Ceramic: Mesa Verde Black-on-white, bowl, AZRU1-834

Mesa Verde Black-on-white, bowl, Accession AZRU-00001 Catalog #834. Morris FS 4210. CULTURALLY SENSITIVE: NAGPRA ARTIFACT; ACCESS RESTRICTED. Analyzed by Lori Reed 2011. Vessel is 99% complete with only a small break in the rim. Measurements: 6.8 cm orifice diameter, 8.3 cm height. Granular igneous rock temper suggests local production at Aztec Ruin. Image AZRU1-834 A: view showing top of rim and interior design. Image AZRU1-834 B: view showing top of rim and interior design. Image AZRU1-834 C: side view showing shape of bowl and exterior design. Image AZRU1-834 D: side view showing shape of bowl and exterior design. Recovered from Earl Morris excavation of Room 159, Burial 80, Aztec West Ruin. Earl Morris’ description of Room 159 at the time of excavation is as follows. “All walls of Room 159 had been dismantled down to within 1 foot 8 inches of the floor. There was a hard-tramped court level over the entire area so that during the latter phases of the occupation of the ruin, no trace of this chamber would have been visible. The east and west walls were of stick and mud construction and the north of sandstone masonry. ….[T]he chamber was divided into a long southern section, 4 feet by 12 feet 4 inches, and two bins, the eastern one, 5 feet 2 inches by 6 feet 3 inches, the western, 4 feet by 5 feet 8 inches. Burials 79 and 80 were in the western bin. Refuse filled the other portions of the room from floor to court level. …. Built up against the east side of the room were two sandstone bins …. The north end of the east wall of Room 159 was built against a handsomely constructed masonry corner which contains the bands of black-green stone visible in several walls near the southwest corner of the west wing….” (Morris 1928: 287-288) 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. For burials see Earl Morris, 1924, Burials in the Aztec Ruin and the Aztec Ruin Annex, Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. XXVI, Parts III and IV, American Museum of Natural History, New York.