T Shaped Doors at Spruce Tree House

During the winter season at Mesa Verde National Park, Spruce Tree House is the only large alcove ruins site that can be visited. There are three free ranger guided tours per day leaving from the Chapin Mesa Museum at 10:00 AM, 1:00 PM and 3:30 PM.

One of the detail features of Spruce Tree House is the many T shaped doorways that are easily visible. T shaped doorways are particular to and symbolic of the American southwest. They are thought to have first appeared at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico around 1020 AD. The T shapes appear later at Aztec Ruins in Aztec New Mexico and then in the Mesa Verde area.

The left side plaza area behind the two reconstructed kivas has several T shapes visible including a few that appear to have been bricked in afterwards.

There is debate as to whether the T shapes have a practical function or are they symbolic. The wider top might provide a wider space for carrying material inside and places to place your hands if you want to vault into the room. The narrow bottom might help conserve heat.

Some have noticed that the T doorways are only present for habitation rooms and not for storage rooms. This would make the living rooms easier to spot from a distance. Most of the Spruce Tree House T shapes appear to be symmetrical, but this one has uneven shoulders and looks like a larger opening was bricked in later.

Another site in the Mesa Verde area with easy to visit T shaped doors is the Escalante Pueblo at the Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores, Colorado. This site is thought to have been built originally in 1129 AD, making it older than Spruce Tree House where construction is thought to have occurred from 1200 to 1276 AD.

In this case the T shapes are lined up and lead from one room to the next and are not just on the exterior of the structure. Inside the Anasazi Center Museum there is a mug with a T shaped handle, giving support to the idea that the T shape is symbolic of something.

It looks like there are also places at Spruce Tree House where one T shaped door leads to another interior T shaped door. The winter tour of Spruce Tree House takes about 1:00 hour. On my mid December visit there were only two hikers on the 10:00 AM tour, a much better experience than during the busy summer season.