Perishable: Yucca Fabric AMNH 29.0/5285

Yucca Fabric, Accession AMNH29.0, Catalog #5285. Morris FS 34. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Heavy, looped yucca fabric with feather-cord attachments. Images: AMNH 29.0/5285A: looped yucca fabric with feather-cord attachments 1. AMNH 29.0/5285B: looped yucca fabric with feather-cord attachments 2. AMNH 29.0/5285C: looped yucca fabric with feather-cord attachments 3. AMNH 29.0/5285D: detail of feathers protruding from cord. AMNH 29.0/5285E: detail of feather cords 1.AMNH 29.0/5285F: detail of feather cords 2. AMNH 29.0/5285G: 2z-S yucca cordage on surface of feather cord. AMNH 29.0/5285H: detail of orange-red feathers at break in cord. AMNH 29.0/5285I: detail of yucca leaf through fabric. AMNH 29.0/5285J: detail showing attachment of cord to fabric 1. AMNH 29.0/5285K: detail showing attachment of cord to fabric 2. AMNH 29.0/5285L: quill and cordage protruding from end of feather cord. AMNH 29.0/5285M: model of weave structure of feather cord. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room122-2, Aztec West Ruin. Morris (1928:357) indicates that “Room 122-2 is situated above Room 112. Refuse, more than half of its bulk composed of vegetable and other perishable substances, had been thrown in through the door connecting with the room above Room 110, forming a fan-shaped deposit, 2 feet deep, beneath the door and dwindling out in the northeast and northwest corners. Being in an outer tier, the slope above Room 122-2, was very steep, providing excellent drainage, which condition, together with the air space beneath the floor, had excluded all moisture from the refuse. This mass, of Chaco age, contained a fine assortment of textiles and other perishable artifacts (29.0-5251-5400), such as in most places is entirely decayed. The conspicuous components of the deposit, other than manufactured articles, were shreds of cedarbark, cornhusks, and cobs, strips of yucca leaf in great abundance, excrement, ashes, and floor sweepings.”
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.