Description

Summary: Part of a chalk loomweight from the Iron Age settlement at Lidbury Camp, Enford, Wiltshire, excavated by Mr B H and Mrs M E Cunnington, 1914.

Research results

A fragmentary chalk loomweight excavated from the Iron Age Settlement at Lidbury Camp, Enford, by M E and B H Cunnington in 1914.

Ruth Shaffrey (2017) has examined these weights as part of a wider discussion of stone loom weights in Prehistoric Britain. She notes that whilst there is evidence for the use of warp-weighted looms on the continent, there is no comparable evidence in Britain until the post-Roman period, and that the identification of all prehistoric loom weights is based on an assumption. She argues that the size and shape of many loom weights would not be suitable for use with a warp-weighted loom and this identification requires that Iron Age Britain utilised a novel and regional form of the loom, such as one by which a single pole is weighed down by fewer, larger weights. Althernatively, she argues that we should accept that the variety in size and form visible implies a similar variety in uses.