Perishable: Plaited Basket AMNH 29.0/8988

Plaited Basket, Accession AMNH29.0, Catalog #8988. Morris FS 2482. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Plaited, diamond-twill, yucca-leaf ring-basket base with two color design. Images: AMNH 29.0/8988A: plaited basket, two-color design, base. AMNH 29.0/8988B: plaited ring basket 2-color design. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room 94, Aztec West Ruin. Earl Morris’ description of Room 94 at the time of excavation is as follows. “A thin stratum of ashy earth…. on the floor of Room 94. The ceiling had been held up by three pine logs running north and south; the small poles also were of pine…. In crashing downward, the mass of debris which had collected on the western three-fourths of the ceiling, filled the chamber, except for a space triangular in cross-section, the remaining quarter of the ceiling and the east wall forming the sides and the sloping exposure of the debris…. This debris had been wet and was consolidated into a surprisingly hard and compact mass. Among it were quantities of charcoal representing the second ceiling and probably the third as well…. [Potsherds], mixed with charcoal, continued through a layer 8 inches to 1 foot thick, extending obliquely downward to within 6 inches of the floor at the west line of the door and thence eastward on a level to within 4 feet of the west wall….Eventually the eastern supporting timber broke close to the north wall and swung down and back toward the east wall. The portion of the ceiling which it had held up was mashed down into the space not previously filled. Across the east end of the second floor there had been from 5 to 9 inches of refuse…. There is a recessed door in the center of the north wall….There are ventilators in each end of the north wall, the east one sealed, the other open.” (Morris1928: 349-350). 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.