Latte Stone Architecture

A latte stone, or simply latte, also latde, latti or latdi in the Chamorro language, where the pillar itself is called haligi, is a pillar capped by a hemispherical stone capital called a tasa, set with its flat side facing up. Latte stones were used as building supports by the ancient Chamorro people and are found throughout most of the Mariana Islands; in modern times they have become a recognized sign of Chamorro identity. The pillars were carved from limestone, basalt or sandstone, typically measuring between sixty centimeters and three meters in height and tapering toward the top; a shaft was quarried and transported to its building site, while the capstones for smaller and medium latte were usually hemispherical coral heads gathered from reefs, though the massive capstones found on Rota were instead quarried like the pillars themselves. The largest standing latte, at the House of Taga on Tinian, measures about sixteen feet tall, and in Rota unfinished quarried latte would have reached roughly twenty five feet high, with the largest known shaft weighing thirty four tons and the largest cap twenty two tons.