NO. I ARCHITECTURE OF PUEBLO BONITO JUDD 59 



Room 323, averaging 13 by 35 feet, is one of four large living 

 rooms, each with two storerooms at the rear, that comprised the 

 original west arm of Old Bonito, Despite its size, 323 is perhaps 

 typical of its time. Its floor was ill-defined, no more than a thin, 

 dark ash layer upon the sand. In this, strangely enough, only one 

 fireplace appeared — a nearly square, slab-lined fireplace 12 inches 

 deep, its east side formed by a discarded metate. Buried rim-deep 

 for storage at the south end of the room were five outworn cooking 

 pots — plain bodied with banded neck. 



Eight sturdy posts were required to support the ceiling of 

 Room 323, and two of them were cut 16 years earlier than the beams 

 they braced. Although mostly decayed when found, each post was 

 of straight-grained pine 7-8 inches in diameter and stood on a sand- 

 stone slab in a dug hole, packed about with slab fragments on end 

 and shale chips between fragments and post. In some instances posts 

 were surrounded individually by a conical base of adobe mud, 6-8 

 inches thick at the crown (pi. 11, left). CeiHng poles rested upon 

 the beams to support layered cedarbark and brush and mud for the 

 second-story floor. 



Being a living room, 323 had entrances in all four walls and all at 

 an unusual height. That at the northeast, its sides broken out when 

 Room 112 was excavated, was 4^ feet above the floor. Three south- 

 east doors, all blocked, were so high as to require post steps. One of 

 these three, its sill at a height of 38 inches, had been closed upon con- 

 struction of fourth-type Kiva Z; another, 6 feet 2 inches above floor 

 level, likewise reflects Kiva Z influence since Late Bonitian masons 

 had introduced new jambs and a hewn pine plank for a sill. Dis- 

 lodged when the surrounding masonry collapsed during excavation, 

 this sill plank measures 31^ by 5 by If inches and has since been 

 added to the national collections (U.S.N.M. No. 335275). Through 

 its three southeast doorways Room 323 had ready access to the West 

 Court before pre-Kiva Z rooms were built in front. 



Low or high, Old Bonitian doorways are very much alike. 

 Although basically rectangular, most appear more or less oval be- 

 cause their thickly mudded jambs curve up to the lintel poles and down 

 to the sill slab. Storeroom doors were ordinarily equipped with a 

 single secondary lintel pole about 5 inches below the main lintels 

 and secondary jambs slanted to support a sandstone slab placed from 

 the living room. 



Sill height, which seems such an important consideration, varies 

 in Old Bonito from a few inches to several feet. Of five doorways in 



