Perishable: Basket Splints AZRU8-2600

Basket Splints, Accession AZRU-00008, Catalog #2600. Morris FS 3885. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Bundle of basket splints, possibly willow, wrapped crosswise with same. Measurements: L 13.0, D 5.0 where bound CM. Image: AZRU8-2600 A: bundle of basket splints. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room152-2, Aztec West Ruin. Morris described Room 152-2 as having: “In the southwest corner a bundle of rush stems the raw material for plaited mats, and a coil of basket splints. The ceilings of both the second and third stories had been burned, the latter completely, the former only partially because of the smothering of the flame by the superimposed floor earth after the timbers burned through and fell. In the third story room there had been a quantity of stone objects. The excellence of the polished slabs and of the manos suggests that the room was burned while in use, or if abandoned, that the inhabitants had been unable to remove possessions that under ordinary circumstances would not have been discarded” (Morris 1928:365).
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.