Perishable: Twined Mat, AMNH 29.0/9894

Twined Mat, Accession AMNH29.0, Catalog #9894. Morris FS 3378. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Twined mat or cradleboard, 2-strand twining (S), reeds, wood, and yucca fiber. Images: AMNH 29.0/9894A: twined mat or cradleboard. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room 126, Aztec West Ruin. Earl Morris’ description of Room 126 at the time of excavation is as follows. “The fill in Room 126 averaged 16 feet in depth. The lower 1 and one-half to 2 and one-half feet was Mesa Verde refuse….[Description of artifacts]. The fill thence to the surface was of building wreckage containing the timbers of the first, and charred remnants of the second and third ceilings….The first ceiling had rested on one pine log, extending north and south, that is, the long way of the room. The small poles were of cottonwood. Beginning at floor level and 2 feet from the south end of the east wall, the masonry had been torn out to an average width of 1 and one-half feet and a height of 5 feet 8 inches. The lower part of the cavity had been made into a niche by linteling the breach at a height of 3 feet 2 inches with cedar poles and refilling the space above with masonry set back a few inches from the wall face. There are first and second story doorways in the center of the north wall….There are no ventilators in the first story, but one is present in each end of the north wall of the second.” (Morris1928: 369-370).
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.