Perishable: Plaited Mat AZRU8-2913

Plaited Mat, Accession AZRU-00008, Catalog #2913. Morris FS 5048. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Five fragments of matting, three with intricate selvages and two with rounded corners. In three fragments, wide elements alternate with narrow ones. Other body fragment has a balanced weave. Measurements: Not measured. Images: AZRU8-2913 A: fragment of 2-2 plaited mat with alternating narrow and wide elements. AZRU8-2913 B: fragment with balanced 2-2 weave. AZRU8-2913 C: another fragment with intricate selvage. AZRU8-2913 D: fine intricate selvage. AZRU8-2913 E: intricate selvage. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of , Aztec West Ruin. Morris described Room 180 as “fallen into ruin [before the later occupation of Aztec Ruin]. The partial excavation of this chamber revealed the first story filled with detritus from the upper walls, including the well-preserved, though broken, timbers, apparently of two ceilings…Visible in it, through the door leading into Room 147, were long slender pine poles and portions of willow mats, some of them with a striped color effect produced by alternating series of white peeled sticks with series of dark brown unpeeled ones. Extending from the upper limit of the debris to 5 feet above the level of the second floor at the west side and 7 feet at the east, was a refuse deposit containing a large number artifacts and Burials Nos. 89-101” (Morris1928:378).
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.