Perishable: Twig Coil AZRU8-2770

Twig Coil, Accession AZRU-00008, Catalog # 2770. Morris FS 5042. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Long stick of willow or apocynum wrapped around a coil of finer stems with leaves. Measurements: L 24.0, W 20.0 CM. Image: AZRU8-2770 A: long stick of probable willow tied around coil of twigs with 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.