Painted Kivas

Painted Kivas. Lowry Pueblo National Historic Landmark. , Lowry Pueblo is famous for its four kivas with painted plaster, discovered in the 1930s during excavations sponsored by the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. All of the murals at Lowry were painted on the lower walls or "banquettes." Kiva A (no longer visible) had more than 25 coats of plaster, measuring a total of 5 inches (about 13 cm) thick. Only two distinct designs were observed: , One consisted of vertical black stripes with white dots at the upper ends, and the other of a terraced design done in white on brown or mud plaster. Both of these design units were continuously repeated all the way around the banquette face. , , Paul S. Martin, Lowry Ruin in Southwestern Colorado , Field Museum of Natural History Anthropological Series , Chicago, 1936, A similar terraced pattern also embellished the lower walls of Kiva B , to the left inside the doorway. Unfortunately, attempts to preserve the mural in place failed. A mural fragment and a large photograph of Kiva B taken in 1934 are displayed at the Anasazi Heritage Center. , All of the kiva murals at Lowry contained geometric design elements that can also be found on pottery, textiles, and petroglyphs of the same period. The Lowry murals may represent the beginnings of more elaborate imagery found in later pueblo murals like those seen at Coronado State Monument (Kuaua Pueblo), near Albuquerque. , The symbolism that was on the kiva was very appropriate because the step shape… was an abstract symbol of clouds. It's called the Iwifin in Tewa. , , Tito Naranjo, Santa Clara Pueblo