Candelaria Shrine

Candelaria is an outlier 105 km south of Chaco Canyon. Also known as Las Ventanas, this site demonstrates the importance of visibility, since it is located on a prominent sandstone ridge, overlooking the Malpais lava flow and Mt. Taylor. Both of these landscape features were likely to be very important to the Candelaria inhabitants because of their unique qualities. Looking north, the black igneous rock of the lava flow expands in all directions and proves to be extremely hostile terrain to traverse, while Mt. Taylor, standing at 13,000 feet on the horizon, is visible throughout the San Juan Basin. Accompanying the great house is a nearby great kiva, community sites, as well as a stone circle and a shrine higher on the sandstone ridge (Marshall et al. 1979:187-193). The shrine is located on a sandstone knob, high above the Candelaria great house. It is roughly 1 m in diameter and shaped like a horseshoe, with the opening pointing directly towards Mt. Taylor. Also visible from this location is Hosta Butte, through a gap in the topography to the northwest (Van Dyke 2008:221).