers from the Solstice Project on the Fajada Butte "sun dagger".External links
* [http://www.solsticeproject.org/ The Solstice Project] has done extensive research on the Fajada Butte Sun Dagger.
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