Perishable: Plaited Mat AMNH 29.0/7413

Plaited Mat, Accession AMNH29.0, Catalog #7413. Morris FS 1005. Analyzed by Laurie Webster, 2006. Plaited rush mat, 2/2 TWILL with traces of paint. Images: AMNH 29.0/7413A: plaited mat with traces of black, red, and green-blue paint. AMNH 29.0/7413B: painted fragment. AMNH 29.0/7413C: detail of painted mat. Recovered from Earl Morris' excavation of Room 62-2, Aztec West Ruin. Morris’ (1928:317) description of Room 62-2 is as follows: “A rat nest of which the major constituent was about six bushels of cornhusks and tassels, reed stems, and cedarbark, occupied the southwest corner of Room 62-2. Among this mass were a bird bone tube, knotted yucca strips, a rectangular frame, a cedarbark pot rest, fragments of plaited matting, a plaited sandal, cotton cloth, buckskin, reed stem arrows, a smoothed stick, a carved stick, and adobe mud with a human footprint (29.0-7409-7423), and a hafted knife (29.0-7408) which lay on the floor in the northeast corner. The fallen timbers of the roof of the second story were uncharred. The door in the west wall is mentioned under Room 60-2 and the diagonal passage in the southwest corner under Room 49. The door in the middle of the north wall is 1 foot 11 inches wide, beginning 2 feet 1 inch from the floor.”
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.