The archeologists recovered 542 beads, pendants, scraps of shell and turquoise from them. Before leaving, turn to look back into the pueblo's central section. The courtyard you are standing in was an offset continuation of a larger terrace of rooftops extending into the center of the north wing. At a fire at the edge of the court a woman stirs corn gruel in a smoke-blackened pot. Seated leaning against the wall of her third floor home, another nurses her baby.
Children chase each other down ladders into the plaza where dogs bark at their heels.
An old man on a kiva roof is weaving a basket of yucca leaves, while his brother dozes in a doorway dreaming of still older times when giants walked the earth. About one-third of the ruin was excavated in the summers of 1923 through 1926 by Karl Ruppert, a young archeologist who later became noted for his explorations in the Mayan cities of Yucatan. He worked under the general direction of Neil Judd who was digging in Pueblo Bonito at the same time for National Geographic Society and the U.S. National Museum. You are standing on the unexcavated rubble of an arc of one-story rooms which enclosed the plaza. It is probable that a great kiva lies below the open plaza but the expedition's funds ran out before the testing was completed.