By Elizabeth Lunday
The Paquimé Enigma Paquimé has puzzled archaeologists for decades. New research could provide some answers. 26
By Elizabeth Lunday PAQUIMÉ HAS BEEN A MYSTERY since Spanish explorers first saw the abandoned city. In an account of a 1565 expedition, chronicler Baltasar Obregón described the site as encompassing “many houses of great size, strength, and height...with towers and walls like fortresses.... The houses contain large and magnificent patios paved with enormous and beautiful stones resembling jasper.There are knife-shaped stones which support the wonderful and big pillars of heavy timbers brought from far away. The walls of the houses were whitewashed and painted in many colors and shades.” And yet this city was empty of inhabitants. The Spanish asked indigenous people living in the surrounding area about the community, and they said that the city had been defeated in battle a few generations before and its residents had fled. Today, archaeologists know much more about
winter • 2019-20
