Perishable: Yucca Cordage AZRU8-2899

Yucca Cordage, Accession AZRU-00008, Catalog #2899. Morris FS 4914. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Bundle of feather-wrapped yucca cordage wrapped crosswise with yucca cordage. Feathers mostly missing. Measurements: D 0.4-0.5 CM (where wrapped). Image: AZRU8-2899 A: bundle of feather-wrapped yucca cordage. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room 183, Aztec West Ruin. Morris noted that “Conditions as observed in this room reveal the following sequence of events: The fill between the lower and middle floor contained wares made and used by the builders of the ruin. After the earlier use the chamber the chamber was remodeled, apparently making of it a rectangular kiva. At least they gave it three of the most essential features of this sort of chamber; a central fireplace, a deflector, and a ventilator at the south side. While the room thus equipped was in use, burials were made in the corners. After a second abandonment during which 2½ feet of debris accumulated in it, it was again re-floored and re-occupied, seemingly for a brief period. Judging from the number and nature of the objects scattered upon the ultimate floor, the final abandonment came at the close of inhabitation of the ruin as a whole” (Morris 1928:403).
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.