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1937.44.17

Fragment of rush matting

On display

1937.44.17

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

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Collection type
Object
Description
Fragment of rush matting
Long description
Fragment of chequer plaiting: a corner fragment. [LM]
Geographical reference
United States of America
Northern America > North America > United States of America
Southern USA Texas Brewster County Bee Cave Canyon
Person
Field collector Edwin Coffin
Field collector Louis Colville Gray Clarke
PRM source Louis Colville Gray Clarke
Date / Period
Archaeological period: Southwest Archaeological period: Ancestral Pueblo
Date collected
By 1937
Acquisition information
Donated: 1937
Materials and processes
Material Plant Fibre, Process Chequer Plaited, Process Basketry
Dimensions
Length: max 178 mm, Width: max 178 mm frame
Object numbers
Accession number: 1937.44.17
Research and responses

There are 61 other artefacts from this site in Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, accessioned there also in 1937.

I can find no reference to a Ber Cave Canyon in Brewster Co. but there is a Bee Cave Canyon in Brewster Texas that was excavated between 1928 and 1929 by the Museum of the American Indian in conjunction with the University of Cambridge where Louis Colville Gray Clarke was director of the Fitzwilliam from 1937. This site also yielded a considerable amount of perishable materials, which is also a major part of the material from Brewster County that Clarke sent to the PRM. It is likely therefore that the site should be Bee Cave Not Ber Cave. [AS 22/04/2009].

Associated publications
Illustrated in black and white as figure 84 on page 79 of Basketmakers Meaning and Form in Native American Baskets, edited by Linda Mowat, Howard Morphy and Penny Dransart (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, Mongraph 5, 1992). Caption reads: ‘USA, Texas, Brewster County, Ber Cave Canyon, Anasazi. Corner fragment of chequer plaited matting. 145 x 110 mm. Donated by L.C.G. Clarke. 1937.44.17’ [MJD 18/01/2013] Coffin, Edwin F. 1932 Archaeological Exploration of a Rock Shelter in Brewster County, Texas. Monograph No. 48, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, New York. See http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/trans-p/images/ap6.html. [AS 23/04/2008]

Search terms: Furniture Dwelling, Basketry, Specimen, Mat