Perishable: Rush Bundle AMNH 29.0/7710

Rush Bundle, Accession AMNH29.0, Catalog #7710. Morris FS 1303. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Bundle of bound, folded, wrapped rush stems. Images: AMNH 29.0/7710A: rush bundle bound with rush. AMNH 29.0/7710B: side view showing missing layer of elements. AMNH 29.0/7710C: other face. AMNH 29.0/7710D: end view. AMNH 29.0/7710E: close-up of bound end showing crosswise wrapping element tucked under other elements. AMNH 29.0/7710F: close-up of bound end showing end of crosswise wrapping tucked under other elements 2. AMNH 29.0/7710G: close-up of bound end showing exposed end of crosswise wrapping element. AMNH 29.0/7710H: view of inner layer of crosswise wrapping under folded and wrapped elements. AMNH 29.0/7710I: view of inner layer of wrapping beneath outer folded and wrapped elements. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room 48, Aztec West Ruin. Earl Morris’ description of Room 48 at the time of excavation is as follows. “The floor was covered with refuse.. The greater proportion of this deposit was of vegetable substance; cornstalks, husks, tassels, and cobs, cedarbark, splinters of the same wood, as well as human excrement. This deposit of Chaco age had been completely protected from moisture and constituted, aside from some found in the caves of Del Muerto canyon, the richest repository for perishable artifacts that has come within the experience of the writer. Above this sand had worked down through the second floor before the timbers supporting the latter had failed. These had fallen in recent times, after the mound had reached its final form, as evidenced by the ragged crater left by the settling of the debris above them subsequent to their collapse” (Morris 1928:307-308).
Reference: Earl Morris, 1928, Notes on Excavations in the Aztec Ruin, Volume XXVI, Part V, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, New York.