Perishable: Coil of Twigs AZRU8-2760

Coil of Twigs, Accession AZRU-00008, Catalog #2760. Morris FS 5057. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Coil of willow? twigs wrapped crosswise with same. Some twigs still bear gray-green leaves. Measurements: D 13.0 CM. Images: AZRU8-2760 A: coil of twigs, possibly willow. AZRU8-2760 B: other face showing leaves. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room 180, 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.