Montezuma Castle National Monument - Camp Verde, AZ
Posted by: 
bluesnote
N 34° 36.683 W 111° 50.381
12S E 423016 N 3830268
Located off of I-17, This amazing place is the last of its kind!
Waymark Code: WM12QCZ
Location: Arizona, United States
Date Posted: 07/01/2020
Views: 3
Taken from Wikipeida, "Montezuma Castle National Monument protects a set of well-preserved dwellings located in Camp Verde, Arizona which were built and used by the Sinagua people, a pre-Columbian culture closely related to the Hohokam and other indigenous peoples of the southwestern United States, between approximately 1100 and 1425 AD. The main structure comprises five stories and about 45 to 60 rooms and was built over the course of three centuries.
Neither part of the monument's name is correct. When European-Americans first observed the ruins in the 1860s, by then long-abandoned, they named them for the famous Aztec emperor Montezuma in the mistaken belief that he had been connected to their construction (see also Montezuma mythology). Having no connections to the Aztecs, the Montezuma Castle was given that name due to the fact that the public had this image of the Aztecs creating any archaeological site. In fact, the dwelling was abandoned more than 40 years before Montezuma was born, and was not a "castle" in the traditional sense, but instead functioned more like a "prehistoric high rise apartment complex".
Several Hopi clans and Yavapai communities trace their ancestries to early immigrants from the Montezuma Castle/Beaver Creek area. Archaeological evidence proves that the Hohokam and Hakataya settled around or in the Verde Valley. Clan members periodically return to these ancestral homes for religious ceremonies."
Visit Instructions:
Please provide another photo of the location. You don't have to be in there shot, but you can. The photo requirement is to discourage any armchair visiting.