Onderdeel van een ruïne van een rotswoning in Mesa Verde National Park before 1893

This photograph of a rock dwelling ruin in Mesa Verde National Park was taken by Gustaf Nordenskiöld, likely in the late 1800s. Nordenskiöld was a Finnish scholar who, while exploring the American Southwest, documented the architecture of the ancestral Pueblo people. Nordenskiöld’s photograph exists within the complicated historical context of exploration and documentation of indigenous cultures by European colonizers. While his work provides valuable visual records, it also reflects the power dynamics inherent in the act of observing and archiving a culture not one’s own. Consider the perspective of the photographer - a European man capturing the remnants of a civilization whose descendants still live on that very land. The image shows a structure carved into the rock, seemingly in harmony with the natural landscape, which evokes both a sense of wonder and sorrow. We are left to contemplate the lives of those who built and inhabited these dwellings. What stories do these ruins hold, and how do we approach them with respect and understanding?