A few examples have been found in which the designs were painted on finished bags. These painted designs were placed on the bag interior as well as on the exterior and ingenious markers were woven into the fabric to serve as guides for duplicating the pattern on the reverse side.[37] The smaller bags have been empty when found. Medium sized ones have been found containing corn meal and something resembling dried fruit. The largest ones were often split and used for mortuary wrappings, particularly for children. Other bags were woven of cedar bast. They had a large mesh and could have contained only large objects. Another type of bag represented in Basketmaker sites is made of skin. Most of these were formed from the skins of two small animals, usually prairie dogs. The animals were skinned forward from the back legs to the nose. The two skins were then sewed together with the neck of the bag formed by the two heads. They are usually found to contain oddly-shaped stones or other objects thought to have some ceremonial significance. [Illustration: Fig. 13—Basketmaker twined-woven bags. (Courtesy Peabody Museum, Harvard University.)] Although the Basketmakers did not have true pottery, they did have some sun-dried clay dishes. These usually contained a vegetable temper or binding material, such as cedar bark, to prevent cracking, and were molded in baskets. It is not known whether the idea of pottery, but not the technique for producing it through firing, had reached the Basketmakers from some other people, or if the idea of making the sun-dried dishes was one which they developed themselves. Most archaeologists believe that the whole concept of clay containers came from other people, but it is not impossible that the idea developed from the practice of putting clay in baskets while constructing cists.[93] [95] If clay were left for some time in a basket it would naturally harden and, if the center portion had been scooped out, the hardened residue in the basket would produce a vessel of sorts. Toward the close of the Basketmaker period some vessels were made without molds, and sand began to replace vegetable fibers as a tempering material.