Description

Summary: 1 piece of a burnt chalk loom weight, from the Iron Age period, from Chisenbury Trendle, Enford, Wiltshire, excavated by Mrs M E Cunnington in 1931.

Research results

A fragmentary chalk loomweight, probably of Iron Age date, found during levelling of Chisenbury Trendle, Enford, by the RAF in 1931. The work was observed by Maud Cunnington, who recovered an assemblage of Iron Age ceramics, alongside a small collection of other artefacts.

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.