Sun Temple is believed to be among the latest constructed of all the
aboriginal buildings in the park, probably contemporary with Balcony
House, Spruce Tree House, and Cliff Palace.
Because of the absence of timbers or roof beams it is impossible to tell
when Sun Temple was begun or how long it took for its construction or
when it was deserted. There are indications that its walls may never have
been completed, and from the amount of fallen stones there can hardly be
a doubt that when it was abandoned they had been carried up in some
places at least 6 feet above their present level. The top of the wall had
been worn down at any rate 6 feet in the interval between the time it was
abandoned and the date of excavation of the mound. No one can tell the
length of this interval in years.
We have, however, knowledge of the lapse of time, because the mound had
accumulated enough soil on its surface to support growth of large trees.
Near the summit of the highest wall in the annex there grew a juniper
tree of great antiquity, alive and vigorous when excavation work was
begun. This tree undoubtedly sprouted after the desertion of the building
and grew after a mound had developed from fallen walls. Its roots
penetrated into the adjacent rooms and derived nourishment from the soil
filling them.
Necessarily, when these roots were cut off the tree was killed. It was
then cut off about a foot above the ground, but the stump remains. A
section of this tree at that point was found by Gordon Parker, supervisor
of Montezuma National Forest, to have 360 annual rings; its heart is
decayed, but its size suggests other rings, and that a few more years can
be added to its age. It is not improbable that this tree began to grow on
the top of the Sun Temple mound shortly after the year 1540, when
Coronado first entered New Mexico, but how great an interval elapsed
during which the walls fell to form the mound in which it grew, and how
much earlier the foundations of the ruined walls were laid, no one can
tell. A conservative guess of 350 years is allowable for the interval
between construction and the time the cedar began to sprout, thus
carrying the antiquity of Sun Temple back to about 1200 A. D.