nazSTUFF - Visiting Lomaki Ruin at Wupatki

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Lomaki Ruin at Wupatki

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The Lomaki Communty at Wupatki National Monument

Lomaki, Hopi for "Beautiful House," sits along a small box canyon. Tree-ring dating of roof timbers indicates the occupants lived here from about a.d. 1190 to 1240. The small two-story pueblo contained nine rooms. A quarter-mile trail from the parking area also passes small dwellings beside Box Canyon. The Hwy 89 turnoff for Lomaki lies northwest of Wupatki Visitor Center, 0.3 mile beyond the Citadel ruin on the opposite side of the road.

Lomaki Ruins stand on the edge of a great fissure (called Box Canyon). The fissure formed from tectonic activity (associated with earthquakes or crustal movement associated with regional volcanic activity) rather than by erosion. However, weathering, mass wasting, and erosional processes are shaping the cliffs and filling the fissure with sediments.

The Sinagua and Anasazi Indians who inhabited these ancient pueblos probably found these earthcracks useful and productive as microclimates, for storage and as farm sites. In the absence of rivers and streams nearby farming was dependent on rainfall, and their ability to capture and store it. There is evidence that corn, squash and other crops were planted along the canyon slopes and wash bottoms. Small check dams, rock alignments, still exist today in areas where they would retain moisture and support level areas for farming. Nutrient rich silt accumulated in these areas, and some residual is there today. The wash within Box Canyon beneath some of these pueblos was probably ideal for this kind of farming.

Native plants, such as juniper, amaranth, yucca, salt bush, cactus, rice grass and more, were used as food and medicine. Antelope, rabbits, squirrels, wood rats and reptiles were obviously hunted as part of the diet.

These box canyon-type ruins are typical of many pueblos found in the Wupatki area. Early inhabitants constructed masonry walls using nearby sandstone and limestone cementing them together using local soil and ash formulae. Flat roofs were built of timbers laid side by side, covered with smaller branches and finally plastered over with mud. Ladders provided access.

An open area within any pueblo is known as a "plaza." In most pueblos, the plaza space was the center for many daily activities including the processing of food, tool making and ceremony. It would have been used for meetings, conducting trade, and as a controlled play area for children.

Smoke from internal fires inside these rooms was vented through a square hole in the ceiling which frequently served as well as the only access to the room. Doorways, when they occurred, were small and windows were almost non-existent. As the rooms were abandoned the timbers were often scavenged and used in other pueblos or burned as firewood, a precious commodity in this environment.

Roof beams were often made of ponderosa pine. These trees grow far away on the San Francisco Peaks. To acquire them meant a 25 mile walk by several people who collected them with stone tools. Each roof beam acquired represents a major labor effort.

As you look at the ruins today, they appear pretty close to how they did when discovered in the 1800s.

This photo includes un-named ruins, just a few located in this area in addition to the popular ones on developed public trails.

Doorway and small window within Lomaki.

These ancient people were fantastic artisans. Here you see an elegant petroglyph which is near Lomaki and a typical ceramic bowl, from the Museum of Northern Arizona.

Visitor's pathway today going to Lomaki.

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