Perishable: Fabric and Plaited Sandals AMNH 29.0/7657

Fabric and Plaited Sandals, Accession AMNH29.0, Catalog #7657. Morris FS 1250. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Feather-decorated yucca fabric, simple looping, 2Z-S yarns. Artifacts (a-e) are plaited sandal fragments, 2/2 twill. Images: AMNH 29.0/7657A: fragments of looped yucca fabric with feather-cord attachments. AMNH 29.0/7657B: close-up showing simple looping structure. AMNH 29.0/7657C: close-up showing feather-cord attachments 2. AMNH 29.0/7657D: close-up showing feather-cord attachments. AMNH 29.0/7657E: (a) heel fragment of a plaited sandal, irregular weave, lower face. AMNH 29.0/7657F: (a) heel fragment of a plaited sandal, irregular weave, upper face. AMNH 29.0/7657G: (b) cupped heel fragment of a plaited sandal with side loops, lower face. AMNH 29.0/7657H: (b) cupped heel fragment of a plaited sandal with side loops, upper face. AMNH 29.0/7657I: (c) portion of a 2-2 plaited sandal with cupped heel, lower face. AMNH 29.0/7657J: (c) portion of a 2-2 plaited sandal with cupped heel, upper face. AMNH 29.0/7657K: (d) small 2-2 plaited sandal fragment. AMNH 29.0/7657L: (e) finely plaited sandal, lower face. AMNH 29.0/7657M: (e) finely plaited sandal, upper face. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room 48, Aztec West Ruin. Earl Morris’ description of Room 48 at the time of excavation is as follows. “The floor was covered with refuse.. The greater proportion of this deposit was of vegetable substance; cornstalks, husks, tassels, and cobs, cedarbark, splinters of the same wood, as well as human excrement. This deposit of Chaco age had been completely protected from moisture and constituted, aside from some found in the caves of Del Muerto canyon, the richest repository for perishable artifacts that has come within the experience of the writer. Above this sand had worked down through the second floor before the timbers supporting the latter had failed. These had fallen in recent times, after the mound had reached its final form, as evidenced by the ragged crater left by the settling of the debris above them subsequent to their collapse” (Morris 1928:307-308).
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.