Salinas Pueblo Missions - Abo

Jeff and I went exploring not far from where we live, near Mountainair, New Mexico, to check out one of the Salinas Pueblo Missions, the one called Abo.  There are 2 other missions, and hopefully, we'll get to explore them on future Jeep explorations!  This mission was built and lived in by both the Anasazi and Mogollon  peoples over 300 years ago.  They had been raided by the Apaches, and altho the mission survived those raids, it could not survive drought and famine that resulted, and so the mission was abandoned in the 1670's.

The above image is of Jeff exploring the foundations of several of the structures that were in front of the mission church (the tall structure).  This particular mission was discovered in 1853, almost 200 years after it had been abandoned. 

I took the above photo from inside one of the rooms of the mission church.  Altho we're certain that the stones have been reinforced by modern methods to allow it to remain standing, we think the wood braces may very well be original.  With the dry climate we have here, wood rot is not very common at all.

This is a close up shot of the wood that's found in key structural places throughout the mission church.  I thought the texture was really amazing, and enhanced this image a bit so that it can be seen better.

 

 

The above image is of an ancient, dry river bed that runs just behind the mission church.  This is actually rock and the river water that used to run over it created the pattern, so that we can tell today which way it flowed.  Amazing to think that this has survived for over 300 years.

 

I took this image standing in that old river bed,  so I could capture just how close the water supply was and had to be for these missions to live and thrive.  The back wall of the mission church is what you see, and the second floor of the church seemed to be primarily the choir loft.  Altho you can't see it in any of these photos, there are remnants of the portions of the stairs going up to the loft that were stone inside the church structure.  However, the wood portions of the stairs appeared to have been knocked down as the church walls fell over the years.  Being here and seeing this really makes history come to life for me.  Hopefully, these images will do the same for you.

 

Enjoy!