The Sun Temple in Mesa Verde, Colorado, is still a mystery today. Modern Pueblo people classify it as a ceremonial structure, since there are no windows, doors, or fire pits to be found. Some say that the “D” symmetrical shaped buildings were never completed. The work on the buildings stopped when the Pueblo Ancestors began to leave Mesa Verde around 1276. It is assumed that the temple was built by many clans in the area at the time of construction.

The double coursed walls are thick and filled with rubble in between. Today the top is covered with modern concrete to protect that structure from moisture, erosion. The walls may have been somewhere between 11 to 14 feet high, all based on the amount of stone that fell during excavation.

A little southwest of the Sun Temple’s “D” shape structure is an eroded stone basin with three small notches in the surface of the ground, which may have once been used as a sun dial in order to mark the changing of the seasons.