Perishable: Reed Bundle AMNH 29.0/8283

Reed Bundle, Accession AMNH29.0, Catalog #8283. Morris FS 1779. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Reed bundle wrapped with yucca tie. Image: AMNH 29.0-8283A: bundle of reeds bound with yucca-leaf tie. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room179-2, Aztec West Ruin. Morris (1928:375-376) indicates that “The ashy refuse containing some vegetable matter on the floor of Room 179-2 averaged 2 ½ feet in thickness. From it came four grooved axes, two skinning knives, a sandstone slab, flint and obsidian chips, potsherds…[long list of artifacts]...Between the refuse and the fill of wall debris were the timbers, unburned, from the ceiling, among them a few fragments of the willow mats which had completely hidden the splint layer from view. The door in the west wall was 2 feet 62 inches wide, and 4 feet 1 inch high, with sill 1 foot 9 inches from the floor. Its entire north side had been dug away by the parties who searched the ruin for open rooms during the early eighties [1880s]…They tunnelled through the east wall of this chamber into Room 189 and from the latter went on to Room 182 by tearing out the masonry which sealed the top of the south doorway…”
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.