2012 Chaco Culture National Historical Park New Mexico National Park NP Quarters

Description

2012 Chaco Culture National Historical Park New Mexico National Park NP Quarters
Obverse Side
The obverse will continue to bear the familiar restored 1932 John Flannagan image of George Washington.
Reverse Side
This historical park in New Mexico features Chaco Canyon, which was a major center of Puebloan culture between A.D. 850 and 1250. The Chacoan sites are part of the homeland of Pueblo Indian peoples of New Mexico, the Hopi Indians of Arizona and the Navajo Indians of the southwest. Chaco Canyon was the cultural center of a system of communities linked by road and trading networks across a 40,000 square-mile region in the Four Corners area from A.D. 850 to 1150. Chaco is remarkable for its multi-storied public buildings called great houses, enormous circular ceremonial subterranean structures called great kivas, and distinctive architecture featuring a notable concentration of petroglyphs and pictographs. The Chacoan people combined pre-planned architectural designs, astronomical alignments, geometry, landscaping and engineering to create an ancient urban center of spectacular public architecture. It was first established as a national site on March 11, 1907.