Perishable: Openwork Basket AMNH 29.0/5311.1

Openwork Basket, Accession AMNH29.0, Catalog #5311.1 Morris FS 62. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Knotted, twisted openwork basket with cornhusk lining. Images: AMNH 29.0/5311_1A: flattened cornhusk-lined basket. AMNH 29.0/5311_1B: other face of flattened cornhusk-lined basket. AMNH 29.0/5311_1C: construction detail showing horizontal elements wrapped around vertical elements. AMNH 29.0/5311_1D: close-up of feather-wrapped yucca cord. AMNH 29.0/5311_1E: close-up of base, showing one of the basal elements (left) transitioning into a vertical element (right). AMNH 29.0/5311_1F: close-up of base. 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.