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Written on the Landscape: Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon

Written on the Landscape: Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon

2024 · 58 min · Documentary

Mysteries Beyond Chaco Canyon conveys to viewers the brilliant achievements of the Chaco civilization—many of which are in grave danger today. This new one-hour documentary reveals the astounding reach of the Chacoans across a region of the American southwest nearly twice the size of Ireland. Without modern tools, wheel or beast of burden, these ancient people built ceremonial Great Houses and connected them to places of spiritual power with massive "roads," remarkably straight and as wide as modern two lane streets. The Chacoans' feats have been long obscured in a fragile desert environment—only now to be recovered through beautiful aerial footage and with the new technology of LiDAR (aerial laser scanning) revealing the true expanse of the Chacoans' complex world.

Directed by Anna Sofaer · Written by Christopher Beaver

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The Mystery of Chaco CanyonThe Mystery of Chaco Canyon · 1999
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Chaco Canyon, located in northwest New Mexico, is perhaps the only site in the world constructed in an elaborate pattern that mirrors the yearly cycle of the sun and the 19-year cycle of the moon. How did an ancient civilization, with no known written language, arrange its buildings into a virtual celestial calendar, spanning an area roughly the size of Ireland?
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