Photo: November 7, 2018.
Coronado Historic Site WPA-built Visitor Center and Museum Administration.
The museum includes a murals gallery; the image at left is from
Wikipedia[1].
This gallery houses 14 panels of paintings that were found in a square Kiva
located in the South Plaza of Kuaua Pueblo. The paintings are almost 600
years old, and have been masterfully preserved. The walls that the paintings
were found on had over 85 layers, 17 of which were covered in paintings.[2]
These murals represent some of the finest examples of Pre-Columbian art
ever found in the United States[3]. The paintings' salvation owes
thanks to human ingenuity, New Deal money, and the leadership of Edgar Lee
Hewett, a founder of the Museum of New Mexico[5].
References
- Coronado
Historic Site, Wikipedia, accessed 22 November 2018.
- The
Friends of Coronado Historic Site website, accessed 22 November 2018.
- Coronado Historic
Site website, New Mexico Historic Sites,
accessed 22 November 2018.
- Jim Farber, New
Mexico's Michelangelo: Ma-Pe-Wi and the Coronado Historic Site, website
accessed 23 November 2018: "It was not until the 1930s that the federal
government (through the Works Projects Administration) gave money to
excavate the site."
- Kate Nelson, Kiva
Revival - Restored frescoes at the Coronado Historic Site evoke anew the
sacred mysteries of the Puebloan past, New Mexico Magazine, March 2014;
website accessed 23 November 2018: "In 1940, Coronado State Monument, now
called Coronado Historic Site, opened for public viewing, quickly becoming a
star of the state's museum system. It boasted the only painted kiva open
to the public, and demostrated how closely Native peoples tied their lives
to the earth."
- Robert Preucel and Frank G. Matero, Placemaking
on the Northern Rio Grande - A View from Kuaua, Chapter 4 of
Archaeologies of Placemaking: Monuments, Memories, and Engagement in
Native North America by Patricia E. Rubertone, Routlege (2009):
"[Edgar Lee] Hewett proposed to excavate Kuaua in order to establish the
location of Coronado's encampment and to excavate Puaray to look for the
famous wall murals. He intended to accomplish this work in time for the
celebration of the Coronado Cuarto Centennial in 1940. In June 1934, he
began a five-year excavation project sponsored by the University of New
Mexico, the Museum of New Mexico, and the School of American Research, and
funded by federal monies from Federal Emergency Relief
Administration, Works Progress Administration, and Nation[al]
Youth Administration relief programs."