“The T-shape was a prominent exterior feature to be seen and to possibly indicate a message of membership or inclusion.”³ Thirty-two of these T-shaped openings were found at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon.⁴ Many T-shaped openings were found at Aztec Ruins; some were found at Kayenta near Marsh Pass, in various Salado ruins, at the Gila Cliff Dwellings, and at other thirteenth century sites.  Paquimé, in Chihuahua, Mexico, boasted three hundred and thirty-five such T-shaped openings on buildings. Two engraved altar stones with a T-design, similar to altar screens of the water serpent used in ceremonies by modern Pueblo groups, were also found at Paquimé in remarkable ceremonial context.⁵ Also in the province of Chihuahua, numerous ruins in caves, sometimes three stories high, were furnished with small windows and doors constructed in the shape of a T or cross.⁶ Below the Tropic of Cancer, the T-shape was used at Toltec-Maya Chichén Itzá on friezes and as a window design.⁷ 

 

Notice the portholes or small vent holes in the masonry walls in Cave Two, and throughout the rest of the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Also notice the T-shaped opening, and the possibility of another to its right. Early explorations of the Gila Cliff Dwellings revealed that T-shaped holes gave a dim light to the interior of the ruins,⁸ and air-holes, T-shaped and of unusual size opened upon the outside in several places.⁹   “Ordinary Zuni families kept tabs on the accuracy of the Sun Chiefs’ predictions by means of port holes in the walls of their homes.”¹⁰

 

The origin and purpose of the T-shaped door have been variously interpreted.  It is certain that “…the T-door was an Anasazi leitmotiv.”¹¹ The origin, however, may have been on a distant shore. For elucidation, consider the relationship between global prehistoric religions and politics, and how related concepts shaped pre-Columbian art and architecture.

   

    

 

The notion of caves as being a forbidding gateway into the supernatural world has existed for nearly 100,000 years.¹² Chauvet Cave in southern France dates to 28,000 BC; there Aurignacian artisans specifically decorated cave features such as cracks, natural openings and dead ends to suggest a threshold or passage into supernatural realms. “Going into the subterranean world was thus defying ancestral fears, deliberately venturing into the kingdom of the supernatural powers in order to meet them.”