There are three circular rooms in Sun Temple which from their form may be
identified as ceremonial in function, technically called kivas. Two of
these, free from other rooms, lie in the plaza that occupies the central
part of the main building, and one is embedded in rooms of the so-called
“annex.” Adjoining the last mentioned, also surrounded by rooms, is a
fourth circular chamber which is not a kiva. This room was found to be
almost completely filled with spalls or broken stones. Possibly this was
the place where the stones were hewn into shape before they were laid in
the walls.
The kiva that is situated in the west section of Sun Temple has a flue
attached to the south side, recalling the typical ventilator of a Mesa
Verde cliff kiva, and there are indications of the same structure in the
two circular chambers in the court. These kivas, however, have no
banquettes or pilasters to support a vaulted roof, and no fragments of
roof beams were found in the excavations made at Sun Temple. East of Sun
Temple, where formerly there was only a mound of stone and earth, there
were found the remains of a circular tower.
Most of the peripheral rooms of Sun Temple open into adjoining rooms, a
few into the central court, but none has external openings. Some of the
rooms are without lateral entrances, as if it were intended to enter them
through a hatch in the roof.
Not only pits indicative of the stone tools by which the stones forming
the masonry of Sun Temple were dressed appear on all the rocks used in
its construction, but likewise many bear incised symbols. Several of
these still remain in the walls of the building; others have been set in
cement near the outer wall of the eastern kiva. It is interesting to
record that some of the stones of which the walls were constructed were
probably quarried on the mesa top not far from the building, but as the
surface of the plateau is now forested, the quarries themselves are
hidden in accumulated soil and are difficult to discover.