NO, I ARCHITECTURE OF PUEBLO BONITO JUDD 8l 



inches of stratified sand across its east end. The ceiling had collapsed 

 upon this sand and had burned there before the upper walls gave 

 way and fell. In front of the east door a scrap of sawed board bearing 

 knife cuts and nail holes marked a 19th century attempt at holding 

 back sand and rubble in preparation for use of Room I4b. 



Room I4b is undoubtedly the most publicized room in all of 

 Pueblo Bonito. It was entered August 28, 1849, by Lt. J. H. 

 Simpson, R. H. Kern, and " one or two others" whose names and the 

 date, scratched into the soft mud plaster on the south wall, were still 

 there 28 years later "as plainly as if done but a few days previously" 

 (Jackson, 1878, p. 442). Victor Mindeleff or members of his party 

 slept in 14b for a night or two during the winter of 1887-88 (pi. 19, 

 right), and the Hyde Expedition used it for a storeroom and kitchen 

 (Pepper, 1920, p. 70) until Richard Wetherill completed his adjoin- 

 ing trading post in the fall of 1897. It was during this period, perhaps, 

 that fresh mud was smeared over the four walls, concealing the 

 record of those who had been there before. 



The ceiling of Room \4b is a model of second-type Late Bonitian 

 industry, perseverance, and esthetic appreciation. Pepper (ibid., 

 pp. 79-80) describes its composition as pine and spruce logs, 4-6 

 inches in diameter laid transversely and spaced 2-3 inches apart. 

 These were covered at right angles by a layer of 163 close-lying 

 willow sprouts, 3-4 feet long by f inch in diameter, peeled, hand- 

 smoothed and square-ended, and bound to the logs at 6-inch intervals 

 with overlaying split willows and yucca thongs. Upon the willows was 

 a blanket of cedarbark and, upon that, the mud floor of the room 

 above. A southeast corner hatchway gave access to the second-story 

 room. 



Rainwater pouring through the south door of 14b and muddying 

 their kitchen floor prompted members of the Hyde Expedition to 

 block the opening with hasty stonework ; later, to clear the room from 

 which the water flowed (Pepper, ibid., p. 70). That room was a Late 

 Bonitian storeroom, 303, built of second-type masonry against the 

 first-type exterior of Old Bonitian Room 11. Room 14a lies directly 

 above 14b and, although much of its second-story masonry had previ- 

 ously fallen, the third- and fourth-story northeast corner still stood 

 there at the time of the Society's investigations (pi. 80, left). Present 

 also, surprisingly, was a spot of wall plaster Mindeleff had photo- 

 graphed in 1888, at the end of a third-story 4-pole storage shelf 

 (pi. 19, left). For convenience in hanging blankets and lesser pos- 

 sessions, single poles had crosssed each end of Rooms 200, 203, 204, 



