Montezuma Castle National Monument, Ancient cliff dwelling in Camp Verde, Arizona, United States
Montezuma Castle is a prehistoric cliff dwelling in Camp Verde, Arizona built as a five-story structure with twenty rooms. The construction sits in a natural alcove about 90 feet (27 meters) above the Beaver Creek valley floor and was built entirely from local limestone and wood.
The Southern Sinagua built the dwelling between 1125 and 1173, with remodeling in the last decades of the 13th century; about 30 people lived in at least 20 rooms. The nearby Castle A, with an estimated 45 rooms, burned between 1375 and 1395, and both sites were abandoned shortly after. President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the national monument on 8 December 1906.
The builders shaped rooms directly into the rock face and used the stone as both back wall and ceiling for their homes. Visitors today can still see how these people applied limestone mortar and fitted wooden beams to create multiple floors.
A paved trail with signs leads from the entrance to several viewing points below the dwelling. Access to the structure itself is not allowed to protect the site, and visitors can only observe the building from below.
The name has no connection to the Aztec ruler because the inhabitants left the site forty years before he was born. Early European settlers gave the place this misleading name because they believed the Aztecs had lived this far north.
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