Welcome to Ancient Ways Revealed. As you explore our content and engage with our community, we encourage you to observe the following etiquette guidelines specifically for adobe sites.
Adobe structures are significant cultural and historical sites. To ensure their preservation and respect for the heritage they represent, please adhere to these practices:
- Respect the Environment: Avoid disturbing natural habitats and flora surrounding adobe sites.
- Stay on Designated Paths: Use established trails to minimize impact on the landscape and the structures themselves.
- Do Not Touch: Refrain from touching or climbing on adobe structures to prevent damage.
- Leave No Trace: Carry out all trash and personal items to maintain the site's integrity.
- Be Mindful of Noise: Keep noise levels low to preserve the peaceful atmosphere and respect other visitors.
- Photography Etiquette: Always ask for permission before photographing individuals or private property near the site.
- Educate Yourself: Learn about the history and significance of adobe architecture to enhance your appreciation and understanding.
By following these guidelines, you contribute to the preservation of these valuable sites and help foster a respectful community of visitors. Thank you for your cooperation and commitment to heritage conservation.
Why Adobe Is So Fragile, and What That Means on the Ground
Adobe is sun-dried earth: clay, sand, water and often straw or other fibre, shaped into blocks and laid with mud mortar. Walls are usually finished with a mud plaster that acts as a sacrificial skin, absorbing weather so the structural blocks beneath do not have to. That plaster is the first thing to suffer when visitors lean on a wall, brush past a corner or scrape a boot along the base. It is also why many historic adobe buildings in northern New Mexico are re-plastered by hand at regular intervals, sometimes as a community effort tied to a church or village calendar.
Water is adobe's oldest enemy. Rain that pools at the foot of a wall wicks upward and slowly erodes the base, a process conservators call basal erosion or coving. Footpaths, compacted soil and changed drainage around a building can speed this up, which is one practical reason the request to stay on marked trails matters so much. Avoid sitting on low walls, parapets or the rounded edges of buttresses, and never pick at loose plaster or fallen fragments, even if they look like debris.
Living places, not ruins
Many adobe sites in the Santa Fe region are not abandoned monuments. Pueblo communities, mission churches and family homes remain in active use, and each sets its own rules. Some pueblos restrict or prohibit photography, sketching or recording, especially during feast days and dances; some require permits; some areas are closed to outsiders entirely. A few points help visitors stay on the right side of these expectations:
- Check before you go. Look up the community's or site's own visitor guidance, as rules and closures can change at short notice.
- Treat ceremonies as worship. Do not applaud, ask questions of dancers or walk across plazas where activity is taking place.
- Do not enter buildings uninvited, including kivas, homes and storage rooms, and keep out of cemeteries.
- Leave artefacts where they lie. Removing potsherds or other objects from many lands is illegal as well as disrespectful.
For background on how these buildings were made and maintained over generations, our archives and field notes gather longer studies of earthen architecture, seasonal plastering and the communities who keep these places standing.
Also on this site: ancientwaysrevealed.com